Work is work, work sucks, we'd all rather be doing no work, but if we've gotta work, some of my favourite work is mundane work. Anything I can clock in to, go into a meditative state while performing it then clock off, sign me up. I've loved chopping vegetables and washing dishes because I could listen to music the whole time, and I've walked the streets delivering catalogues because I was trying (and failed) to learn a language through my headphones at the same time.
That's why whenever I retire from all of this I'd love to moonlight as a postman, and it's also why I've had such a great time this week with Easy Delivery Co., a game I have described to my friends as "horrificute".
You play a delivery driver (well, delivery cat) working in a desolate, low-poly world, with bleak weather and off-kilter inhabitants that would all be a very good take on Silent Hill were it not for the fact everyone you meet looks and talks like they've just stepped out of Animal Crossing instead.
Which creates a wonderful duality of all these cute animal guys chirping their lines and ostensibly being friendly to you and asking you to help perform odd little jobs, while at the same time the game has a brutal survival element to it (you can freeze to death, which then leads to...stuff). Everything those cute animal guys are saying isn't quite right, and thejob interface interface comes served in a bleak, almost dystopian wrapper of capitalist servitude.
Easy Delivery Co. has you driving to a job, picking up some packages then delivering them across a small map (my favourite kind!), which consists of a handful of towns, some big bridges and a lot of snow. After you deliver a package you get some money, take a new job then do it all again, over and over, for around 4-5 hours, with just the weather, a map (on-screen waypoint markers are limited) and some lo-fi music to keep you company out on the road. It's unsettling, in a way, but also reassuring; the snow makes your journeys feel as comforting as they are dangerous, and the act of driving around, helping some animals out and listening to music is as meditative as I like my work to be.
What really got me in the mood to clock in and do some work, though, is the game's truck. Look at it! That cute little kei truck! It's great! Best of all, it works like a real truck and is kinda pedantic about it, in that to begin and end a delivery you need to park, get out, drop the tray flap, unload the cargo, then put the tray flap back up, making a very satisfying thunk sound as it goes.
I just can't get enough of little procedure touches like that. If this game had just asked me to drive somewhere and then my package was just magically marked as "delivered" I'd have probably made it 15 minutes in before bailing. But get me lost in the work and I'll drive that truck all day long.
(Easy Delivery Co. is out now on Steam).
