Driving Stress: The Game

 I love my commute…

…but on the way in tonight it occurred to me it’d make a pretty excellent driving game.  Maybe.  The views I get are beautiful and never the same from day to day, but there’s a lot going on down on the ground that it’s a little more important to pay attention to most of the time :’D

I can’t think of much more to add to this right now, but I had to type it up as soon as I sat down in the office, so..

Combination of rural back roads, highways and small town/metro area surface streets, night driving one way, morning the other.  This is SW Virginia, so mountainous plus switchbacks, hairpins, blind curves and many no-passing zones and speed traps.  Also small-town traffic cops and state troopers who are quite serious about speeding and often very good at being sneaky.  Add a statewide nigh-religious aversion to using turn signals to really make it pop.

Hazards include:

(rural) wildlife, domestic animals, pedestrians, bicycles, farm equipment, local drivers, oncoming headlights stuck on high, fog banks, potholes, loose gravel/debris, and a truly astounding and rich variety of insect life (all of which is magnetically attracted to your windshield at all times).

(highway) wildlife, semi drivers with grievances, log trucks, other drivers terrified of anything larger than a minivan, DOT work zones, plainclothes traffic cops, state troopers, high wind speeds, and just about any other hazard the weather can produce (more on this later).

(town/city) wildlife, pedestrians, other drivers, DOT work zones, traffic lights with grievances, school buses, athletic events, traffic cops of all kinds, oncoming traffic with headlights stuck on high, precious cinnamon rolls too good to obey traffic signals, and people who generally assume you’re psychic and drive accordingly.

Nightmare Mode involves winter weather – snow/ice/precipitation – and your vehicle (which lacks 4-wheel drive) in desperate need of new tires.

The one constant hazard that never changes and is always present is the car-chasing St Bernard who seems to absolutely despise your car in particular.

You get a very basic GPS (a map, and sound, but no time predictions or traffic hazard warnings) until you know the route, which you can use again if you need to find a new one.  New routes are ‘unlocked’ along the way – for example, all-town/highway when it snows.

Plug in an mp3 player or thumb drive to play your own music if you want.

Of course, as you go along you eventually get used to the things that don’t change, like the traffic signs/signals, intersections, speed change zones, and areas where some of the animal/human hazards are more likely to show up, and at that point you get to take in the sights a little.

Easter egg type goodies:

the four horsemen of the apocalypse also commuting, driving cars named after various horses.

Jesus as a homeless guy.

one of the road crews are actually ghosts – all you see of the workers is the reflective stripes on their coveralls, and the lights of their headlamps if you really look at them.

a plethora of amusing vanity plates, because let’s face it, VA is vanity plate heaven.

various vintage and otherwise weirdly modded vehicles, including a super-compact packed to the gills with Shriners and/or an actual clown car.

every now and then some of the weird crap going on in the cars around you really is what you think it is – mini-pinscher in the passenger seat really is mummified grandma, ugly kid in the backseat really is el chupacabra, that Great Dane hanging out the back window really is a camel, and so on…

clouds shaped like various things, and other stuff you would or might not expect to see overhead.

meteor showers and/or actual UFOs.

AND PROBABLY SO MUCH MORE.

AC on too high? Your windshield slowly fogs up on you.

Bugs and junk obscuring your view?  Well, you have wiper fluid, but if that runs out you can’t clean the windshield until you stop for gas (which happens about once a week).

Once in a while one of the idiot lights comes on, and at the end of the drive you get to guess what it means.  Guess right and it gets fixed – guess wrong and it stays on and makes you nervous.

Your car making odd noises, such as gravel in the wheelwell etc.  Same as above – identify it and it’s fixed.

Tired? The view gets blurry at random.

Extra challenge: drive one-handed as you finish breakfast/chug coffee.

Headache? Oncoming headlights are literally blinding.

Have fun constantly adjusting the visor every clear morning as the sun refuses to conveniently rise half a centimeter higher or stay politely behind your a-pillar!

Bonuses/Achievement type stuff:

Friend to All Nature – manage not to hit any animals – for extra awesome bonus points, on harder modes this includes roadkill and the frogs and toads that carpet the road when it rains.  Congratulations, now you get to pull over and take snapshots of some of the amazing scenery!

Good Neighbor – wave back to everyone who waves at you on the backroads – extra bonus includes getting the guy who people-watches in front of the hobby shop up the highway six days a week to recognize and wave back at you.

Time Shenanigans – get to work amazingly early.

Instant Karma – every time you complete the drive and manage to adhere to the posted speed limits/don’t get pulled over, a cop will tag someone else you just had to watch breaking the law. Yyyesssss.

AGAIN, PROBABLY SO MUCH MOAR.

After a while the game will ask you at the end of the drive if you noticed certain things – IDing what that roadkill was in its last life, for example.  Correctly IDing a specific kind of car might get you the option to upgrade to it, and wouldn’t a Jeep be handy???

Rate the vanity plates.  If the game agrees with you on awesomeness level, you get one of your very own.

IDK I’M OUT OF STEAM, MAKE SUGGESTIONS, Y’ALL.  Or at least just giggle a little.  I want to share my amusement.