Who else has been waiting for a simulator of 1990s Finland where you build a car from scratch? Me neither, but here it is; My Summer Car.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/516750/?snr=1_7_15__13

www.amistech.com/msc (deliberately made to look like the 90s)

This is really not a game for everyone, not by a long shot. It's an Early Access title, it's made in Unity, it's partially in Finnish (the speech is subtitled, all the car parts have English names but for example the parts catalogue is only in Finnish, but it does have pictures so you don't need a translation), and I have a hunch that foreigners may not understand the Finnish lifestyle portrayed in the game. I guess some would say it's a perfect game and some would say it's an utter waste of time and money. I say it's great.

The point of the game is to build your car from the parts provided and get it inspected so it's legal to drive it. Currently there is only one small car to build. You can spray paint the body and you can order better parts to get better performance. But the thing is, your project car is in a million pieces (neatly placed on the shelves) and there are no instructions. For a man with the car mechanic talent of zero it's a great puzzle while also being educational. For someone with experience it can still be fun to tune the beater to as good as it can get.

While building the car is your main point, you also have to take care of
- hunger
- thirst
- sleep
- urination
- dirtiness
And if you tick the option at the start, you can have permanent death. To keep yourself alive you can go to the store to buy food and drinks (or just drink straight from the tap by leaning towards it while it's running), there's a bed in the house, you can pee wherever you like and to take care of dirtiness, you go in the hot sauna... which you have to heat first, but it's electric so it's easy. Don't forget to save at the toilets.

To make money for food and car parts you can use an axe on logs and bring firewood to a neighbor, using a tractor and a trailer. You can also use a sewage truck to drain waste, and you get paid for it. To get to the shop and the bar, you can drive your van. If you take your car to the mechanic (if the body is in a bad shape due to crashing into things, it probably won't go through an inspection, and using the Jeremey Clarkson way of banging your car with a hammer may just make things worse, so sometimes you should take your car to a professional) you can borrow the mechanic's powerful American RWD automatic transmission car.

You can drink beer and vodka in the game, and get more and more drunk. First your view gets all wobbly and walking straight becomes impossible. After you drink enough (or too much) you will wake up somewhere else on the map and you have no idea how you got there. The game has a button for swearing and giving the finger once you've gotten frustrated trying to get the engine working. It should be very close to an actual engine and its assembly, but to someone with no experience it can get difficult.

Surprisingly, the game supports force feedback steering wheels and even an H-pattern shifter with a clutch pedal. I haven't tried it yet, but my G27 should work. I'll just have to get the car assembled first... It may get uncomfortable if I try to sqeeze the steering wheel, the gear shifter, the keyboard, and the mouse into a position where I could seamlessly switch between them. I'll have to figure out some clever way.

And even when you get the car started and running, you may run into issues. Are you sure you secured each and every single bolt? Is everything adjusted in the way they should? Are the parts connected properly?


Did I get you excited? Did you even read all of the text? The Steam page has some informative videos and screenshots, as well as more summaries. I say it was worth the 15 € I put into it.


Edit: I forgot to mention the cool leaning mechanics: by pressing Q you lean forward, getting you closer to the engine bay for example. Connecting car parts can be tricky, because they have to be aligned pretty well.

Great review Al, it looks interesting (and different) I like the drinking bit!
I might give this a try.

The handwritten part in the additional notes says: "Well this car is a total piece of junk."

Still a lot better than my attempts. At best I've gotten the engine assembled and connected to the transmission, only to drive into a tree on a shopping trip with the van. On another time I did get to the shop safely but then couldn't find my way back to the house. One day I'll get the little car running!

Taz: even after you do get the car inspected, remember there's still things left to do. Mainly just the rally challenge and trying to see how fast you can get the car going with tuning.

Still mocking the car apparently. By the way, you can clean yourself by sweating in sauna. Heat it up first (may take some time before it's hot; just check the thermometer on the wall) and then throw water on the stove!

The Sauna solves many of life's problem.