Traffic Jams is one of those VR games that just sort of clicks as soon as you pick it up.
In Little Chicken’s newest VR title, you control the flow of cars and pedestrians on bustling city streets. Perhaps not the most immediately exciting concept for a game, no, but Traffic Jams’ intuitive design and potential for frantic mayhem does hold a lot of promise. We spoke to Little Chicken CEO Yannis Bolman about what to expect from the game in an interview you can see below.
Actually playing two levels of Traffic Jams doesn’t really give you much sense of how the final game will turn out. It’d be like playing the first level of Overcooked and trying to decipher if it would be a hit there and then. But there are hints of something promising in here that suggest Traffic Jams could be your next VR party game.
Intuitive Control
The core foundation for Traffic Jams is its intuition. To stop cars and pedestrians you simply point at them and hold your hand up. To get them moving again, you beckon them forward with a flick of the wrist. It’s super simple to grasp regardless of your past experience with VR or even gaming in general. The game’s first few levels are pretty manageable, but we’ll be eager to see how this control scheme evolves when things get more manic.
As a side note: The game makes perfect sense for Quest hand-tracking support, which Little Chicken says it’s looking into. Hopefully something comes from that.
A Touch Of Strategy
There are some hints at deeper elements to Traffic Jams than just pointing and signaling, too. Zombies, for example, crop up from beneath manhole covers and march towards you. You can throw items to stop them in their tracks but a better (and much more satisfying) call is to send a bus charging into them. Again, we’re looking forward to see how this element evolves as we take on tougher levels.
Things To Come
Perhaps it’s the promise of things to come that has us holding out hope on Traffic Jams, though. At our VR Showcase last week we revealed the game’s local multiplayer mode, which lets others join in via smartphone. Though there’s no two-player VR option and the game can be played entirely in single-player, it really feels like the type of title best enjoyed with others around you.
Traffic Jams releases this September for Oculus Quest, PSVR and PC VR headsets. You can wishlist on Steam here.
