I have been a fan of David Lynch ever since a friend’s older brother interrupted a 13th birthday celebration to insist we all watch Eraserhead. In the realm of horror movies, it’s a common way to be introduced to a seminal film: be it in a friend’s basement, illicit underage viewings, or a stray recommendation from a pot-smoking sibling. It feels apt, then, that my first introduction to Easy Delivery Co. was a friend insisting I drop everything because a game exists that lets you play as a cat driving a kei truck.
I admit, those two things don’t immediately correlate. But it’s clear that Lynch, particularly Twin Peaks, was a major influence for developer Sam Cameron, in what the Steam description explains is “a relaxing driving game, with definitely no secrets.”
Easy Delivery Co. starts you off gently. You are a nameless black cat, rendered in the style of Animal Crossing on the GameCube, working as a delivery driver in a sleepy mountain community. Day and night, you shuttle supplies between shops and businesses snowed in by a perpetual blizzard. Like most real-world delivery drivers, resting is discouraged. Instead, you neck energy drinks and coffee to keep at bay the biting cold that threatens to overcome you the moment you set foot outside the adorably small cabin of your kei truck.
That cold will likely be your first sign that all is not what it seems. Succumbing to the blizzard as you shuffle to a vending machine or take too long shutting your truck’s tailgate briefly transports you to a dark and ostensibly endless maze, before you wake to resume your deliveries. Yet, as your world expands to other towns, you’ll also find that, curiously, all the shopkeepers remain the same. Then there’s MK, the only character you’ll meet outside — and the only dog in town — who leads you away from the repeating web of deliveries to set you on the path to unraveling the mountain’s mysteries.
Easy Delivery Co. is not a complex game. You drive, pick stuff up, and spend your earnings on the means to do more of that. This low-poly mix of Lake and Silent Hill makes for an interesting concept, even if, like many indie games that hit upon an intriguing hook, the story is a little clumsy — especially as the game shifts from a meandering string of ostensibly unrelated tasks toward its narrative climax.
There are rough edges, too. Among a few minor bugs I encountered, dropping cargo — which you’ll do often on these icy roads — can sometimes leave you unable to retrieve it even though it’s right in front of you. Those rough edges, however, are not terminal. That specific bug is easily remedied by aborting the job and picking another, as Easy Delivery Co. is pleasingly forgiving, levying few penalties for leaving a job or having a rough drive.
Driving, the thing you’ll do the most in this game, is relaxing without being passive, a hard balance to strike. Setting Easy Delivery Co. in a snowy tangle of mountain roads, delivering a variety of items that impact how your truck handles, is a smart turn. You can zone out somewhat, but not completely, as you have to adjust for the conditions and loads. This is something you’ll become accustomed to after you careen off the road and roll down the mountain a few times — something I did a little more often for playing with the perfectly manageable keyboard controls, rather than a controller. None of that is frustrating. In fact, more than once a mistake led to an accidental shortcut, achieved mostly by somehow surviving a lengthy cartwheel down an incline with my cargo intact.
Image: Oro Interactive
If I have one glaring issue with Easy Delivery Co., it’s the balance between direction and freedom. Many mechanics in-game are found in readable tutorials but also able to be puzzled out. For instance, I appreciated being able to ignore guidance and work out how to make coffee myself or that my lighter will let me stay out in the cold for longer. Being ushered through the game’s main quest by MK, I found myself — oddly for someone usually allergic to obfuscation — wishing there was more of the central mystery to discover independently, more secrets beyond the odd collectible to solve myself. Though that, I think, comes from a desire to spend more time in Easy Delivery Co.’s eerier side. Either that or I’m just a cat person.
It’s a sign of how versatile Easy Delivery Co. can be, however. You can, if you’re inclined, race through the game’s main story with minimal deliveries in the space of a few hours. You can also completely ignore it — and MK — and stay frozen in a sequence of deliveries, basking in the low-poly, nostalgic environment and listening to catchy jingles through the radio.
My favorite way to play was to make Easy Delivery Co. small in the corner of my screen, where it remained perfectly visible and playable, while watching YouTube or TV… which may have contributed to how much time I spent off-road. I might be biased, if only because Easy Delivery Co. feels like it’s been developed from a Venn diagram of my specific interests (especially adorably proportioned motor vehicles). But one of my gaming holy grails is something I can play and enjoy while watching something else to pass tired hours — in Easy Delivery Co. I’ve finally found that.
Easy Delivery Co. is available now on Steam.
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