Parking Lot Simulator: Car Collector Review (PC)

When I was asked if I was ready to “create the parking lot of my dreams,” I hesitated. I stuck with a pause, not because I wasn’t mentally prepared to take on such a challenge, but because I couldn’t for the life of me figure out who on earth would dream about such a dull achievement. And I think the creators behind Parking Lot Simulator knew this all too well—that it wouldn’t be enough to persuade its users to plant roots in a relatively depressing trade—given that they made it so that, while its players can valet their vehicles, they can also accomplish a lot more, should they be willing to go the extra mile, so to speak.

I’ll be honest, if Parking Lot Simulator was just about building a car park and valeting cars, it wouldn’t be a game worth talking about. And yet, even with such a mundane title under its belt, Parking Lot Simulator is actually a lot more than a generic park and ride title. It’s a lot more, not because it makes the process of parking these vehicles oddly satisfying, but because it gives you the opportunity to collect, upgrade, and drive these vehicles in an open-world environment that, although fairly minimal in size, has an oddly high quantity of activities to participate in alongside the usual duties.

Parking Lot Simulator doesn’t do itself justice with the title that it brings to the table, but don’t let that fool you into thinking that it’s a transparent journey. Curious to hear more about it? Then let’s delve a little deeper into the details.

Tickets, Please

The process is simple: park vehicles, earn tips, and increase your repertoire of classic cars. This is, for the most part, the job that pays the bills: building a sturdy reputation that can keep clients parking outside of your establishment, and then using their hard-earned cash to fund even greater enterprises, like collecting and upgrading old cars, and establishing an illegal street racing circuit to help fuel your underlying passion for questionable endeavors. And you can do a bit more than that with the leftover cash in your pocket, too, like visit nightclubs, patrol the streets, and spend your pocket change on one of several hidden opportunities somewhere in the city.

On paper, it sounds like quite the business venture — and it is. But, even with so many incentives to collect, it can still be a pretty mundane process. It’s barebones and often a little tedious, the act of giving stranger’s their numbers, parking cars, and earning pocket change. However, what you see is what you get here, and what you get is literally on the box, etched into the title. For that reason, I can’t bring myself to fault it for a lack of transparency; it makes it abundantly clear right from the moment you park your first car in the yellow hatched area that a good eighty percent of your journey will more or less roll out in a similar direction. You park, your earn, and you invest in small but seemingly noticeable improvements for your car park to attract more customers, and obtain better options for your collection.

A Lonely World

I didn’t expect to find any heartwarming stories or eccentric companions in this world, and to be honest, I don’t think I ever did, despite having gone through it a handful of times in an effort to find a pulse. The truth here is that the world itself is very lackluster and dull. The addition of several extracurricular activities outside of the nine-to-five routine is a solid way to keep the hours flowing, I’ll admit. And yet, the world and most of the things in it lacks substance and depth, which means that, even with a surprising amount of things on the dossier, it never really feels as if you’re accomplishing anything. So, you can drive around and participate in the odd job — but the game doesn’t really make it so that you feel any different than how you did before. It’s redundant, but it’s still meat on the table.

Speaking from audiovisual standpoint, Parking Lot Simulator has the usual janky edges that you might come to expect from an indie chore core-like sim, complete with the familiar wooden NPCs, block-like buildings, and calligraphy that might as well be written in Comic Sans. On the one hand, I can appreciate the developer’s commitment to building an open-world experience and filling it with whatever was necessary to get that “city” aesthetic. But, with a lack of creativity and some pretty hollow features, it just doesn’t meet that “living, breathing, and thriving spirit” of a bustling metropolis. The attention to detail of the car scene is great — but that’s about as deep as it goes, unfortunately.

Verdict

In spite of all my best efforts to slate Parking Lot Simulator for being a shameless cash grab, the fact is, I actually quite like it. Don’t get me wrong, I still think that it’s a bit of a barebones idea—parking vehicles and upgrading a generic car park—but it’s also an idea that piques my interest, not necessarily because it uses alternate incentives to keep you slugging around in the streets, but because it provides a foundation for a game that could be even bigger, better, and more refined in later updates. And I sincerely hope that it does continue its search for new ways to evolve its primary blueprint, truly.

Parking Lot Simulator is an Early Access game, and so, you can definitely expect to encounter your fair share of bugs and mismatched doohickeys here. With that said, if you’re the sort of gamer who gets a kick out of completing relatively generic tasks and doesn’t grow tired of the tedious nature of a soulless graft, then I imagine that you will be able to squeeze some life out of this particular vessel. If you’re on the fence about it, though, then I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to splurge your cash on it.