Ithaca [Preview]: Modern technology collides with our hearts

How to go hands-on with an autonomous car

I appreciate when my worlds collide in unexpected ways. Being a car designer, I am typically treated to racing games. Being a lover of Homerian literature I’m treated to Christopher Nolan films. And being a lover of emotionally connected puzzle narrative games I’m typically treated to what’s known as a “walking simulator.”

All three of those circles come crashing together with Ithaca: Road Odyssey. It says everything I need to know right here in the name. Hell yeah!

The game is a narrative experience in which we take the role of a girl on a trip running through personal and professional issues that revolve around a mysterious set of circumstances. The demo we try at Summer Game Fest focuses on a very early section of the game, where we’re in a vehicle on the way. The opening scene has our protagonist setting the car into self-driving mode, from when we can take over.

Our goal is to go through the different technology we have at hand, looking for clues as to what’s actually going on. With our phone hooked up to the vehicle’s version of CarPlay we can look through and send text messages, we can make phone calls, we can check out recent searches. What were we doing, and who were we doing it with? And just who is sending us this weird text, when they won’t reply with a good answer?

Being in an autonomous car means that we’re able to look around the vehicle, reaching into the back or into the glove box, taking our eyes off the road, with the only condition that we’re still belted into the driver’s seat and can’t necessarily leap from row to row. We *do* still have to be sort of safe, obviously. It’s interesting to be in a car and have limited mobility, and yet still need to figure out what to do with what we can reach.

As a car nerd, this is the most realistic autonomous vehicle simulator I may have come across yet, mixing accurate human ergonomics and modern safety concerns with a story that might actually compel me away from being said car nerd to try and figure it out. I’m not sure how long this road trip will last (hopefully not 20 years) and what other technology or hazards we may run across, but if this little snippet tells us anything it’s that we may have an intriguing way to tell a mystery on our hands.

There is currently no release date for Ithaca.