Project "Busificator"

A top-down arcade about the paperwork end of a mobilisation. You drive the draft office's van around the city, take the plan of the day off the depot board, and fill it. Citizens run when they see you. Their neighbours come at the van with shovels, stools, slingshots and tomatoes. The patrol is on your side. A raid is 360 seconds.

There is no grab button. Roll up slowly and the citizen gets in by himself; drive at him and he flies into the bushes, where he lies for a couple of seconds and can still be collected. The bay holds six — and a man in the bay is worth nothing. The quota counts what you file, so every load has to reach the office marked ★ on the minimap, and a van that burns with a full bay burns the load with it. Ten units in six minutes: two trips for most drivers.

What to watch

• The plan of the day. Eight orders on the depot board — the morning quota, the IT guy hunt, the night raid, the race against a rival van. As your rank climbs, half the board turns over into work nobody briefed you on: a quota with a clause or two attached, and no two shifts alike.
• The crew. Two to five men sit in the van and nobody leaves it without the order. They chase, they brawl, they walk a catch back to the van themselves, they run out of breath, they get knocked out — and then they heal on board.
• The patrol. One key calls a blue car. Two officers get out and take on whoever is beating your van. They never catch citizens for you, and anyone they book leaves with them and off your plan.
• The megaphone. Whoever the shout frightens stands still with a «!» over his head, and that is your window. Whoever resists does not bolt, he only reels. The grandma and the athlete do not hear it at all. Everyone else in range does, which is how a paid disguise gets blown.
• The disguise. Rented for one shift — ambulance, courier, utility crew, wedding. It shortens the distance at which the street notices you, until a witness, a megaphone, a ram or a brawl blows the cover.
• The city. Uneven blocks, right-hand traffic, lights, a river with bridges, an elevated avenue you can drive up onto, a few hundred people walking the pavements, two pumps, two clinics, four patrol posts, and a mobile intake point that packs up and moves while you are looking at it.

Between raids there is the garage: eleven upgrade branches — engine, armour, bumper, tazer, window grates, megaphone, alarm, tank lid, crew, van first-aid kit, patrol radio. Five maps unlock on stars, from the bedroom district to the village. Three difficulties. Twenty rank levels across ten titles, from trainee to distinguished commissioner, each level worth another half a per cent on the bonus up to ten. Miss the quota twice in a row on Normal and the summons is yours; on Absurd, once is enough.

Controls

W and S throttle and brake, A and D steer, Shift is the handbrake, Space the megaphone, E drops one crew member off, F calls them all back, R switches them between working on order and working on their own, Q calls the patrol, H the horn, M opens the full map, Esc pauses. Every one of those is on the gamepad as well. In a browser on a phone it is a thumbstick and four buttons, and the ring around the van is the one that matters — green and he gets in, red and he flies into the bushes.

Languages and platforms

Three languages, switchable in the settings. The game opens in your browser's language when it has it, and in English when it does not. Windows download, and it plays in the browser on desktop and phone.

Co-op

Four vans, one plan. In the browser, press + in the lobby and share the code it hands you — up to four drivers work the same quota, each with his own garage and his own money, and anyone can drop in or walk out mid-shift. On Windows the same button plays over your local network. It is early, and four vans racing one clock through the same city is exactly the mess it sounds like.

Satire. It is aimed at the absurdity of a system, not at people. The violence is a cartoon — stars over the head, «flew into the bushes» — with no blood, no real names and no real brands.