Taiga car driver

The Game:

The basics of the game are,  you pick up  various loads to deliver around the Taiga, enter  competitions and rescue people  to earn XP and cash. Which can then be used to unlock  various  upgrades for your truck.   Because of the adverse weather you have to  complete certain tasks to   survive in the harsh environments. Cold, thirst and hunger are your worst enemies.    

The game includes a 26 page  manual explaining what you need to do to survive.  I've taken screen captures of each  page of the manual, which I've  posted as a separate  comment attached to the original review which I've included a link to at the bottom of this comment.    If you read those it will give you some idea as to the various equipment  used in  this game.

There are three  bar indicators in the bottom left of the screen   the top one (Red) indicates your hunger,  the bottom one  (Blue)  how cold you are  and the  the middle one (Green) is your strength, which can be partially recovered by  pitching your tent and sleeping. This is accomplished by opening up the inventory by pressing the 'right mouse button' (RMB).  Then scrolling  to the tent symbol.  Doing this will pitch your tent. To enter move to the front of the tent where you'll see a ZZZ  indicator  in yellow Walk to this and press  the 'left mouse button' (LMB).  This will add an indeterminate amount of sleep. You can see     time pass outside the tent while you are asleep.   This does not  restore your strength completely, plus  sleep length and hunger are not controlled.   To warm yourself up,  you  first need to collect  wood (the manual suggests  finding wood near trees, which  guarantees  a better supply)  to pick up wood, stand near it and a hand should appear, press the  'enter key' to pick up; you can pick up a maximum of five piles of wood.  Access the inventory  then scroll to the  camp fire symbol.  If you have no wood, this will  be red in colour  and cannot be lit until you've collected at least one pile of wood.  Fires will slowly die down unless you add another pile to the fire.   If you have no wood, you can still place the fire stones, but they remain red in colour.    Other   inventory  symbols include the  phone, which gives you access to  your route, the time and temperature as well as important points on the map, which are indicated  with different coloured  dots, i.e. 

1. Green = Garage
2. Yellow =   Place to take order
3. Red =  Gas/Petrol Station
4. Sky Blue = Competition ''Climb Way''
5. Royal Blue = Rescue Mission
6. Violet =  Hotel

If you are on an exploratory walk about, it will also show you where your truck is.  So long as you have your phone selected and are on foot, a  wheel symbol will appear in the direction of the truck as well as a red triangle on the phones map.     Other symbols on the inventory bar  include a  petrol/gas can, which tells you how much spare fuel in litres you have.  You can fill this to a maximum of 20 litres   when visiting a garage or sometimes find spare cans of fuel laying around  various bases.  To refill your vehicle  go to the  fuel tank, which will appear yellow when you  select  the  fuel cannister symbol in the inventory  and are are opposite it,  then press the LMB to refill the tank.  You can see how much fuel you have left in your vehicle  via the fuel indicator inside your cab.    A torch symbol which is useful for finding  wood and food at night, plus canned food, which help to  keep hunger at bay.   You can carry up to 10  cans of food.   To restock, visit a warehouse or hotel.  To use   food, select the can symbol  then select which food  you want. This will then bring up  a burner with a pan  symbol.   Place this in a suitable position  then press the LMB to warm up.  When the pan turns green, your food is ready; to eat press LMB again.  To exit the  inventory without accessing any of the main symbols  select the middle   one that looks like a triangle then press LMB.

There are various tasks that can be  carried out  to gain experience and cash, both of which are required to improve your vehicle and the former to increase your experience level, which in turn makes it easier to complete some tasks more effectively; for example,  when entering a competition   i.e. the Climb Way, You have to climb the  track for a specific  amount of time  to reach the finish.    Completing   the climb way competitions will  gain  experience points which unlock better parts to upgrade your vehicle, which in turn will increase your performance in these competitions.   There are also rescue operations  and delivery    jobs that give you  rewards.   So long as you deliver  the items you have picked up undamaged  you will be paid cash to help towards  improving your truck as well as to purchase  other items such as food.  You can stock up on provisions  either via the hotel (food) and the petrol/gas station (fuel).  When you pick up  a cargo delivery  it will give you a map of the route, the  distance to the delivery point, the time it should take and the amount of  reward in dollars and XP.  You can choose to accept, or  close the offer via the green and red buttons.

To upgrade your vehicle approach the   green symbol that looks like a pair of crossed  wrenches above a green circle in the tarmac/concrete that is  opposite the yellow   doors of a garage. 

Inside the garage you can upgrade your vehicle in several ways; for example   improve the engine, gears, front and rear fenders, the  boot/trunk and   the paint work.  Each of these has several upgrades, each one an improvement on the previous, but to be able to use   better upgrades for each of the categories you  require more  cash and  be  a specific level before you can use the upgrade.  For example  with respect to the engine,  there are eight upgrades, each of which improves the horse power of the engine. With respect to the gears,   the  higher the  level, the better your gears  for example at level   eight you can upgrade your gears    with ten gears including two reverse gears  called a type 154; at level ten  you can upgrade to a type ZF-16 with 16 gears.   There are twenty paint jobs that become patterned  after  you attain level 4, such as  Winter Forest (looks similar to a displaced pattern army  uniform)  and Leopard.  To exit the garage  press the World button or to return to the main menu  press  the menu button.

Conclusion:

Overall Taiga Car Driver is a decent enough survival/truck delivery  game; especially for  it's $5 asking price here on Itch.io.   I'd like to see this  released  to Steam.

There are a few negatives such as the time it takes  for the initial Falcoware  splash screen to disappear, which takes almost a minute to  complete, also, when moving from the garage  back to your truck, it can take several seconds with a black screen, same for exiting  other   places.   

Also, picking up wood   so that you can create  a fire can be a  bit fiddly; you should see a hand appear   before you are standing over any wood pile. As soon as a hand appears, press the left mouse button to pick it up.    Also,  the headlights on the vehicle are  really dim, so the road ahead is barely visible and  it's really easy to lose  sight the road, or turn offs  at night  due to it being partially or completely  covered in snow; so, I advise avoiding  night  trips unless you   get a  night based contract.  

I accidentally wandered off the road while trying to  get to a place to pick up an order; next thing I found my truck  almost toppling over in a depression in the ground and was not able to extricate myself from the   place, so I thought I had to  restart  a new game, which loses all your progress.  This may have been because I had the   least powered engine with the poorest  gears.  I'm sure with upgrades   the vehicle will perform better, but   with the basic  vehicle  it felt  really slow travelling from A to B.  I would avoid travelling at night unless it was absolutely necessary. That said, if you  get stuck, then leave the game (I used Alt + F4, when you   click on the continue button, you'll find yourself near a garage.

The game could do with a  decent tutorial at the beginning of the game.  There is one of sorts, but it doesn't explain  how to survive very well; for example,  If you are out of your truck for more than a few moments, you'll notice   the edges of  your vision  look misted up (depending on the outside temperature, this may happen  very  quickly).  This indicates you are freezing (the lower bar indicator also gives an indication of how cold you are' when entering the truck cab or lighting a fire, you'll notice this reduces to zero slowly. If you don't return to your  truck, enter a garage or hotel  or light a fire quickly, you'll freeze to death and  that's the end of the game.

You can see my full review with  over 70 images and a few video links together with an attached comment  showing all  26 of the game manuals pages HERE