What the Car? review: A wiggly wave of goofy puns and bear buddies

I’ve been feeling like a curmudgeonly old man lately. I turned my nose up at Anger Foot and Crush House here at Shacknews, and playing what I've come to know as “wiggly games” like Human Fall Flat at home with my kid also had me quietly rolling my eyes. But I remember having a blast with stuff like Gang Beasts several years ago. Am I the problem? This question didn’t keep me up at night, but it makes for a solid intro. Luckily, What the Car? from Triband came across my desk this week, and helped me realize I still know how to laugh at stupid jokes.

What the car? A miserable pile of feet, and garbage, and other stuff

What the Car? opens with a silly-looking car that has a human-ish face, and seems to be pals with a bear. The car honks its horn, and then casts away its tires and sprouts human legs. The bear is unfazed, and just kind of hangs out while the car gets more legs, replaces the legs with a rocket booster or an umbrella, then starts firing the car out of a cannon into further gags that double as time attack puzzles. That’s pretty much the whole game, for the next handful of hours. You pick a level, shoot yourself out of a cannon into a pun and/or stage mechanic, then try to solve the level as fast as you can.

The fun thing about the game is how the joke informs the play experience for each level. If your car comes sailing into the air covered in wheels, then you can expect the challenge to be about trying to push the car into the goal while it’s doing more bouncing and tumbling than driving. If the car comes out looking more like a bench, you’ll be careening around corners and trying to position each tire on either side of a gaping hole in the road. It’s almost like a “wiggly game” version of Nintendo’s WarioWare series, where each moment is about quickly deciphering some kind of visual gag and how it informs the gameplay. It’s a lot of fun for the most part!

The mileage always varies

There are definitely moments where I found myself rolling my eyes, because not every joke is going to land the same way. And sometimes you end up three levels deep on a joke that wasn’t great the first time, being repeated. Other times the gameplay gimmick is more annoying to deal with than fun or challenging, such as when you’re being pushed by wind and the silly physics turn into restarting the stage a bunch. It’s funny the first couple times your goofy car falls to its wobbly death, but not as funny the third or fourth time in a row. 

Another cool part of What the Car? is how much depth and variety it does manage to squeeze out of its concept. Even when you do run into those dead end gags, there’s a new one right around the corner that could be drastically different, such as a section where you’re basically playing a combination of Kirby’s Dream Course and Foosball. There’s also a whole suite for creating your own levels and sharing them with the community, on top of little side attractions that are optional for progress, but just set to the side to accommodate another joke. Sometimes a level will pop up and totally toss the time scoring thing in the trash, just to be extra silly and give you a bit about the car chopping vegetables or selling pool floaties.

There’s also a ton of bears and other critters just hanging out on the sidelines everywhere, for no reason other than to add to the game’s silly vibe. But instead of feeling like a sort of “it’s funny because it’s random” thing, the world feels cohesive. Of course there are a bunch of bears playing tennis or running a DJ set! And why wouldn’t all the treasure chests be weird guys who go “bleaugh” and stick their huge tongues out to offer prizes or new bear friends? All the silly elements that aren’t related to the gameplay feel of a whole, along with the theme song that repeats itself in different ways across each set of levels. It isn’t exactly what I’d call “world-building,” but it’s something in that vicinity that I can appreciate.

In hindsight, the jumping shark section is a good bit

One element I’m curious about that exists in a space adjacent to this review is plans for What the Car? to continue on after release. For a silly comedy/puzzle game, being able to go in and leave satisfied after three or so hours feels like a sweet spot. With more content planned to release later on, such as new features and levels, I have to wonder how much mileage this concept has. Sure, there were times when I groaned and wanted to just get on with it, but plenty of other times I was mesmerized by the ingenuity on display when a joke and stage design combo succeeded. Would I come back for more? Maybe, but I feel like I’d need some convincing. It’s hard to say!

What the Car? was a nice, little moment of silliness in a packed summer, full of games that have demanded a lot of time and energy. It made my hardened critic's face crack a smile multiple times, even if it had just annoyed me moments before. I’m not ready to turn all the way around and start banging the “wiggly game” drums just yet, but it was nice to know there’s still hope out there for this particular brand of video game foolishness.

What the Car? is available for PC on September 9, 2024. It’s also currently on iOS devices via Apple Arcade. A code for the PC version was provided by the publisher for this review.

Lucas White

Contributing Editor

Lucas plays a lot of videogames. Sometimes he enjoys one. His favorites include Dragon Quest, SaGa, and Mystery Dungeon. He's far too rattled with ADHD to care about world-building lore but will get lost for days in essays about themes and characters. Holds a journalism degree, which makes conversations about Oxford Commas awkward to say the least. Not a trophy hunter but platinumed Sifu out of sheer spite and got 100 percent in Rondo of Blood because it rules. You can find him on Twitter @HokutoNoLucas being curmudgeonly about Square Enix discourse and occasionally saying positive things about Konami.