Feb 22, 2020
The Existential Dread of Euro Truck Simulator
When my gran died she left behind her Hackney situated home. My Aunt, Uncle and Dad sold the house and split the money between them. My parents used their third to buy a bungalow in Suffolk: a fixer-upper they plan to retire to. They needed some help fixing up and I needed a Unity license, so I could put fog in my game. So, we struck a deal: they would pay the £400 (ish) for my educational Unity license, and in return I would spend a few of my weekends painting walls and mixing cement – A debt I never completely repaid.
What I remember most about those weekends were the Friday night car journeys from London, along the motorway and past the airbase. Eventually we’d reach the forest, with the headlights of my dad’s Mazda Bongo camper-van casting shadows among the trees. I’ve never been able to read on car rides, so my mind would inevitably wander. Back then it would be about university or whatever might come after it. I was worried about what was next, but always felt full of hope. I knew there were scary things around the corner, but they were unknown, so I would daydream projecting my fears into the darkness.
Years later, in 2019 I booted up Euro Truck Simulator 2 for the first time. Simulator games tend to have an uncanny look and feel to them: almost real, but in the safety net of a virtual environment. I wanted to take my new faux-career as a truck driver semi-seriously. Fictional cargo needed delivering and I would get it there promptly, in a satisfying loop of monetary gain. I even installed mods to increase the realism: upping the uncanny factor with HD textures, real petrol stations, advertisements, google maps and truck accessories.
I’d never learnt to drive in real life, but in Euro Truck I was getting pretty good. I drove carefully, racking up job after job. It felt great, I was slowly expanding my trucking empire. Then at some point, without me realising it, it had gotten dark. Up until then I’d done all my jobs under the light of the virtual sun. Suddenly it was like I was in my dad’s van again, tearing through motorways and unlit country roads. Only this time I sat where my dad had sat, and my mind started to drift once again.
Between undergrad and 2019 I’d lost the enthusiasm and hope I had, whilst discovering my creative voice at university. The stability I’d hoped for never came. I was diagnosed with depression. The physical and mental toll of my minimum wage retail job was getting too much, so I quit. I felt like all I had done was accumulate more debt. The student loans weren’t going anywhere, I still owed my brother money and my parents had been supporting my earnest attempt at a career in video games.
In my fictional job I continued trucking through the night, purposely forcing my in-game avatar to sleep through the day, waking only to work at night. Peering over my steering wheel, I’d try to look beyond my headlights for anything lurking in the distance. My debts were out there, old and new, hiding behind the trees, waiting to devour me. Time to pay up. You can’t keep running.
It’s 2020, I’m still working on a game I started when I graduated, back in 2015: I try to find the hope and vigour I had back then. I try to push forward. Spending time only thinking about myself, my shame and my failure, won’t bring back what I lost. Introspection isn’t always healthy, sometimes it can be lethal. My debts are out there, in those dark winding roads, but maybe something else is too, only I might have to stop to see it.
- Cel
