The title card for 'Jalopy' is the most colorful thing about the game.
At its heart, Jalopy plays just like its initial East German setting. Nothing quite works; whether it’s your infamously terrible car, the game’s confusing control system, the preciseness needed for interaction, the often-janky graphics or just the general lack of handholding, it’s easy to feel out of your depth.
Yet somehow–much like the former German Democratic Republic–Jalopy holds together as one distinct, intriguing experience from the first moment. What’s more, it revels in dullness: once the game’s surprisingly colorful title card disappears, you’re greeted by a bleak visual affair, as if you’re wearing a pair of brown-tinted glasses.
But you don’t need to switch to rose-tinted spectacles to find delight in this game. If anything, the game’s perceived downfalls, in tandem with the story, contribute to a truly odd situation where it feels like graphical, gameplay and control faults are intrinsic to Jalopy’s experience, as well as its success.
A simple premise, but one with real heart
Jalopy follows the lives of the player (“Splat”) and his Uncle Lütfi: a pair of Turkish-Germans from East Berlin who choose to drive all the way to Turkey via the former CSFR (Czechoslovakia), Hungary, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Turkey, something newly afforded to them by the easing of travel restrictions after the fall of the Iron Curtain in Europe.
To get there, you assemble, drive and desperately maintain your “Laika”–a pixel-perfect Trabant 601, right down to the engine layout–which breaks down constantly for multiple reasons (battery, engine, water, fuel, etc), much like its historical counterpart. Along the way, you stop in motels, refill in gas stations, buy and trade goods across borders, find objects of value along the route, and hope in vain you’ll not have to push your car several miles to the next destination, or run out of money.
But, frankly, one or all these things will happen. That’s the beauty of the game: you simply can’t rely on anything, especially not the game’s mechanics. Drawing virtue from criticism, it feels only right to explain each one of these trappings, just so you know exactly what to expect–and if you’re this game’s target audience.
The joys of overbearing mechanics
First things first: Every. Single. Action must be done individually. This cannot be stressed enough. The hood can’t be just lifted; you have to pull the release handle. You can’t hold a bucket and sponge and just use it; you must get the sponge out of the bucket to make it work. These types of things are often taught, while the rest are implied. It’s a beautifully boring game of trial and error.
What’s more, Jalopy’s East Germany, much like the modern-day women’s fashion industry, doesn’t appear to have developed pocket technology. You walk with your passport or wallet or car tire or engine block in one of two hands.
Speaking of wallets, the most Jalopy thing happens when you’re carrying it. Luckily, I was tipped off well ahead of my own playthrough. My friend, who played the game in Steam Early Access, told me about the time he walked for 15 minutes from his broken-down Laika to the gas station–not realizing he could push his car there–only to hit the wrong button upon paying, which teleported his wallet back to the passenger-side shelf. Back he walked.
The graphical pallet of 'Jalopy' is drab at the best of times.
I was glad of the forewarning; it didn’t, however, remind me to carry my wallet in the first place when I was in the same situation. I reloaded my save. I shouldn’t have–it’s against the very spirit of the game–but at every stage, the mechanics of the game solely exist to frustrate, and in the best possible ways.
It’s visually poor, but it works
Graphically, Jalopy feels like a strange 3D ode to Another World: a cel-shaded, low-detail game where people don’t have faces, interactive elements aren’t easy to spot, and your surroundings never feel particularly inspiring. And you fail repeatedly.
However, the low-polygon structures are charming. The “long drives” between destinations rarely throw up anything of note until you’re closer to your destination, and even then, it might only be a poorly rendered building, tunnel or a roundabout. But it’s still heartwarming.
On Xbox One, things operate on a relatively decent framerate–if you’re standing still. As soon as you move, especially when you’re out of the car, it judders like the Laika itself. Again, oddly enchanting. It just feels part of the aesthetic.
The Laika, in all its glory.
It’s buggy as hell, but you almost expect it
In the first half-hour alone, I managed to glitch my jack through the floor, park my car so close to a wall it flew 30 yards and nearly killed Uncle Lütfi, and I simply couldn’t put my bucket and sponge back in my car. You can also walk through certain planes. It all felt right. I know it shouldn’t, but it does.
Driving is a joy and a chore
Nothing encapsulates this game quite like the happiness you feel when you’re driving downhill. Suddenly, you get some real speed. Then, you remember your tires are on their last legs and there’s a massive puddle or pothole coming up, and you brace for impact. Occasionally, you’ll happen upon a random box of valuables on the side of the road, but regret stopping simply because it takes your Laika a few years to get back to 40mph.
You’ll rarely see anyone else on the road, either, adding more to the tedium of each leg of the journey. The entire 210km journey from Berlin to Dresden literally had nobody on the autobahn, which I found myself chalking up to a lack of private ownership in the Eastern Bloc rather than a dearth of development work. Imagine that: a game that convinces you to doubt your criticisms because it’s pushing monotony onto you.
Often, there are fewer people on the roads than on the no man's land of the Berlin Wall.
It’s got an incredible soundtrack
If there’s one thing that’s objectively brilliant about the Jalopy experience, it’s the music. British composer Jeremy Warmsley has managed to develop a sound that draws on elements of Kraftwerk, Vangelis and Gary Numan, with a chiptune underline. Think Hotline Berlin. Dunaújváros Daytripping alone is worth the £2.99 soundtrack price alone, but even if it has a possible effect on your battery, you’ll want to switch that radio on as soon as you start your car.
The music manages to raise the tempo of Jalopy at times when it almost doesn’t deserve to make you feel the slightest bit excited. It puts more emphasis on guiding your internal monologue between smoking bonnets, unpredictable city layouts and Uncle Lütfi’s occasional conversations, which are sparse if you consider he actively only says something a handful of times over a 250km journey. That said, your own character’s silent, so perhaps it’s unfair to criticize him.
Ultimately, Jalopy is a mundanity simulator with a real story and a real heart. It’s an exercise in disaster management that manages to be both supremely boring and utterly thrilling.
Jalopy is certainly not for everyone–it’s probably safe to say it’s not for most–but it’ll make real connections with those gamers who crave unpredictable structure from games. Then again, it’s a measly $14.99 on Xbox One and Steam, which makes it worth a go for anyone who’s intrigued by this one-of-a-kind outing.
Disclaimer: I was provided with a review copy of Jalopy in exchange for a fair and honest review.
