Easy Delivery Co.

Not to compare this tiny game to Death Stranding—a video game single-handedly directed, designed, written and produced by Hideo Kojima—but it provides some helpful contrast here. It also has you delivering packages in an inhospitable open world, but it’s a huge game where deliveries are mechanically complex. There are different types of cargo that can be both damaged and repaired in multiple ways. You mostly deliver on foot and have to consider not just weight of your cargo, but weight distribution, as well as every step you take. You are encouraged to plan your route and when possible, make multiple deliveries in one go. And that’s not to mention an entire infrastructure that you are expected to build. It’s a lot.

On the other hand, Easy Delivery Co. makes most things simple and yes, easy. There’s only ever one delivery at a time, a single package to deliver from A to B. There’s no point C on your route. Stack of pizza boxes higher than the player character is daunting at first, until you realize it’s basically a little cardboard Slinky, trying so hard to stay on the open truck bed. Packages falling out are of no consequence as long as you keep at least one of them in. Even if the last one falls out, you can get out of the truck and retrieve it. The are no fragile packages, nothing to break. No time limit. No rating. Just get from point A to point B. You do that in a cute Kei truck that is bouncy, sticky, responsive and fast at the same time. Center of gravity for that thing must be somewhere deep below tarmac, because it is almost impossible to tip over, but even if you crash or fall off a cliff, it’s fine. Driving is not intended to be challenging, just plain fun.

I know it’s in the name, but it sounds a little too easy, right? What kind of delivery game is this when delivering packages safely and in timely fashion doesn’t seem to matter?

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Imagine this: a map showing every point of interest, with your location highlighted and updated in real time. Markers you can put down to plan the route. HUD UI element indicating exact distance and direction of your destination. Fuck it: a line between two places, drawn directly over the roads for you to follow.
Maps in video games are often perfect GPS navigations telling you which turn to take and when. Hell, that's basically what "map" means now—a GPS inside our pocket at all times. Navigation is often reduced to this near-frictionless state and the “world” in open-world games might as well not exist.

Easy Delivery Co scales a lot of that back. Much like the entire game, its map UI is very light on detail. It shows roads and names for different parts of a given city, but that's basically it. The only points of interest explicitly marked on it are radio towers (relevant at some point of the story) and gas stations, allowing you to plan a quick refueling stop to keep your truck going. When selecting from a list of procedurally generated delivery jobs, you see a marker for pickup and drop-off points, but, crucially, without the context of your own coordinates. It's up to you to figure out where you are.

And so to traverse this tiny open world means following the roads, not a map. You don't play this game in the UI. You look for a bright light that a shopkeeper left on as he awaits your arrival. If you feel the need to slow down, it’s more likely to try and read a road sign before zipping right past it, than it is to merely stay on the icy asphalt. You’ll need to rely on those signs less and less as with each delivery, these roads become pathways in your mind. Every bend and intersection familiar, a recognizable shape which maps onto the simplified interface.
It’s really funny that even when you quit the game with a delivery in progress and then load back later, the game doesn’t tell you where you are. No problem—just look around and drive for a little bit to get your bearings. One exception the game makes is when you get close to a delivery drop off location. It's only then that a UI pops up and shows you the distance from your target. I think it’s a good compromise, though I wouldn’t be mad if this was also solved diegetically.

Visuals also add a thin layer of friction and uncertainty, especially at the start of the game. Wobbly low-poly geometry covered in pixelated textures and snow that will never melt, make the world look really same-y at first glance. After a while, you’ll pick up on patterns and differences, each part of each city a little different. In Easton and Weston in Mountain city, you’ll see residential buildings assembled from prefabricated concrete blocks, much like the buildings I grew up in, and the one I live in now. Red houses with white trims are to be found in Fishing City, reminding me of those we saw on our trip to Norway earlier this year. Snowy Peaks with its timber lodges. Towering above all, a railway bridge visible from virtually anywhere. But the real joy is when you start noticing shortcuts. A hillside that looks like a road is supposed to be there. Or maybe just a little bump that launches you into the air and over an obstacle. Or a wrong turn that can take you closer to your target, even though a road sign would have you believe otherwise. The open world of Easy Delivery Co. feels perfectly sized. It’s big enough that driving between cities invites some monotony, but not so big that it necessitates a need for fast travel, and so it gives you the opportunity to actually drive through, to navigate, to learn.

This is not some hardcore cartography game or an exploration game, but it is about navigating a space. It understands that knowing a place is satisfying in itself. I don’t have the travel bug to the extent a lot of other people do, but the thing I like about traveling to a new city isn’t as much sightseeing as it is simply getting to know my surroundings. At first I need to check my phone (or ask! 😱) for directions, but next time I’m in the area, I probably won’t need to! Just to know where you are and how to get where you’re going can feel so cool! To me, Easy Delivery Co. evokes that exact feeling.

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Driving around and listening to (extremely chill) drum’n’bass is relaxing, no doubt.

You know what’s not relaxing?

Never going to sleep to make enough money to afford gas, to make enough money to buy coffee to stay awake so that you can make enough money to uhhh… not die, I guess?

This is not a grindy game, but it is about grind. There were moments where I had to take on a small job in the neighborhood that I was already in, because I needed a few extra bucks for an energy drink just to stay awake. Or one time later on when I was saving up for an upgrade and had almost enough, only to realize that I’m running on fumes. Well that’s fifty bucks for a tank full of gas. I’m running low on coffee so I should probably buy stuff for that, too? Suddenly I’m down a cool hundo. I need another job. And it’s not just you. The only people you interact with are shopkeepers and like you, they’re always there, always working. It doesn’t matter that it’s 2:30 AM. There’s not much else going on other than work. Often, your delivery target is just a random house somewhere, but whether it’s day or night, there’s no one there to receive the package. You just leave it on the sidewalk and drive away.

It’s not difficult to pick up on what the message is here, but I wouldn’t call it heavy-handed. The contrast between the chill, simple gameplay and the harrowing reality of just existing is what makes it hit, and I appreciate it chooses to say something instead of being tone-deaf-cozy.

I reached one of the endings in about nine hours and I was taking it really slow. It’s long enough to feel repetitive, but in a way that gives some weight to the narrative. I really enjoyed it.

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