Friendslop is everywhere these days. Take one glance at the most recent Steam Next Fest and you’ll be inundated with not only mountains of obnoxious AI slop, but countless games where you and a group of friends can get up to wacky hijinks with cartoonish avatars, over the top physics, and hilarious use of proximity chat. If you’re a developer and your take on this genre goes viral, it has a chance of attracting tens of thousands of players and being a massive financial success--it’s no surprise that friendslop has become so commonplace.
But if you fancy gaming on your lonesome for once or sadly don’t have any friends but still want to embrace the chaos of friendslop, then the latest game by Double Fine could be right up your street. Just make sure a bus filled with rowdy passengers doesn’t run you down as you start walking down it.
Thank You Bus Driver is available on Steam for only $5 and it’s a delightfully wacky adventure that does exactly what it says on the tin. You are a bus driver working in a small monochrome city and must drive passengers to their destination. Do so by completing certain objectives like stopping people from eating smelly food or dozing off and you’ll earn a "Thank You" for your troubles. I don’t think falling asleep on the bus is that much of a bad thing (though I suppose it might get you mugged in London).
Your task isn’t just about driving from place to place though, you also need to keep your passengers in line by turning around and smacking them with your freakishly long arms. And if someone refuses to stop, you can easily throw them out the backdoor into oncoming traffic. Lovely stuff. Well, it would be if you didn’t also need to keep driving at the exact same time and reach your next destination before the shift timer runs out. Double Fine has crafted a gameplay formula that is easy to understand yet deceptively hard to master while giving off the very same lunacy I’ve experienced in games like Peak or REPO.
And that's just scratching the surface. Every few stops a creepy dude in a trench coat will come aboard and offer you a selection of gadgets. You can hang an air freshener to eliminate smelly passengers, hang fairy lights or fuzzy dice around the window simply to block your view and cause extra trouble for the added thrill, or down a drink to make your vehicle go even faster--less control, but doing so may allow you to make your destination after suffering a setback. Oh, and be sure to look at your map if you get lost. No, not that long! Keep your eyes on the road as well!
Everything is designed to make your job not only more difficult, but also more fun as you desperately try to adapt to the chaos.
I knew Thank You Bus Driver possessed the same infectious charm as my favorite friendslop games when one of my housemates noticed what I was playing and sat right down next to me, laughing in absurd glee as I ran down a cow and let its udders slip down my increasingly overstuffed windscreen. He wasn’t even playing, but not once hesitated to suggest potential shortcuts across meadows or down mountains that could save me a few precious seconds even if my clientele would forever curse the lack of seatbelts on public transportation. Take it up with your local authority, pal.
Friendslop has become such a popular staple for the types of games that friends play together, it can often be easy to forget how, before the genre existed, experiences like Thank You Bus Driver could draw in spectators and make them feel just as involved in the action. Just by being there, those onlookers have an impact and improve the overall experience of playing the game.
I’m eager to keep playing Thank You Bus Driver to earn new town variants, weird unlocks, and passengers who will test my potential for vehicular manslaughter. And I'm sure a few of the people I live with will be just as eager to watch me do it. I doubt I’ll wind up playing this game for a long time, but I’m damn sure having a good one.