I love riding. I love the physical act of controlling this vast, sophisticated machine as if it were an extension of me. But I also love the poetry and adventure of long-distance travel – freedom, independence, a gradually changing landscape, a sense of unlimited possibilities.
Video games are fantastic at capturing the first of these things, both in Gran Turismo and countless other racing games. Sometimes they try to do both things at once. Open world driving games like Forza Horizon provide a compressed and increased dose of travel pleasure, while the Truck Simulator series offers a more realistic approach to it on a daily basis – and Desert bus infamously parodied the boredom associated with the idea of simulating long drives.
Keep goingan independent game in development by Swedish YCJY Games (Sea salt, The emptiness of fasting), takes a different approach, trying to capture both the romance and boredom of long journeys, while stripping away the part where you actually control the vehicle. Instead, it draws from another genre of video games that is all about travel, adventure, and progression: old-school RPGs that are about the hero’s journey.
In the demo version of the game, i.e available nowThe goal is to drive through an unnamed, fictional country that vaguely resembles the America of a Thousand Road Movies to a friend’s house for an evening of video games. The journey will take four days in the game and one to two hours in real life. After packing your luggage (equipment in a Resident Evil-style grid), you choose the next stop on the map and hit the road. Then sit back and watch your car eat up the miles as the world shifts from right to left.
At each stage of your journey, there are events that may hinder your progress: for example, a sluggish tractor, potholes in the road or puddles of rain. This risks consuming three resources: fuel, the durability of the car, and your energy as a driver. There is an abstract turn-based event system where you operate skills and items from your stash to eliminate threats (perhaps due to something Oregon Trail), which appear at the bottom of the screen as a row of colorful icons. Skills like “relaxation” and items like duct tape involve specific icon patterns, so these events have a airy puzzle game element.
Environmental conditions also influence these events by applying buffs and debuffs. Rain increases your gas consumption and the handsome forest inspires you by removing the energy cost of some skills. You can also pick up hitchhikers, who come with extra skills but bring their own idiosyncrasies – the wandering songwriter gets offended if you don’t operate his skills; cold youthful woman filling your trunk with useless junk. At rest stops, you can fill up with gas, buy items to replenish your resources or counteract debuffs, or take the time to take a job and earn some much-needed gas money.
Keep going is deeply nostalgic. The story takes place in the early 21st century, you’re a teenager and you’ve bought your first car – perhaps a beat-up 1970s muscle car or a boxy 1980s limousine that looks like a passenger car. Volvo 200 series. The car has a CD player playing an indie rock garage band, and the trunk can be filled with bottles of Coke, guitars and cases of beer. Skills are represented by blurry Polaroids held in bulldog clips. Sometimes while driving you’ll have moments of introspection: My back hurts, I should call my parents, what am I doing with my life? The multiple-choice answers to these questions have status implications – some bad, some good.
It’s a very specific, sturdy vibe that evokes that rootless time in life when driving for three days just to play video games with a friend seems not only doable, but well spent. It reminds me of when, just after my 21st birthday, one foggy, aimless summer, I set out in my little red Fiat to visit the homes of some distant friends. Pixel-art cars, atmospheric landscapes and boho-style hitchhikers are clearly observable, creating the atmosphere of a fashionable coming-of-age film from the slow 1990s.
The abstract mechanics of the game are a little challenging to understand at this point. Using patience (a skill) and chewing gum (an item) to navigate challenging road surfaces is a bigger mental leap than using spells and swords to defeat a monster, at least for me. But within a few hours Keep going it perfectly evokes the uncertain freedom of a long journey when you have no money and are in the world all the time. It’s a game where you sip coffee to get through all-night drives, sleep in the backseat, and hold yourself and your car up with pizza and duct tape. Within 15-20 hours, developers promise a ready article, Keep going it can end in a perfect video game journey.
