What the Car? Review – Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Roads

One of my least favorite things about living in America is the obsessive car culture. We’re so reliant on them, and they don’t even have legs or rockets! What the Car?, a comedy game from Triband, bravely asks us to reconsider what cars can really do for us.

If you’re a mobile gamer, you’ve already seen this on your iPhone thanks to Apple Arcade. However, on September 9, What the Car? hits Steam, opening the door for so many others to experience this charming game.

At its core, it’s like most other games starring a car: You have to get from point A to B as fast as possible. But like anything worth enjoying, What the Car? is more about the journey than the destination.

What the Car? Reinvents the Wheel

Made by a Copenhagen-based team of developers who primarily don’t drive, What the Car? is a comedy game first and foremost. You might recognize one of their other games, What the Bat?

Community Manager Sarah Sanders, who I spoke with at PAX West, said one of their primary measures of success is “laughs per minute.” And I can confirm, I found myself chuckling a lot at this silly little game.

What the Car?’s humor lands more often than not thanks to the boundless creativity on display here. You play as the titular Car, who’s primarily on two human legs instead of four wheels—and it only gets weirder from there.

Sometimes, you’re a car riding a bike with a jetpack on its back. Other times, you’re an ac-car-dion, slinking along the level, or a carp swimming through water. Occasionally, you're chopping veggies like Cooking Mazda. There’s even one mini-game where you’re a car who would literally rather be fishing.

I’m barely scratching the surface of just how ludicrous these premises get. Each level is named either after the car type or features a punny reference on something else.

Choice names include “Bike Me Up Inside,” “Drop It Like It’s Hot Wheels,” and my personal favorite, “Car on Skateboard but Giraffe.” That last one’s not a pun; it’s just wonderfully silly, with and without context.

Controlling each of these monstrosities is pretty simple, and it’s maybe the biggest giveaway of the game’s mobile roots. You move left or right and have one action button. The action button can be pressed or held, depending on the level and the car’s modifications.

The only thing funnier than the puns is moving Car itself, especially when it's a weird mess of spare parts and gears. Turns out, controlling a car with keyboards for wheels isn't easy, but the absurdity of it all makes it so enjoyable.

For the most part, maybe only one or two levels confused me on how they worked, but that confusion lasted for maybe five seconds. Once you play around with it, it’s all pretty intuitive.

Each level, you're ranked by a bronze, silver, or gold crown based on how long it took you to finish. As an added challenge, there's a collectible card hidden in each level, asking you to detour and find some shortcuts.

Thankfully, shortcuts can be easy to find on lots of these levels. The physics in What the Car? are whimsically wonky, giving you lots of leeway to make certain jumps or finagle your way around corners.

Pumping the Brakes

Unfortunately, I found the wonky physics to also be a small point of contention. There are optional harder levels denoted by a skull, and personally, the floaty feeling sometimes contributed to more annoyance than ingenious shortcutting.

Sometimes Car's legs would get stuck on some debris, and other times, one little bump would send it flying higher than expected. Similar bumps would just result in a smaller hop or something, but it wasn't always predictable.

Momentum also works a little weirdly in What the Car?, where sometimes hopping with a jetpack would carry forward the momentum. Yet other times, it would just kill all the built-up speed.

Levels are grouped into what Triband calls Episodes, and at the time of writing, What the Car? has nine themed Episodes. You can navigate to each of these Episodes through an overworld that Car can run through and explore.

There are lines that denote main-path levels and optional levels, and there's even more to find off the beaten path, like secret quests and skull levels.

On the whole, though, I think the overworld introduces more tedium than fun. Exploring is alright, but it wears out its welcome partway through, and the extra bit of time it takes to navigate through levels doesn't really add to the charm.

Maybe I'm biased by the demo I played at PAX West, where it was just a quick hit of level after level, just a black screen in between. That rapid fire of inventive humor felt better paced than what the overworld provided.

Live Servicing Your Car

Another sign of What the Car?'s mobile gaming roots, there's already a history of Triband supporting the game with updates after launch. The team continues to add new Episodes, and they release surveys asking players what they should do next.

Additionally, there are daily missions as well as special weekly levels to enjoy. If that's still not enough content, there's a whole library of user-generated levels that you can explore—and there's already a lot, thanks to the Apple Arcade head start.

If you want to get into the level-making game though, I'd recommend a large dose of patience to go with it. The level editor uses the same control scheme as the overworld navigation. In fact, all the menus use this system; you walk up to what you want to do and interact with it.

I found this made for less precision and control over the creation tools, which makes the well-built stages all the more impressive. However, it also meant I wouldn't jump into it for myself.

What the Car? Review | Final Thoughts

Long story short, there's a lot of content to explore in What the Car?, if it's your kind of game. The mainline levels plus some side content took me five hours, but if you obsess over getting the gold crown and card on everything, you can get a lot of miles out of this.

However, I think this game benefits more from taking it easy on the scenic route. At first, I got caught up in trying to get gold everything, but that detracted from enjoying the absurdity of the game.

As long as you're expecting a silly game that deconstructs the meaning of a car, you'll be in for a good time with a high laughs per minute score. But your mileage may vary if you take it more seriously.

What the Car? was reviewed on PC via Steam with a copy provided by the developer over the course of around 5 hours of gameplay. All screenshots were taken during the process of review.