BIG STEAL CAR: ANDREAS-SAN

One block. One night. Twelve houses that belong to twelve different people.

Hozumi-dori 3-chome is a dead-end shitamachi lane at the edge of the sprawl — two storeys of houses on both sides, cinderblock walls and chain-link, power lines cutting the sky into panels, and a small shrine with a stone fox either side of the torii closing off the far end. A konbini glows white at the corner. An izakaya sits under a noren beside it. Vending machines stand in rows like sentries, and cherry trees drop petals into the storm drains.

You are Ando "Andreas-san" Ryu, back on the street he grew up on, living in his grandmother's house, and not staying out of trouble.

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How to play

Move — W A S D, mouse to look. Walk, jog, sprint the length of the lane.

Take a car — walk up to any parked vehicle and press F (or E). Ando pulls the door, drops into the seat, and the engine catches. Press it again to get out — anywhere, any time, mid-street.

Drive — W / S for throttle and brake, A / D to steer, Space for the handbrake. Arcade weight, real weight transfer, and a lane exactly six metres wide to slide it on.

The heat — take a car where a neighbour can see you and the paper lanterns across the top of the screen start filling, one by one, up to THE WHOLE KOBAN. Patrol cars come up Nabe-suji. Break their line of sight in Kuzuha-koji behind the houses, or ditch the car and walk away calm, and the lanterns go out again.

The jobs — Mama-san Kikuno runs them out of Izakaya Tsuki-no-Ha. Carry a bento to the shrine before it goes cold. Lose a tail. Collect from three doorways. Get the old Hoshino Ryusei back under the torii intact. Finish the chain and the night ends in Hanami at Midnight — every lantern on the lane lit, blossom in the air, the whole block out on the asphalt.

Get busted at maximum heat and the block does not reset. You wake up at the izakaya and Kikuno has something to say about it.

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What is worth seeing

• The lane from its mouth at dusk. The whole game is composed for a tall screen: the street recedes, the poles and overhead lines stack up the frame, and the torii sits at the vanishing point.
• The day arc. The block runs a clock. Late afternoon is warm and over-saturated; by evening the stall lamps, the shrine lanterns and the coin laundry's flickering tube are doing the lighting.
• The neighbours. Twelve houses, twelve people, each written with their own reason to be out on the street — sweeping, smoking, hanging washing, watching you.
• The radio. It is always on. FM SODA-POP 79.3, Namida Hoso 1188, and NIGHT TALK 1422, where Hamada-san has opinions about this exact street.
• The end cards. Both of them are worth reaching.

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Every street name, shop, brand, radio station and vehicle in this game is invented. It is an original homage and a parody, and it carries no real-world marks anywhere.

Portrait — best seen tall, best on a phone.