It turns out the player and the uncle have been separated from the rest of their family residing in West Berlin for almost 30 years because the Uncle was with him as a baby on the East Side the night the Berlin Wall was erected on August 12, 1961. When the uncle falls asleep in the hotel, the player can open his briefcase and collect notes that put together a backstory.
The player may choose to upgrade the Laika if he has enough money. The cities he stops in all contain shops important to maintaining his car, and to sell objects found in discarded boxes strewn across the roads on his trip.
The player passes through East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Turkey on his trip with his uncle. The main task of the game is to get to Istanbul to drop the Uncle off all the while maintaining the Laika (heavily based on the Trabant 601) which is prone to frequent breakdowns signified by smoke coming from the sides of the bonnet. I’m looking forward to learning more about the political situation in that part of the world in the early ‘90s, if I can avoid smashing into other drivers.The game follows the player character known only as Splat and his Uncle Lütfi, two Germans of Turkish descent from Eastern Berlin who have decided to go on a road trip to Istanbul since the Iron Curtain fell. Jalopy is one of the weirdest games I’ve played in some time, but also one of the most fascinating.
Alas, I won’t find out what happens until a more complete build of the game is released. Driving around the former Eastern Bloc without a passport seems like a very bad idea. Lucky, really, because as I was attempting to unlock the motel room door with the key, I accidentally dropped my wallet and passport and they disappeared into the ground. Satisfied, we decide to stay at the motel for the night and continue our journey the next day.Įxcept I can’t, because in this press build the game ends as soon as I go to sleep. Luckily I put a repair kit in the trunk back at the garage and I use it to repair the busted engine. Eventually I reach a town and I stop in a motel car park. My uncle tells me to stop whenever it’s safe to do so and I splutter along looking for a place to make repairs. I notice a small amount of smoke belching from the hood of the Laika and I know I’ve done something terrible. My mind begins to wander, then suddenly I smash into another car. It’s more about keeping your car running, making money by trading and delivering goods, and there appears to be a storyline involving your uncle returning to his hometown that I didn’t get much of a taste of in this very early build. But I get the feeling the driving isn’t really the focus in Jalopy. If you’re used to the weighty feel of something like Euro Truck Simulator, you might be disappointed. The entire game revolves around the car, and I can see myself getting attached to the little wreck as I spend time tinkering with it.Īlthough the simulation of the car itself is fairly deep, the driving model doesn’t seem to have much nuance to it. There’s an impressive amount of simulation, even down to the lever you have to yank under the steering wheel to pop the hood. Weight is also an issue, and the speed the Laika moves depends on the weight of the parts I use and whatever I have in the trunk. Jalopy is something of a survival simulator, except you aren’t managing your hunger and tiredness you’re trying to keep your dilapidated old car alive. I noticed as I fitted the engine that each part had a durability rating. When I’m done, it’s time to go on a very peculiar road trip. There’s a nice physicality to grabbing the objects and slotting them into the car too. The bold, stylised art is striking, with a muted colour palette that perfectly captures the era and setting. And as I do my uncle explains what they all do. Then I grab various parts from around the garage-carburettor, fuel tank, ignition coil, engine, battery-to bring the beast to life. I replace a missing door, which naturally has a different colour of paint. At the beginning of the game the car sits in my uncle’s driveway, a shell with no wheels or inside bits to make it go. But before I can hit the road, I have to build it.