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My first impressions of Car Quest were, it has to be said, less than favourable. It had, as I mentioned on Twitter after my first hour’s play, a definite air of “My First Unity” game about it, not least because of the sparse, blocky environment that just screams “I can’t draw but I can sellotape geometric shapes together”. You, a car, don’t fit within this style either thematically or graphically, and it feels like a placeholder that was never replaced with a giant marble or something that matches the rest of the game.

I can’t really say my second impressions were much better. The basic aim is, you see, to drive your car through this blocky world, finding rotating shapes known as artefacts. Each one opens a new route or area in the world, invariably as far away from your current position as possible so as to artificially extend the length of the game. As you drive around, you collect batteries, which you need to open portals to other areas and so the game is lengthened further as you collect these – which require no skill, just time.

My third impressions? Well, near the end of my first hour I hit something new. Puzzles. Things to push around, tiles to drive over quickly in sequence. Clever driving stunts. More started happening – a level with a night and day warp, which raises a water level to ad a new dimension to the puzzles. Some sheep to herd. Timed sections, a maze, and more. Slowly, the game was becoming more.

In terms of gameplay, I was actually starting to enjoy it. The plain graphical style actually started working. I still couldn’t figure out exactly why you were a car, and how Lord Blockstar – who is King, despite being a Lord – the transparent floating head WHO NEVER SHUTS UP managed to convince you to help repair his world by doing all these things.

Every time you collect an artefact, of which there are approximately seven zillion, Blockstar tells you you’ve just collected and artefact. And, after opening a new area (which the camera pans to in order to show you’ve opened a new area), Blockstar tells you you’ve opened a new area. And when it’s obvious where to go next, he tells you where to go next. All. The. Sodding. Time. It’s maddening. And then there are all his puns, many of which are block or brick related and they hurt. 

Car Quest isn’t a difficult game either. In fact, there are only really two difficult things: forgetting where to go next (even if you’re shown, then told by Blockstar, it’s too easy to get disorientated on the map – not least because everything looks the same), and not knowing if you’re doing something not quite right, or aren’t supposed to be doing it yet.

To sum up, Car Quest is an oddity. It’s not very well designed, it’s not short of problems, it has too much unnecessary to-ing and fro-ing and the damn lordking guy needs gagging. The car physics don’t feel right, and there being a car not a ball or similar instead doesn’t make any sense. The world of Blocktaria is just too abstract and plain and bizarre. It shouldn’t work and I’d be giving it a 1/5 and telling you not to play it.

But. BUT. Give it an hour or two. I know that’s a big ask. But do that. Play it. Ignore the “college game design project” feel to it and just let it happen. Something clicks, and even though you can see it shouldn’t work, it’s actually fun. A sort of guilty pleasure. And as you groan at yet another “blockcredible” or a 14th loop of the main world to collect yet more batteries, you’ll realise that somehow, you’re enjoying it. It’s not blocktacular, but it’s certainly blockisfactory.

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