Sundays are for realising that there’s a car in Japan’s Super GT racing series this year which is sponsored by horse girl game Umamusume Pretty Derby. Here it is. It’s been racing in the GT300 category against, among other cars, a Mercedes sponsored by Hatsune Miku. I’m not sure I like them as much as my all-time favourite GT300 car, the Mooncraft Shiden (I mostly just dig its name), but hey, they exist. I often wonder if their small crews of drivers – Super GT has pilots swap over after a set time behind the wheel – gather at the back of the garages and think about some bloke in the UK writing for a games website. They probably don’t.
Oh, wait. Someone’s walking up to them as they gather behind those garages. He’s handing them a package, and then walking away. They’re understandably confused. He’s gone. The drivers open up the box. Within are sheets of paper. Written atop the first one is a question. What the heck is happening to Love and Deepspace? Nothing comes to their minds, but it’s ok, because Respec’s former RPSer and VG247er Rebecca Jones is there to fill them in.
Despite Infold’s opaque communication — which has leaned hard into grovelling apologies without ever being too specific on what they’re actually apologising for — it was immediately apparent what had happened. Backlash to Valko’s planned introduction from some fans of the established LIs had been vicious, particularly in the game’s native China. Complaints of the sidelining of existing characters and disapproval of aspects of Valko’s design quickly escalated into reports of cow manure and funeral wreaths being mailed to Infold’s offices, and – even more concerningly – the involvement of CCP officials to investigate aspects of Valko’s storyline. Specifically, alleged references to WW2 war crimes committed against China by Japan were reportedly dug up from since-deleted game files (bound to raise red flags at the best of times, but disastrous with the current rising tensions between the two nations), as well as certain sexually threatening aspects of Valko’s behaviour in his introductory trailer.
The drivers are intrigued. They flip on to the next sheet. Hmm. If The Odyssey film is anything like The Odyssey adventure game from 2012, Matt Damon will spend the entire first hour trying to solve a single loom puzzle, it reads. “Ah, this one’s about that new movie,” muses Hatsune Miku Merc driver Tatsuya Kataoka. It is, and it’s written by Porsche Curves Gamer’s Christopher Livingston.
Let me give you a hypothetical. You’re on a tiny raft. Your rudder has broken. You’re Matt Damon. You ask a god for help and they magically summon a fish into your empty food bowl. What do you do with that fish? Name the first 50 things that come to mind.
Was any of them “throw the fish into the ocean?” No? Why, because it would be completely nuts to throw away the life-sustaining gift of food a god just broke the laws of the universe to deliver to you? That’s the solution. Throwing the fish away summons a talking bird who gives Matt Damon 12 statuettes with images carved on them, and to figure out which way to sail, Matt Damon has to identify 12 constellations in the sky and match them to the statuettes.
“Wonder if Matt Damon likes racing cars,” says Umamusume Beemer pilot Yusuke Tomibayashi. “Lots of actors do.” They leaf on. The next sheet isn’t a sheet of paper. It’s a folding ladder. The drivers are puzzled. The ladder has some words written on its steps. “Fuck ladders.” Thankfully, a Eurogamer blue post-it note from Kirk McKeand is stuck to the bottom rung.
Liz England, former lead designer at Ubisoft and Insomniac, has good experience with them. “There’s always cases where, when you put players in a different move state, there’s bugs where they get stuck in that move state,” she explains. “So, you might end up getting just kicked off the ladder, but you also can’t pull out a gun anymore. Ladders are horrible.”
England wrote a blog called The Door Problem after she’d gone for a meal with some non-gamers and the subject of games came up. England found herself trying to explain the creeping complexity of seemingly mundane objects. She points at a door during our conversation. “We take them for granted, they’re all over the place,” she says. “Everyone knows how a door works, everyone knows what a door is, but in a game, there’s nothing that says a door is solid or not. Does it open towards you, or does it open away from you? Does it hit you in the face?”
Doors are bastards. Ladders are arguably worse.
In the deepest depths of the box, the drivers find a phone. Suddenly, it rings. “Hello?” asks Umamusume BMW pilot Yuta Fujiwara, answering the call. “Just a normal day,” growls a voice on the other end of the line. “Huh?” exclaims Fujiwara. The voice on the other end launches into a tirade about a fictional man called Tom Orry and his life being a Low Poly Mess.
11:30, and I’m sort of happy with the article now, but I can’t stop thinking about the delivery man. I Google ‘Is a delivery driver allowed to use a customer’s toilet?’ for some reason expecting to find a result that’s helpful. I don’t find anything other than a website that appears to be for grans to talk to each other, on which one gran mentions how she allowed a driver in to use her toilet. I feel bad.
The day goes on but I’m still haunted by this decision/lack of awareness. I hope I never see him again – the stress would just be too much.
The voice hangs up. Fujiwara doesn’t know what to think. He and the other drivers exchange nervous glances, then choose to abandon the box by a bin and try to resume their driving duties as if nothing has happened.
Hatsune Miku Merc driver Nobuteru Taniguchi, whose YouTube channel is called NOB, walks back into the garage of his Goodsmile Racing and Team Ukyo squad. He opens up the door of the Miku Merc, just to check everything’s as it should be for his next practice run. There’s someone already in the driver’s seat. “Uma-assume that you didn’t expect to see me here,” roars Adrian Edmondson. Taniguchi jumps back, then folds his arms. “You’re in the wrong car for that gag.” Adrian Edmondson grimaces. “Ah. Bollocks. As you were then.”