Masochism and the art of motorcar maintenance

I can’t get out.

I’m trapped in a tractor full of beer and spare tires.

I took my eyes off the road for two seconds to turn on the headlights.

The player smokes a cigarette while looking at a rental car that lies upside down on the motorway.

It was a mistake.

The road curved sharply and I went off a steep bank, tipping my tractor on its side.

The door is stuck, the tractor’s wheels spin helplessly.

Cover image for YouTube video

There is no recovering from this.

I restart the game for the third or fourth time, not knowing whether to laugh or sob.

My Summer Caris as hardcore as they come.

The player views the engine on a hoist in his garage.

It does not simply throw you in at the deep end.

“Sink or swim!”

yells this game at you, but in Finnish, so even that you cannot understand.

The player’s tractor is stuck with its fork raising it off the ground.

To a certain kind of person, this is an act of love.

Even before you wake up in your rural house, you will sense the tone of the game.

My Summer Car is not interested in being a “good” game.

The player pushes a blue car frame into his garage using his hands.

How many people can I alienate before they even give me a chance?

Once you’re in, you encounter a recognisable life sim.

You play a young man who wakes up in his bedroom in rural Suomi, Finland in 1995.

The player adjusts screws in the engine of a car.

Get this vehicle in good working order and it may even pass an inspection by local authorities.

A wholesome summer project.

The countryside is vast and often featureless.

The player fixes a tire with a wrench.

The people who populate it are full of contempt.

But to explore that countryside you need wheels.

Learning to drive these is itself a challenge.

A repair man sits with his feet up in an office with a pile of tires on the desk.

Like the rest of the game there’s no tutorial.

This is what happened when I first tried to drive the tractor without help.

Left click operates some buttons and levers, while right click will pull them back.

A man in a speedy car swears at the player.

Sometimes you’re gonna wanna use the scroll wheel to rotate a knob.

You will often have to lean to either side just to reach the parking brake.

The throttle is operated by clicking on the lever, but gears are changed with hotkeys.

The old lady on the bus has the same face as many other characters.

Throw all your intuition into a bin when you arrive in Finland, my friend.

You must learn to video game all over again.

You must also learn the entire inner workings of a passenger car.

The player drinks coffee while sitting with his grandmother.

The broken vehicle in your driveway is the rusty chassis of a car called the “Satsuma”.

Almost all the parts you need are arranged in shelves and scattered on the floor of your garage.

A fully disassembled combustion engine lies in bits and must be painfully reconstructed.

The player drives headfirst into a bus.

The steering column needs to be put back in.

Some of these parts you’ll need to order via mail.

In another game this might simply be a menu.

The player drinks a beer while looking at the store owner and some goods on a shelf.

You’d nudge the part and - bloop - it would show up on your shelf.

It is comically laborious.

Even when you have all the parts, you will not necessarily know what to do with them.

The player smokes while looking at an old woman in a crashed bus whose neck is bent in a weird way.

If you’re anything like me, you will hunt downa guide to drive the tractor.

You will seek out a propermap of the local area.

And you may or may not enjoy making sense ofthis diagramexplaining how to build the car’s engine.

I relied heavily on the thorough guidance ofthe game’s wiki.

And I still came away from my time in Finland an abject, grinning failure.

For many, there’s something admirable about games that care this little about you.

InRain World, you struggle through endless deaths to discover strange and wonderful creatures.

InPathologic 2, you fight an interminable hunger to discoverhaunting children by railway tracks.

It lowers your thirst bar.

This is part of its stubbornly juvenile schtick.

Meanwhile, the people you meet are heinous, demanding, and sweary.

Many are almost as hostile to your existence as the game is itself.

It would be easy for an impatient player to write the game off as childish jank.

But the immaturity is just an accent to the strength and variety of its simulation.

Every sim is defined by what mundane actions it considers important enough to simulate.

In this, there is a frightening array of possibilities.

If you leave the sauna on for too long unsupervised, you will burn down your entire house.

If you answer the telephone while a thunderstorm is happening, you may get electrocuted to death.

You will get blinded by a bee in the eye if you drive the moped without your helmet.

you might use the TV to summon teletext.

But pee on electrical items like the TV or fusebox and you will again be electrified to death.

Forget to put on your seatbelt and you will probably die in your next crash.

All this is ignoring the sheer weight of the car simulation too.

That every piece must be screwed in place is ambitious enough.

This is admirable and intimidating in equal measure.

I could not face another hour of tractor driving while under review pressure.

You will likely not have a Damoclean deadline.

In my case, I lacked the wherewithal to see the game through.

I got halfway through building the Satsuma and gave up in favour of touring the game’s other destinations.

I rammed it full speed into a bus and caused a serious highway accident.

I hung up before he finished swearing.

you might enter rally races, for example.

you’ve got the option to chop firewood and deliver it to a “nearby” farmer.

I am in awe of this goofy, unforgiving game.

I also do not want to play it anymore.

My Summer Car is as merciless as it is crammed with simulatory detail.

It does not like you as a person, and it likes you even less as a player.