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A Demo Various Utilities game for Mac

A Demo Various Utilities game for Mac

Vote: (9 votes)

Program license: Demo

Developer: Playway S.A.

Works under: Mac

Also available for Android Windows

Vote:

Program license

(9 votes)

Demo

Developer

Playway S.A.

Works under:

Also available for

Mac

Android Windows

Pros

  • A puzzle simulator that respects the intelligence of its players
  • Provides functional experience you can bring to the real world
  • A huge number of missions to work through

Cons

  • Diagnosing issues can often be frustrating
  • Graphics are a bit primitive

Car Mechanic Simulator 2014 is exactly what it says on the tin: a simulation game that puts you in the shoes of a mechanic and tasks you with diagnosing and solving a variety of automotive issues. There are a lot of games on the market that put you behind the wheels of a race car driver and a lot of games that give you the option to tune expensive cars to your heart's content, but Car Mechanic Simulator is maybe the only game on the market that forces you to intimately learn how these complex vehicles work.

In practical terms, the game plays out like an open ended puzzler. The insides of all of the cars are pretty accurate reflections of what you'd find in the real world (though they're somewhat simplified for the sake of game flow), and diagnosing an issue isn't always an easy task. Running through dead ends until you find the root of a problem can be immensely frustrating until you get to the heart problem. But when you do, it makes you feel like a real genius.

That cycle of frustration followed by meaningful reward is bolstered by the fact that the developer doesn't hold your hand. There's little in the way of hints or in game prompts, and people who already have an understanding of how cars work will subsequently have a pretty big leg up on the competition. Fortunately, there's a pretty well designed learning curve in place. You start by performing oil changes or replacing brakes before you're asked to move onto the harder tasks.

That's a good thing, because those fundamentals are important to understand once you start hitting more complex problems. There's rarely a straight line from point A to point B. Instead, players are encouraged to seek out the most obvious cause of an issue and slowly work their way down the line of possible causes until they strike a solution. A good mix of intuition and the technical knowledge you develop over the course of the game can get you a long way in this simulator.

There's also a satisfying sense of repetition here. There's a right tool for every job, but often that means working your way through the same cycle of activities before you start diversifying and honing in on the problem. And what starts as pretty straightforward problems become far more complex. Your customers often possess only the vaguest understanding of their issues, and that means the onus is on you to parse their language and zero in on the issue.

There's a lot of material to work with here too. In addition to a sandbox mode, Car Mechanic Simulator 2014 offers a pair of meaty campaigns that are composed of almost a hundred different missions. It won't turn you into an expert mechanic overnight, but it can provide you with a little more insight into how these complex machines function.

Pros

  • A puzzle simulator that respects the intelligence of its players
  • Provides functional experience you can bring to the real world
  • A huge number of missions to work through

Cons

  • Diagnosing issues can often be frustrating
  • Graphics are a bit primitive