Keep Driving is a sumptuous and sleepy RPG roadtrip, inspired by Jalopy and FTL

“Post Void is a masterpiece of compulsive motion and hypnotic, irresistible sounds,” wrote Sin of YCJY Games’s “orgiastic” shooter. “It does something to my brain that I’ve never experienced before.” The developer’s just-announced Keep Driving seems a lot less inclined to scramble your grey matter, though it’s partial to the old rose-tinted goggles. It’s a droll, backward-glancing and slightly ominous 2D management RPG in which you drive to a music festival on the other side of the country. Along the way, you will pick up hitchhikers, upgrade your car, fill your boot with random junk, and participate in turn-based, non-lethal “combat” with dawdling children and obstinate tractors. Here’s a trailer.

The whole thing seems very spaced-out, for all the excess of menus, but there’s the suggestion that Life Lessons of some kind await. “Remember to take it easy,” the Steam page remarks, in the manner of somebody smiling and noddling at a toddler to stop them looking at the mushroom cloud behind them. “You’re young. You have time.”

The game’s influences run a boisterous gamut: “Oregon Trail II, FTL, Two Lane Blacktop, Paris Texas, Jalopy, Gloom Haven, The 7th Continent, and the developer’s lives”. But it all comes together beautifully on the screen, with artfully worn and dusty pixelart backdrops and a catchy inside-outside effect, whereby you’re both peering over the dashboard and watching yourself drive. Ah, swish. Here are some bulletpoints:

A procedurally generated pixel art world to explore one road at a time.

A nostalgic early 2000s setting with an emphasis on the analogue .

Use turn-based ‘combat’ to solve situations (like getting stuck behind a tractor).

Pick up misfits, oddballs and lost souls as you go.

Collect songs and listen to a mix CD of local Swedish indie bands.

Multiple endings to unlock when you return to the road.

I guess the natural foil for this is Pacific Drive, which is similarly preoccupied with the art of car maintenance, but also 3D, post-apocalyptic and paranormal. If you enjoy swapping stories with strangers on the road, but think horseless carriages are for chumps, maybe cock a squint at Where The Water Tastes Like Wine.