Moving parts
Ucle Lütfi is a fixture of the passenger seat in Jalopy, the road-trip game – a font of unsolicited personal history as you drive through East Germany on the eve of reunification, and a source of cash when you’ve emptied the wallet in the glovebox to buy spare tyres. But developer Greg Pryjmachuk considered removing him entirely, such was the personality of the car itself. The Laika 601 Deluxe, a fictionalised take on the iconic Trabant, splutters and rattles as if it’s fuelled by the nasty cigarettes that line the shelves in every petrol station. It does zero to 60 in 22.5 seconds, has good days and bad, and requires constant maintenance. In other words, it’s the most relatable character in driving simulation.
The simulation genre is undergoing something of a refit right now, but unlike the Laika, it’s not out of necessity. Rather, the breakout success of games like on Steam has awakened the field’s developers and publishers to the possibilities of new configurations. A new audience has come to appreciate not only the pull of the open road, but the bond
