BIG STEAL CAR: ANDREAS-SAN

One block. A dead-end lane at the edge of the sprawl, two storeys high on both sides, closed at the far end by a small shrine with a stone fox either side of the torii. Twelve houses that belong to twelve different people. A konbini glowing white at the corner and an izakaya under a noren beside it. Vending machines standing in rows like sentries. Power lines cutting the sky into panels.

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

How to play

Walk it. Then take a car off the kerb and see who was watching.

• Move — walk, jog, sprint the length of Hozumi-dori.
• Take a car — walk up to any parked vehicle and get in. Pull the door, drop into the seat, the engine catches. Get out anywhere, any time.
• Drive — arcade weight, weight transfer, handbrake slides on a lane six metres wide.
• The heat — take a car where a neighbour can see you and the paper lanterns start filling. Patrol cars come up Nabe-suji. Lose them by breaking line of sight in the back alley, or ditch the car and walk away calm.
• 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. Then the lanterns, at midnight, the whole lane.

The radio 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 place

Hozumi-dori 3-chome, Kuzuha-koji behind it, Nabe-suji across the top. Inaho Inari Shrine. POPLIFE. Coin Laundry ARARE. A basketball court on cracked asphalt with a bent hoop. The neighbourhood's last unsold rice plot behind a hoarding.

Every name, every brand, every car in this game is invented. It is an homage and a parody, and it is entirely its own.

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Portrait — best seen tall.