Dream Car Racing --- Flash Ryview

Dream Car Racing, by ATOM Soft.

Dream Car Racing is a very unique game that gives you near full control of designing a car that you then drive to earn more money. The money is used to further modify your car. It's a very simple concept, the racing is fairly mundane, but the car design portion has nearly limitless possibilities.

There are 2 distinct phases in the game. The driving phase involves a sidescrolling race with your car, where your main goal is to pass through as many checkpoint flags as possible before you run out of fuel or kill your driver. There's nothing particularly groundbreaking here, but it's a pleasant enough experience. You get money bonuses for long air time and flips, and the money from checkpoints ramps up satisfyingly as you progress through the level. I enjoyed the difficulty of the tracks, although I did feel like I was forced to grind a bit on the first track before I could really afford to make any meaningful changes to my car. When a game like this is focused on car modification, I would have appreciated more control early on. However, given the fact that the game can be fairly long if the player so desires, I'd say this may just be a difference of opinion between the publisher and me.

I don't think my personal vehicle has shocks that will withstand this kind of punishment...

The other phase is the design phase, where you have 3 templates that you can choose from if you want to make a fairly stock car, or you can just do your own thing, which I would not recommend until you've reached the second map and earned enough money to really do it. The template serve as a nice way to keep the less-design inclined interested in the game. When I started the game, I wasn't too thrilled about the design portion, I just wanted to play a racing game. And the design aspect actually won me over during the game. So it was a nice way for me to get initiated into the gameplay experience by letting me start from a model car. But as I mentioned before, I would have definitely appreciated being able to afford big changes before I did.

I greatly appreciate the fact that you get 100% back on all the parts when you sell them. I would have condemned the game if that wasn't the case, but I wouldn't put it past some developers to do that trying to artificially inflate the game's length. This presents a worry free environment where you can test out any kind of design, regardless of sanity. And there are some good ways to streamline the process, such as optimizing the shock position and auto-upgrades, which will balance the car fairly well (although I think there should be an "auto-upgrade all" button to spend all your money auto-upgrading rather than clicking the button two dozen times).

"Use Triangles" has to be the best explanation of trusses ever written...

The game does have a full paid version at DreamCarRacing.com, where you can unlock several more maps for $3. I have not done so, but I'd say that would only be worth it if you're a big fan of the game (or if you want to support the publisher). Since there is a free experience on flash game sites, I will review the free portion that I played and give the money value score a 10.

I'd say this game deserves at least a few quick runs to get the feel of the racing portion, then it deserves some time spent designing. I really think almost anyone can find pleasure in making their very own Dream Car. (I didn't plan on that sounding like a moral).

Scorecard:

Category	Score
Time Value	7
Money Value	10
Originality	9
Ryplayability	6
Fulfillment	7
Final Score	7.8

Let me know what you think of Dream Car Racing!

Until next time,

Ryan

Pictures courtesy of ATOM Soft