Can't Drive This
Can't Drive This - Remote Play Together Event!
Can't Drive This - 20% off during Remote Play Together SALE!
Ahoi Partner!
As a classic couch coop game, we want to celebrate Steam's Remote Play Together Feature with you!
Only one of you has the game? No problem!
You live far apart and haven't seen each other since the beginning of the pandemic? We got you covered!
For everyone who's new, here's a quick overview of our multiplayer game modes:
Start your engines and get ready for some classic 2-4 players Yardage, where one of you builds the road while all the others race the track! One of your buddies fell off the road? Revive them, and drive together as far as you can.
More challenge? Try Game of Drones! Build your way to the hot-air balloons and pick up all Holos to advance to the next round. Every round gets incrementally more difficult
Want more competition? Get ready for Capture the Egg!
Race your monster truck to the opposing team's base, pick up the giant concrete egg and rush back to your own. Win two out of three rounds to win the game!
Save your copy while it's still 20% off!
Cheers, hope to see you in the chat!
SO LONG, EARLY ACCESS
So, this is it. We're finally out of Early Access with Build #6402082
It's been quite a ride, hasn't it?
I'm not gonna lie, we would have loved to spend much less time in Early Access – maybe even releasing our couch-coop game during a time where people can actually meet. It took us a lot longer than we expected, but in the end, we're super happy with how the game turned out.
Just think where we started. This is what the game looked like when it was greenlit:
That gif isn't even slowed down. LOOK HOW SLOW THAT WAS!
After the game jam version was greenlit, we worked on the game a bunch, and this is what eventually kicked off our Early Access:
A lot prettier, and a faster than the previous version. Here's where we introduced the Monster Truck that would eventually become the trademark – but there was still so much missing.
When you compare it to what we're launching today... Crazy, don't you think?
Leo DaVinci once said "Art is never finished, only abandoned", and boy was he right.
Don't get me wrong, we're not saying Can't Drive This is art, nor are we abandoning the game – Far from it! There are still about a million and a half ideas we have for Can't Drive This! We could easily put another 5 years into the game, adding accessibility features, new game modes, more customization options, Workshop integration, and lots lots more.
We're just at a point where we have to set Can't Drive This free, into the wild.
Kick the baby bird out of the nest, if you will.
We'd be great bird-parents.
Getting Can't Drive This over the finish line was tough, especially with everybody transitioning into home office, and working remotely. And in all honesty, working on any game for so long takes its toll, and there certainly were moments we were just flat out fed up with the game. Imagine eating Pizza every day for five years.
... Actually that sounds awesome, bad example.
Your continued support through all this time reassured us of being on the right track.
At every stage of the development, during every moment of doubt, your support was the tailwind we needed to keep going. It's as if you were looking us deep in the eye, saying
"We know the game, and we're gonna play it.
And if you ask me how I'm feeling, don't tell me you're too blind to say.
Never gonna give you up.
Never gonna let you down.
Never gonna run around and desert you."
This game wouldn't have been made without you.
You, personally. Seriously.
First of all, if you genuinely feel this way, thank you! That's absolutely ace!
There are two things you can do to support the continued development of the game:
1) Tell your friends about it! Can't Drive This is launching on Steam, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, so no matter where they play, they can play Can't Drive This. :)
2) Tell us about it! Developing a game for so long can be exhausting, and there's nothing more motivating than hearing from players who genuinely enjoy it. It may not fund the game, but it'll definitely make our day. :)
As I said before, there's a bunch of ideas we have for the game – and if Can't Drive This sells well, we'd be thrilled to keep adding awesome new updates in the future. Truth is, we'll just have to see how it goes. :)
In any case, we're also excited to start working on our next game, Escape the Loop (which already has its own Steam page). It'll be a nice change of pace to be working on something so fundamentally different.
Music for the Road
For those who need more Can't Drive This in their lives, we prepared a Spotify playlist of songs we would've added to the game if we had infinite money. Seriously, it's absolutely insane how expensive it is to license popular songs. These are songs we thought would vibe really well with the game. Some may even sound like they're in the game! :) Just scan the above image with your Spotify app, or simply click here.
Additionally, we'll be releasing the game's soundtrack to all streaming platforms fairly soon! It's not much, but it'll help for those days where you can't get that damn theme song out of your head.
Just keep your eyes peeled!
I guess that's pretty much it.
If you want to celebrate with us today, we'll be live on Twitch at twitch.tv/pixel_maniacs pretty much all day, playing the game, talking about the development, and just generally having good time. Come and hang out! It'll be in German mostly, but we'll have no problem switching to English so everybody can follow the conversation.
Also for a more long-term deal, feel free to join our Discord (discord.gg/pixel-maniacs)!
Before I head out, I want to take one last moment to thank all the amazing people who helped make Can't Drive This possible. The seriously awesome folks over at FFF Bayern funded the game's development, which made it possible for us to make it in the first place. Our friends at Neobird helped us bring the game to Nintendo Switch, just like our buddies at Massive Miniteam helped bring it to PS5. And last, but not least: Perp Games, who believed in the game so much, they decided to publish it to PS4 and PS5 on disc! Seriously, you can own the game on disc, in a box and everything!
Finally, one last thank you to all of you, from every one of us here at Pixel Maniacs.
Chances are you've been with us for a long time – and we really appreciate the heck out of that.
See you on the streets, people!
WE HAVE A RELEASE DATE
I can't tell you how happy we are to finally say this:
WE'RE OFFICIALLY LEAVING EARLY ACCESS ON MARCH 19!
The game you've been playing is almost feature-complete, but that's not to say a few things aren't still missing! Today's update (Build #6282173) adds accessibility!
It's important to us that everybody can enjoy our games. Some of you may remember us adding a colorblind mode to our previous title ChromaGun, which was entirely based on colors.
It's unfair to marginalize a group of players, just because they can't play a game the way we do. So, today we're adding two accessibility features to remedy the two main issues players have been having with Can't Drive This.
Colorblind-Friendly Ghosts
We've heard that some colorblind players have trouble distinguishing the tiles' ghosts from the background. That's why we added the option to change its color to either blue (default), red or green. Depending on the type of colorblindness you have, one of these should help set the ghost off from the background!
Slow-Mode
Can't Drive This, at its heart, is a game about chaotic communication between two players with two different points of view. Most of that chaos comes from the game's speed – you can't drive too slowly, or you'll explode, giving you less time to think.
Of course, some people are faster at articulating thoughts than others, and not all neural pathways transmit information at the same speed. Even just the concept of "fast" is very subjective. That's why we're now introducing Slow-Mode.
Regular Speed
Slow-Mode Activated
While Slow-Mode is activated, scores won't be counted towards the global leaderboards.
However, players with Slow-Mode enabled can still play online – the player with the slowest setting in an online match sets the velocity the game will run at – and Slow-Mode won't disable the collecting of achievements either.
We're Almost There
This marks the second-to-last update before our last update on Launch day. You might be thinking "there are still two fundamental features missing!" – and yes, they will both be added to the game, once we leave early access on March 19:
Can't Drive This is not just great with friends, but also to make new ones!
...and then immediately ruin that friendship, because that's just how this game works apparently.
The full release will finally unlock the Matchmaking feature, allowing you to play with random people all over the world.
What's a game without some meta-game around it, right? We added 41 achievements for you to unlock after Launch Day. A few are easy to get, a few are tough, a few are plain funny, and all will reward you handsomely for sticking with the game!
We'll be posting a longer announcement on Launch Day, so I'll keep this one short and simple.
See you all on March 19th!
Leaderboard & Bragging Rights
we hope you made it through the holidays and the new year well!
We're getting close to finishing up, and are marching full team ahead towards the full release of Can't Drive This. As such, we prepared a new update for you of course, with Build #6050491.
As of today, you can finally earn your bragging rights in our brand new shiny Leaderboard!
What good is a high score, if it's not for the world to see?
From now on, all 2-Player online Yardage matches are automatically added to the leaderboard. So find yourself a builder or a driver, and get your names up on that wall!
The leaderboard is located in the main menu.
As usual, here's a fine selection of bugfixes:
- Fixes an issue where the game sometimes crashed when not connected to the internet
- Fixes a bug where the tutorials wouldn't play any sound
- Adds additional missing credits
- Fixes a bug where UI would disappear off-screen
- Minor wording changes
- Fixes an issue where Graphics Settings were missing sometimes
- Reduces the number of tricks needed to unlock an item
- Fixes a bug where controller vibration would sometimes not work
Let us know what you think!
Cheers
Can't Understand This
We've been working hard on this one, for all you international drivers and builders out there.
Today, we added language support for fourteen languages to Can't Drive This in Build #5944431.
That means every single written word in the game is now available in the following languages (in no particular order):
- English
- Deutsch
- Français
- Español
- Русский
- 日本人
- 한국어
- Portugues do Brasil
- ไทย
- 简体中文
- Polskie
- Italiano
- Türkçe
- Svenska
We hope we did a good job, we worked with a multitude of talented professionals – but sometimes, things get mixed up. So if you find something that doesn't sound quite right, or just outright wrong, please tell us on the forums, so we can fix it. :)
And as usual, here's an exquisite selection of squashed bugs and added features:
- Fixed an error where a random cursor was visible when starting to play
- Adds missing credits
- Fixed an issue where the game would hiccup when collecting a Holo
- Fixed a bug where the Rematch button would get stuck sometimes
- Added a tutorial video for Lone Racer
- Fixed a bug where changing mode mid-play could break Yardage and GoD
- Fixed a bug where the timer sound would play indefinitely after exploding in Lone Racer
- Removes glitching sound effects when quitting the game
- Levels in-game music to the same volume as menu-music
Single Player Now Online
just a short update – something went wrong with the Single Player update, and there's no way to find out who's fault it was*.
But the problem was fixed, and the update is NOW available.
For real this time.
* It was me, I forgot to press the button...
New Mode: True Single Player!
Welcome to the future!
Eons and eons ago, we released Can't Drive This as a purely multiplayer experience. Naturally, y'all got inventive and started playing the game alone, wrinkling your brains and pushing your hand-eye-coordination (and the parallelism of your sight lines) to the limits.
Well, wrinkle no more.
In Build #5782603, we're super excited to introduce LONE RACER.
Lone Racer is our brand new full-fledged single player mode.
Alternate between driving and building, all under the torment of a vicious new super-villain, the TIMER.
(It's just a timer, really)
Build the road as you usually would. When you're finished building, press the SWAP button*.
You'll instantly take over the role of the driver, driving along the route that you just built.
"Just driving along a prebuilt road? I CAN drive this", you might say.
That's why your building is recorded, and then played back as you drive.
So if it takes you forever to build a coherent road, you're gonna have a bad time driving.
Collect HOLOs for time bonuses, and live to drive another yard.
Explode, and you'll respawn right where you collected the last HOLO.
The score is counted as a combination of round duration, distance driven, and times exploded.
To play Lone Racer, download the latest update, and head over to LOCAL from the main menu, with only one user connected. Let us know what you think!
As usual, there are a bunch of other tweaks and fixes that made it into the new update.
Here are some of our favorites:
- Made the entire UI juicier! 💦
- Adds mouse icons for the initial builder hint
- Displays arrows pointing towards HOLOs for the builder in Game of Drones
- Displays each mode's player count in mode selection ´
- Removes mode select timer when playing alone
- Lets you return to main menu from mode selection
- Fixes a bug where controllers would rumble indefinitely on pause screen
- Fixes an issue where tires would stay dirty after respawning
- Adds controller rumble when exploding
- Fixes an issue where lives would display wrong in Game of Drones
- Balances Game of Drones difficulty
- Fixes an issue where 3-4P Game of Drones would incorrectly fail a level when a driver explodes while others are still alive
- Fixes an issue where player names were sometimes not displayed correctly
- Fixes a bug where the game would "crash" when quitting it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Gamedev is fun.
*By default, the swap-button is Tab on keyboard, Triangle on a PS Controller, and Y on an Xbox Controller)
With Hats, Customization is Now Complete!
with the today's update (Build #5552302), we added hats for your cars.
That means, player customization is now complete!
So as a driver, you can now customize:
- Primary Paint
- Secondary Paint
- Pattern
- Hats / Side & Top Attachments
- Spoilers / Rear Attachments
- Noses / Front Attachments
And as the builder, you get to customize:
- Asphalt Paint
- Primary Boundary Color
- Secondary Boundary Color
If you missed it, here's a short refresher on how to unlock customization items:
Perform tricks to increase your UNLOCK-O-METER. As the driver, you can do flips, jump through fiery rings or narrowly avoid moving obstacles (like the hammer, steamroller, etc.). As the builder, you have to build tiles in the very last second, *just* in time for the driver to land on it.
Do five of any of these in one round, and you'll unlock a new random item!
As usual, we've been scouring the game for bugs and glitches, and here are some of the ones we found, and eradicated:
- Fixed a bug where the unlock-o-meter would break in Capture the Egg
- Adds an option to clear all user-data in case something breaks
- Better handles exceptions to drastically reduce game crashes
- Displays version in settings menu
- Fixes an issue where builder hints were sometimes not displayed correctly
Put Your Paint on the Pavement!
We're back with another update, and another customization option! Here's what's new in Build #5498244
We finally added customizable asphalt colors to the customization menu!
So now, when playing as the builder, you can build with style!
Of course, if you've already unlocked asphalts in previous rounds, you'll be able to instantly equip them as of right now.
Now, go shine!
As usual, there are a bunch of fixes and minor features that we added, and here's a carefully curated selection of some of them:
- Fixes an issue where joining a game would sometimes crash the game
- Now displays control hints before first interaction
- Fixes a bug where players can become scrambled during frame selection
- Increases size of input icons
- Adds analytics
- Restructures crew menu to display vehicle ghosts in menu
- Fixes a bug where pausing while falling backwards would break the pause menu
- Fixes an issue where exploding after being invited sometimes broke both the game