Driving Is Laborious: How a Coffee-Break Joke Became a Bathtub Rage Game

Each sport has an origin story. Mine begins, fittingly, with a espresso machine and a horrible concept.

Again earlier than Elegant Horse Studios was actually Elegant Horse Studios, my co-founder Liudas (everybody calls him Hangeris) and I had been nonetheless clocking into full-time company jobs, quietly dreaming of operating our personal indie studio. Our third co-founder, Tautvydas, was already within the image; the three of us had been deep in Sheep Sweep on the time. He simply wasn’t within the room for this explicit dialog. He labored at a totally different firm, blissfully unaware of the craziness brewing round that espresso machine.

One afternoon, a few of us had been loitering across the workplace espresso machine, doing what sport devs do greatest: throwing round half-baked sport concepts. Somebody introduced up Chained Collectively and the entire “Foddian” style, these gloriously punishing video games constructed to make you rage. That’s when Hangeris had his lightbulb second. “ what the world doesn’t have?” he stated. “A standalone Foddian racing sport.” After which, simply to spice issues up, he added: “And also you’d management the automobile utilizing solely a mouse.”

All of us laughed and shrugged it off. But when you already know Hangeris, you already know he’s bodily incapable of letting an concept go untested. He went straight house after work and dove into the code, and one sleepless, hyper-caffeinated weekend later, a prototype of Driving Is Hard was accomplished. He fired the construct off to the remainder of us, we gave it a whirl, and it was terrible. Steering a automobile with nothing however a mouse turned out to be unintuitive, infuriating, and about as enjoyable as parallel parking on a steep hill throughout a snowstorm. So, we quietly retired the mouse-only dream in favor of extra conventional arcade-style controls.

With that hurdle cleared, Hangeris confirmed the up to date prototype round once more. This time, individuals beloved it. That enthusiasm snowballed into a full studio dialogue, and earlier than anybody may speak us out of it, the coffee-break joke had develop into a actual mission.

A tub on wheels, with a semi-nude bald man in it, sounded superior.

That’s the place I entered the chat. Whereas Hangeris stored refining the automobile dealing with and tuning ranges round playtest suggestions, my job as lead artist was to offer the sport a actual visible id. I began by pitching three instructions for the participant’s automobile: an RC automobile, a stylized racing automobile, or a buggy. We went with the buggy. Its open, uncovered suspension paired superbly with the sport’s off-road terrain. So, I started working, however one thing felt off. A plain off-road buggy was simply too primary. Nothing that may make a particular person cease scrolling.

Then I remembered a story Hangeris as soon as instructed me: as a child, his household’s residence had a bathtub, and after a renovation it vanished. Ever since, he’d quietly needed a bathtub of his personal, a want that by some means by no means got here true. And that’s when it clicked for me. A tub on wheels, with a semi-nude bald man in it, sounded superior. I threw collectively a fast prototype, we ran some assessments, and the bathtub-on-wheels was unanimously permitted.

You is perhaps questioning how our bathtub pilot received the title Jeff. Easy: I used to be out on a stroll with one other developer, the one behind the horror sport Baisu, who advised naming the protagonist Jeff for probably the most hermetic cause possible. “My title’s Jeff,” he stated. And truthfully, I couldn’t argue with that.

Not lengthy after, Tautvydas jumped onto the mission to pile on extra options and lend a hand with growth. And the remainder, as they are saying, is historical past.

What started as a joke by a espresso machine is now a full-blown, rage-inducing, bathtub-racing actuality. Jeff is prepared. The hills are steep. The controls are unforgiving.

Driving Is Hard is obtainable now on Xbox with Xbox Play Wherever. Seize the wheel, climb into the bathtub, and see how far up the mountain you and Jeff can get earlier than all of it goes mistaken.