Final Entry: Night Cruising
Posted by PsySal
December 7th, 2008 6:31 pm
Here is a game, it’s a narrative about a man who has lost something, and is trying to replace it.
Drive down the highway, taking stops along the way. Arrows are all
you need for driving, and use spacebar for story sequences.
You get points for:
1- travelling KM
2- passing cars
3- bonuses
The game is (should be) winnable, I haven’t won it yet but everything
is in place. I’ll have to try it tomorrow just to make sure.
No sound effects, only one type of vehicle, and some other ideas
that I had for it didn’t make it in, but overall I’m quite happy.
Enjoy!
PS: If you’ve got the song “Night Cruising” by Fishmans, that would be
an excellent soundtrack.
Tags: final
this is the most retarded game that i have ever played. it defies any concept of game design or fun, and at the same time it is BRILLIANT. the writing is fantastic, and the concept of using a simple arcade premise to deliver an abstract narrative is excellent, and i have aligned more with the character and the environment than any other game. sure it has its flaws, but night cruising is either the product of a genius or an idiot. if the atmosphere was fleshed out more. and there was more of an objective and narrative than just winning points, Psysal could be on to something great…
I liked it, but there seems to be a bug which apparently makes it unwinnable. No exits ever seem to spawn from range roads or county roads. This seems to be caused by the fact that you only allow exits when the number of lanes is more than 1, and those roads have one lane almost all the time.
Also, it seems a bit counterintuitive that driving at or over 100 kmph makes the driver more agitated. He took a drive so that he would calm down, so one would expect the speed to soothe him. If anything, it makes him more focused on the road, and leaves him less time to worry about his problems. It could be a better idea gameplay-wise to create a mood vs. speed tradeoff. Right now, the best way to win is to drive at the current road’s default speed, because when you do so, there are never any accidents, you almost never need to watch other cars, and the driver’s mood doesn’t worsen.
Also, note how player has no way to know whether the driver is feeling good or bad about what they are doing. You can only notice a change, when mood description changes. This is fine as far as random encounters go, because it gives player opportunity to “figure the game out”. However, it doesn’t work when driving, because there is no way to tell whether the mood has worsened because of player actions or because of the time passing.
All download links (linux/win/source) appears broken. Please, repair it. Thnx!