Does Not Commute – Casual Gamer Column

Does Not Commute is an (initially) free game available from Google Play and the App Store. The premise is simple: drive your car to work, avoid other cars. You ‘drive’ a different car each time by frantically tapping the screen and trying to avoid crashing. Each time you move onto a new car, the previous car you have driven remains on screen, and you must avoid whatever disaster you have left behind. Thus the difficulty of avoiding obstacles becomes greater with each level. It works great as a mobile game in that it’s repetitive but mostly engaging and easy to play (also, I’ll be honest, I liked the name).  However, there are some issues that irk me.

The major problem with the game comes from the fact that you have to pay to save your game, or you’re stuck playing from the beginning again. If you’re stubborn like me, and refuse to pay for an App game, this means you’re usually stuck doing the same section over and over again, until you either A) get bored, or B) the game crashes and you lose your progress. (Note: the game crashing may be a feature of my ancient smartphone rather than the game itself.)

It is a fun little game, with amusing sound effects and the joy of crashing cars without dealing with insurance policies.

Furthermore, there really isn’t a whole lot to this game. This is pretty standard for an App game, but it still makes me even more hesitant to spend the money on saves. At the end of the day, you have to repeat the same action over and over in a slightly different environment, and whilst it’s marginally more entertaining than something like Paper Toss, the lack of any actual variety is frustrating, more so since you are being asked to pay for it.

Despite these drawbacks it is a fun little game, with amusing sound effects and the joy of crashing cars without dealing with insurance policies. In short: excellent for procrastination, but disposable and easily replaced by the latest Flappy Bird phenomenon when you get bored.