#Evaluation: My Summer time Automotive
Oh, I’ve been ready for this. My Summer time Automotive has been in Early Entry since 2016, and I’ve eagerly awaited the possibility to evaluate it for actual. It’s lastly right here, which implies there’s no escape. It’s time to tug this dangerous boy aside.
However I need to be upfront: My Summer time Automotive is wildly unconventional. It has an nearly incomparable design philosophy, utterly shirking the evolution of video games that got here earlier than it. Consequently, it’s clearly for a particular sort of particular person, however I can’t inform you what that sort of particular person is, nor can I inform with any certainty in case you would slot in that class. At finest, I hope I can get you curious sufficient to attempt it. At worst, you received’t get what I’m speaking about.
My Summer time Automotive (PC)
Developer: Amistech
Writer: Amistech
Launched: January 8, 2025
MSRP: $14.99
My Summer time Automotive transports you to rural Finland circa 1995. You’re dropped into the footwear of a younger grownup left unsupervised for the summer season. You’ve acquired a moped, a front-end loader, and a automobile that has been busted all the way down to its particular person elements. The plain focus is getting that automobile put collectively, however the finish aim? Ehhh.
There’s technically a solution to roll the credit with out dying, however doing so depends on arcane data. Personally, I’d say the top aim of My Summer time Automotive is no matter you make of it. There are plenty of issues that you are able to do, and a few of them end in rewards. There are additionally plenty of methods you’ll be able to fuck up, and lots of of them end in demise.
Yeah, demise. Rural Finland is a harmful place and My Summer time Automotive likes to see you endure. It prominently incorporates a permadeath. This may be turned off, however that comes with its personal inconveniences. Alternatively, in case you’re savvy, you’ll be able to create backups of your saves so you’ll be able to resume later in case of disaster.
It’s all the way down to choice as as to whether you’ll settle for everlasting demise. I all the time depart it on as a result of it provides a lot weight to the way you work together with the world. You’ll buckle your seatbelt and drive extra safely if you realize that slipping off the slim roads can undo your progress. Nevertheless, it’s a merciless recreation. If any of your mortal stats utterly deplete (starvation and thirst, as an illustration), you’ll be able to drop useless. There’s an opportunity you’ll be killed in case you choose up the phone throughout a thunderstorm (I regarded it up, and apparently, that may occur in actuality). I as soon as died as a result of I didn’t flip the grasp breaker earlier than altering a fuse.
Oh, apparently, you’ll be able to die in case you piss on the TV. I don’t know why you’d attempt that. I assume in case you felt the necessity to simply dampen the lounge so your mother and father know you now personal the place. I’m unsure why somebody would go to the hassle of designing and programming that individual solution to die, however that demonstrates the developer’s weird priorities. One of many new threats is that in case you depart the door to your own home open, a wasp can get inside. The participant character is allergic to wasp stings.
Even when you have demise turned off, My Summer time Automotive has some ways to punish you. When you depart the range on once you depart the home, there’s a likelihood your own home will burn down. That’s it. No extra home. Technically, you’ll be able to nonetheless survive homeless, however I’m positive you’ll be able to perceive why this may be inconvenient. It’s also possible to be thrown in jail in case you attempt to evade police or homicide somebody (both unintentionally or deliberately). In any other case, there’s all the time the chance of getting in an accident and totaling your automobile. The worst a part of that state of affairs is the lengthy, lengthy, very lengthy stroll of disgrace it’s a must to carry out again to your own home.
Wrecking your automobile isn’t essentially the top of your Finland journey. You may drag it to the native mechanic, Fleetari, to restore. So far as I do know, you’ll be able to’t completely destroy something, nevertheless it’s onerous to inform with this recreation. Fixes require cash, nonetheless, and economics are troublesome. There are plenty of odd jobs you are able to do, together with chopping and delivering firewood, choosing strawberries, sucking septic tanks, and promoting selfmade alcohol. Nevertheless, they aren’t all the time out there and a few of them have roadblocks of their very own, comparable to having to pay for the septic truck’s gasoline.
If My Summer time Automotive has something like what you’d describe as a gameplay loop, it will be work, get cash, spend cash on automobile upkeep. However that sort of breaks down once you understand that constructing the automobile is especially for its personal sake.
Johannes Rojola has the design sensibilities of a seagull filled with cocaine. Effectivity is a overseas idea, and nearly nothing added because the begin of Early Entry has been to the advantage of the participant. My Summer time Automotive is a nest of facet actions, sub-plots (as if there’s a foremost plot), and cruelty. He goes into minute element about a number of the strangest issues. This could be probably the most difficult simulation of a sauna that humanity will ever create. I’m unsure who else would assume to assist you to piss on the stones.
The entire automobile development factor is an actual work of effort, although. Every bit is affected by physics, so that you’re actually choosing issues up, transferring them to the place they should go, snapping them collectively, then bolting them on. Like nearly every part on this recreation, it’s temperamental. It’s not probably the most environment friendly or intuitive means to do that, both. It really works, the depth of it’s extremely satisfying, and you’ll most likely by no means see this in a big-budget manufacturing.
One of many strangest quirks of its design is how a lot it permits you to clip by means of objects, and it’s stranger nonetheless that you just’re virtually required to do it to seek out all of the bolts on the automobile. Many video games go to nice lengths to maintain issues corporeal and keep away from letting the participant section by means of the geometry. My Summer time Automotive simply says, “fuck it,” and makes it a characteristic. If one thing essential falls by means of the ground, yow will discover it on the landfill.
However, as bizarre because the design can get, it’s all within the service of some steadfast dedication to realism. Whereas plenty of demise within the recreation can appear unfair, every part deadly is rooted in actuality. Yeah, perhaps you don’t anticipate to die simply since you’re chopping wooden whereas crammed with extra alcohol than a brewery, however widespread sense would inform you it’s a nasty concept.
It’s additionally reasonable within the sense that rural life is boring. There’s nowhere to go, there’s nothing on TV, there’s nothing to do. Work is typically gradual to come back in, and far of it requires you to plan your day round it. It isn’t environment friendly to go and suck out one particular person’s septic tank; it’s higher to attend till all of your prospects require the service after which do a circuit. You may fill the trailer filled with firewood all you need, however the man who buys it’s going to solely request it as soon as every week. The dance pavilion is barely energetic on at some point of the week, repairs and orders take time to complete, and the drunk who wants a trip residence solely calls sporadically.
Additionally, ensure you pay your telephone invoice. I used to be questioning why nobody was calling with jobs, then realized that the telephone firm had minimize me off.
If something, the true problem of My Summer time Automotive is discovering methods to fill your time. Frankly, a part of my over 200 hours of playtime was spent idling within the recreation world whereas studying one thing at my desk. When you ask me, it’s boredom by design. It actually helps you to really feel the ennui and makes the easy feeling of getting within the automobile with someplace to go really feel impactful. Each accomplishment is magnified. Bizarre, bizarre stuff.
If there’s one place I’m much less passionate about, it’s that completely nothing in My Summer time Automotive is defined. In 2016, I discovered put a automobile collectively by rubbing stuff collectively and discovering out the way it match. However that solely will get you thus far. It received’t provide help to tune the engine or inform you what to do once you blow a cylinder. There’s additionally nothing within the recreation that tells you that you just shouldn’t piss on the TV or which you can prepare dinner sausages on the range by putting them immediately on the burner.
This implies you need to depend on outdoors data, such because the My Summer time Automotive Wiki. In a means, this makes up for the truth that you’ll be able to’t simply converse with the parents round you to study issues. In actuality, you would possibly have the ability to convey up in dialog which you can solely keep awake in case you drink a cup of espresso each 5 minutes and be advised that you’ve caffeine dependancy. You would possibly point out to the shop clerk that you just need to piss on the tv, they usually’ll say, “I wouldn’t try this, pal. That’s how my uncle died.” That’s sort of outdoors the boundaries of what’s possible in recreation design.
Particularly since everybody speaks Finnish in Finland. As you’d anticipate, plenty of that is subtitled, however not all of it. The stuff that’s subtitled could be subtitled poorly. There are discuss radio applications, and I can’t assist however want I knew what they had been saying. It does lend to feeling such as you’re dwelling in a rustic that doesn’t converse your native language. Though, since your character is canonically Finnish, the alternate pupil excuse doesn’t make a lot sense. On the plus facet, I now know swear in Finnish.
Although, actually, if there’s one factor I completely hate, it’s the fixed degradation of your Satsuma’s particular person engine elements. I’m not simply speaking concerning the oil and brake fluid, however the alternator and pistons. You may’t simply purchase new alternative elements, solely Fleetari, the mechanic within the space, can repair them. It’s costly. You need to pull all the engine out of your automobile and hand it to the mechanic; he received’t simply do it himself at his, y’know, storage. It additionally takes a short while for him to complete. That might be dangerous sufficient, however they degrade so shortly.
It might really feel such as you’re driving a machine product of gossamer. Even in case you don’t bump it round or drive it onerous, it’s going to want to see the automobile physician means before you’d need. You may drive the van as a substitute, which doesn’t degrade or break down, nevertheless it feels bizarre taking part in a car-building recreation and having to take it to a unique particular person to restore behind the scenes each couple of weeks.
There’s a well-liked complement for the sport, MSCedit, which helps you to open your save file and modify it. Dishonest, primarily. Properly, dishonest overtly. Nevertheless, there’s some extent at which the sport’s obstacles begin to get in the best way of your enjoyment, and for me, it’s having to fret about whether or not or not a piston is on the verge of blowing as a result of I drove Grandma to church one too many occasions. It’s a step too far and doubtless ought to have stopped with changing fan belts, spark plugs, and gaskets. I get that it’s a part of the sport’s intentional design – the Satsuma is meant to be a chunk of crap – however I hate it.
As I stated, the endpoint of My Summer time Automotive is extraordinarily nebulous. I’m unsure the way you’d actually attain it with out figuring out the standards prematurely as a result of it will get fairly particular. But, regardless of this, there are fairly lofty targets to attain alongside the best way. Getting your Satsuma licensed as road-worthy is one. Successful the rally or drag races could be one other. Serving to the drunk man transfer into a brand new house is an enormous occasion. You solely get there by merely current and surviving within the harsh environments of Finland.
There are many lackadaisical simulators on the market that enjoy their very own awkwardness. I’ve stared into the useless eyes of sufficient Unreal Engine belongings to final a lifetime. However My Summer time Automotive will not be that. For all its ugliness, its tough edges, and the best way it shirks typical design, it’s a very earnest product.
Rojola has stated that he’s “creating dream video games for [his] personal enjoyment.” Whether or not or not it’s your dream recreation is one other matter. For me, it very a lot is. It’s one which I’ve returned to steadily since its Early Entry life for one more style of its brutal depiction of Finnish rural life. The friction it creates with its harsh punishment gives which means to these peaceable moments as you drive alongside its winding filth roads. It’d strike some as boring, too cryptic, or too unwelcoming, however no matter whether or not or not it’s your sort of trip, it’s precisely what it intends to be. There isn’t any expertise fairly like My Summer time Automotive.
[This review is based on a retail build of the game purchased by the reviewer.]
