Used Cars Simulator: the 1.0 of a game where the wing mirrors fall off by themselves

One player tells the following story, and I promise it is in the Steam reviews.

He is hauling two cars on a double-decker tow truck. The two most expensive in the game, restored to one hundred per cent. He clips a rock. The truck flips several times, both cars are launched into the stratosphere, come back down, shed all their parts and end up destroyed.

He notes he already reported the problem a year ago, with screenshots.

The game went to version 1.0 this morning.

What the game offers, and it is genuinely well judged

Let us start with what works, because there is a real proposition here.

You arrive with no money and nothing to lose. You buy used cars, you put them right, you resell them.

The loop is detailed properly: find a good deal, check the car's condition, negotiate the price, buy. Then knock out the dents, order and fit missing parts, wash it, repaint it, put it up for sale.

And there is the other route. The game puts it with cheerful frankness: there are many ways to get cars, and yes they are all legal, as long as the cops do not catch you. You steal, you repaint, you change the plates, you move the stock.

Around all that sits an abandoned city to drive through, an old shed to grow, beer, and a metal detector to carry around the desert. It all starts when you meet a woman in a red dress in your favourite bar, which is the sort of hook Polish simulators never deny themselves.

It is published by PlayWay, which tells you everything about the genre: the house that industrialised the job simulator, with the best and the worst that implies.

And now the state of the game

959 positive reviews out of 1,207, eight in ten across the title's whole life. That figure looks flattering.

Read the recent reviews, particularly from the people with the most hours, and the picture changes.

The physics has degraded. A player returning after a year writes that driving fast now breaks parts for no reason: 180 on a road, a slight bump, and the windscreen goes. The tow truck story above comes from a player with fifty hours.

Parts come off on their own. One player buys a car, restores it to one hundred per cent, hauls it to the buyer, and both wing mirrors fall off during unloading.

Crashes are expensive. One player reports a crash to desktop that wiped nearly three hours of progress. He specifies that he is leaving a negative review precisely so the developers see it, which is the definition of a player who likes the game.

And there are cases of vehicles with no gears. One player, in capitals, despairing, explains he cannot get first or second on a car he has to deliver. It may be a control he never found. It may be a bug. The fact that you cannot tell is already an interface problem.

The deeper complaint

Beyond the bugs, there is a design criticism that recurs and deserves attention.

A player with fifteen hours writes that the game feels like a very good idea nobody finished. Two specific points: the criminal side is poorly explained, notably what buying a stolen car actually entails, and the price gap between a used car and a restored one does not add up.

That second point is the heart of it. In a buy-and-sell game, the margin is the subject. If the restoration work does not show up enough in the sale price, the entire loop loses its purpose, and stealing becomes more profitable than repairing. Which may be the message, but I have my doubts.

What people like anyway

It has to be said, because eight reviews in ten are positive and those people are not mad.

Players at twenty-five, twenty-six, thirty-two hours write simple things: it is fun, there is a lot to do, and there are things here you do not find in other car simulators. The buy-repair-repaint-resell-steal loop works when it works, and it has that hypnotic quality the genre specialises in.

The recurring requests are telling: more customisation options, bumpers, bonnets, spoilers. Drag racing. And multiplayer, asked for by several people.

Those are the requests of people who want to stay.

So here is where it lands, at 11.99 euros.

There is a good automotive junk-trading game in here, with a genuinely grubby identity and a refreshing moral freedom. I completely understand the thirty hours put in by the people who love it.

But this is being called a version 1.0, and a 1.0 is supposed to be the point where you stop losing three hours of progress to a crash and the wing mirrors stay on the cars.

The reported problems are not cosmetic details, they are losses of the player's work. In a game whose entire pleasure is patiently restoring an object, watching that object disassemble itself on a rock is not an anecdote, it is the opposite of the game.

Take it on sale, play it gently, and save often. Above all, do not drive fast with a load on.

Got a tow truck story that beats two cars in the stratosphere? I doubt it, but try us on the InsertCoins Discord.