Commuter games

The Hero may not have video games invading his dreams, as the Princess has experienced recently, but it turns out that he is not immune to their influence. On his first day driving to work after a snowstorm some weeks ago, he termed the drive Does Not Commute, after one of our favorite* games.

In this game, you, as the driver, are given a script that might say, for example, “Mrs. Jones is late for work again, and she has a big presentation at nine.” You, Mrs. Jones, are expected to navigate your way to work in the time allotted and in one piece. This is fairly easy in the beginning. As you progress to new scripts and more challenging drives, however, your former selves—such as Mrs. Jones—are also on the road, often right where your present self also happens to be, or wants to be, and, well, you can see the difficulty.

In addition, your speed is determined entirely by the type of vehicle you happen to be in at the moment. Driving a lumbering ice cream truck? No problem navigating turns. Driving a speeding motorcycle? Good luck making a 90-degree turn successfully. Or any turn.

The game provides helpful arrows showing you possible routes to reach your destination, some of which require great leaps over bodies of water and, in our judgment, great leaps of stupidity. We have, accidentally, leaped off bridges over roads. Sometimes we've even landed back on the road. This is all accidental, as is arriving at your destination in a timely manner.

So when the Hero drove to work after the snowstorm, he had his own script to follow. It went something like this.

Okay, bridge coming up...icy patches like to hide there. There’s one! Avert! Good job.

A car’s coming straight at you! Swerve, swerve! Get into another lane!

Uh oh, your lane is disappearing into a snowbank. Find another one!

Hey, you need to refuel. Uh, oh, the lines are too long. No time to wait; gotta keep going and wait for another one.

Look out for the snowplow!

Okay, you're almost there...one last turn into the parking garage...oh, no, the gate’s down! Abort turn! Keep going!

Bus bearing down!

Stray kitten in the road!

Slush on the windshield!

Almost out of gas! Park NOW!

No, not on the sidewalk! See the tree? Sidewalk. Get off.

Screech. Sure, this counts as parking! Who cares if you're facing the wrong way and are sticking out a bit. Okay, a lot. Better fix that.

Almost to work! Just walk 38 blocks to the building! Good luck! And remember to watch out for buses…!

On second thought, maybe making great leaps over large bodies of water is a piece of cake.

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*Favorite in the same way you might have a certain tooth you like to get pulled over and over again.