Get In The Car, Loser! is a “lesbian road trip RPG by the co-creator of Ladykiller in a Bind” which sounds pretty great when you put it in those terms.
One of my favourite things is negative video game reviews that are actually brilliant elevator pitches for the games they’re trying to slate. Gone Home might be a bit tarnished, now, but one of my favourite examples is the person who describes it as “basically a lesbian scavenger hunt” like that’s somehow a bad thing? That sounds amazing!
I love these reviews, the Gone Home "lesbian scavenger hunt" still amuses me (& is a great elevator pitch for the game) pic.twitter.com/XZ4TJiOAnc
— Tom Baines (@TomThumbsticks) April 25, 2021
Other great examples of the oeuvre include:
- “This game is too short, I beat it in under two hours and refunded it!” = “Brilliant, I can comfortably complete this in one sitting.”
- “Why do they make all the female characters look like that?” = “Fantastic, this game features realistic, varied representations of women.”
- “The game is for babies, why does it have all those gameplay options?” = “Nice, this game has lots of thoughtful accessibility features.”
- “Why are the graphics so bad?” = “Great, this game has a unique aesthetic and the developers haven’t broken themselves by overreaching.”
- “Yet another piece of SJW propaganda!” = “This game contains minority characters, stories, and viewpoints, and I want to play it even more now.”
I have a feeling that Get In The Car, Loser! – the latest game from Ladykiller in a Bind co-creator Christine Love, with the elevator pitch of “a lesbian road trip RPG” – is going to attract most, if not all of those “negative” review types. And I bloody love it. It’s poetry. Those sorts of complaints are fuel for the soul and their tears are delicious.
With our eyes back on the road for a second, Get In The Car, Loser! is a unique J-RPG/visual novel hybrid with the usual defeat evil/save the world underpinnings. But unlike your usual sword and sorcery RPGs, it features a queer cast of heroes on a road trip adventure, battling enemies in the verges and car parks from their sweet, sweet ride.
(Which, now that I say it aloud – cool car, RPG battles, gay heroes – Get In The Car, Loser! doesn’t sound that different to Final Fantasy XV, does it? Still sounds great, though.)
The other interesting and somewhat unique element of Get In The Car, Loser! is that the main game is free to play, with the game’s DLC episode, Battle on the Big Boardwalk, available at an extra cost. You can also pick up the game’s rad soundtrack, by Christa Lee, or get all three – the free base game, the DLC, and the soundtrack – in a single bundle.
It’s a smart choice to attract players and, if nothing else, that free entry point should ensure Get In The Car, Loser! gets lots of those narrow-minded “negative” reviews that (in reality) only help to sell the game.
Oh, and it’s available now, by the way.
Check out our Discovery tag for more cool indie stuff you might not have heard of. Want to help us throw away the shackles of covering AAA games (for SEO reasons, to pay the bills) so we can focus on the weird indie games we truly love? Then you could support Thumbsticks on Patreon or buy the team a coffee.
