#oneaday Day 885: Stuck in the mud

Every so often when I feel like watching something nicely chilled out, I turn to Squirrel's channel on YouTube. For the unfamiliar, Squirrel is a softly-spoken Brit who plays a lot of simulation games; I first became aware of him back around the time Microsoft Flight Simulator (the new one) came out, but have been exploring some of his other stuff.

Just recently I happened to catch a vid of his on a game called SnowRunner, which I thought looked interesting. SnowRunner is the third in a series of games that also includes SpinTires and MudRunner, and it's a game about offroading. I'd previously played SpinTires a bit and found it interesting but ultimately a bit directionless, but what I saw of SnowRunner in Squirrel's video looked thoroughly interesting — there very much seemed to be a solid "game-like" structure in there along with all the driving very slowly through mud.

Interestingly, I happened to catch Squirrel's video on the subject literally the same day SnowRunner stopped being an Epic Games Store exclusive and released its Steam and console versions.

So I picked it up and gave it a go this evening, and found it remarkably enjoyable. It strikes a great balance between having a simulation "feel" to it and providing the accessibility of a modern console game — I nabbed it on PC, as it's had enough updates to make a physical edition fairly useless… and besides, it very much "feels like a PC game", if you get me. And the hint of that interesting structure I saw in Squirrel's video turned out to be exactly what I hoped: plenty of incentive to explore the game's beautifully crafted world in a variety of different vehicles, some varied objectives to accomplish and a nice feeling of progression as you play.

So far I haven't done all that much; I've helped rebuilt a bridge by delivering some metal and wood to the building site, and I've unlocked my own personal garage, where I can purchase and upgrade my various vehicles. I also drove very slowly to a scenic waypoint on top of a nearby mountain, got stuck in a swamp and fell off a cliff, landing on my tailgate, nose pointing straight up, completely trapped against a tree. Delightful.

I like having a game like this on hand, because it definitely feels like a great "I just want to chill out and relax" sort of game. Retro games often fill that void for me, but sometimes you're in the mood for something relaxing, but modern. SnowRunner definitely fits that bill — and with the sheer amount of "stuff" there is in that game, I don't think I'm going to exhaust what it has to offer any time soon!