Deccan Drive

About Deccan Drive

Deccan Drive is an open world built out of an Indian city rather than an American one. You start on foot at a chai stand in the Old City with two thousand rupees and no vehicle, and everything after that is something you chose to do: take a job, rent a ride, learn which lanes are worth taking at six in the evening.

Work is the spine of it. The board offers seven kinds of job — helping at a chai stall, running parcels by cycle through the old city, evening food delivery, a taxi fare from the station, a supply run for the garage, an urgent medical parcel, a sightseeing drive. Each one names its fee, its payout and the vehicle it needs before you accept. Each one is scored out of ten on speed and on how little damage you did getting there.

Nothing is free, including the car

Vehicles are rented by the ten minutes, not owned: twenty rupees for a bicycle, eighty for a motorcycle, a hundred and twenty for an auto, two hundred for a car, three hundred and fifty for a bus. Horses and bullock carts are cheaper and need no fuel. Let the rental lapse mid-job and the vehicle simply stops. Fuel, food and repairs come out of the same wallet, and energy drains as you run, so a plan that looks profitable on the board can lose money on the road.

Five places sit under one wallet: Deccan City itself, and the towns and villages of Nandipur, Suryagarh, Mallipalli and Kaveripet, each with its own errands. Travel between them is free and your ratings follow you. Drive badly enough and the police take an interest — bumps get a warning, a real collision gets a fine, and an arrest lets you choose jail, a fine or community service. Or switch to Free Roam, where there is no money, no fines and no jail, and the city is just a city to drive around.

How to play Deccan Drive

Walk with W A S D and drag to look around. Press C if the camera ends up somewhere unhelpful.

Press K for the Jobs board, pick a job, and follow the gold marker. M opens the full city map.

Find a parked vehicle and press E to pay the rental and ride. E again to get out.

Press B at a service point for food, drink, fuel or repairs. Watch the energy and food meters.

Finish the job inside its deadline and without incidents for a high rating. PLACES travels to the other four towns.