This is The Mechanic, where Alex Wiltshire invites developers to discuss the difficult journeys they ve taken to make their games. This time, American Truck Simulator [official site].
Oh, to visit Spokane on a bright summer morning. Bakersfield, Albuquerque, Reno and Salem. The evening sun shining across the surface of the I-10. In these locked-down times, American Truck Simulator is a chance to tour America, or at least its western edge, running from Washington in the north down to California in the south, and over to Utah and New Mexico in the east.
These states are articulated by highways and truck stops, industrial centres and sweeping multilevel interchanges. But that doesn t mean their sweep isn t glorious. America is, after all, built on trucking. The industry s motto is, If you bought it, a truck brought it, and in ATS you get to experience mass haulage in a world which aims to mirror, as close as it can, the great American west. But it was built in Prague, on an engine that sometimes requires clever tricks to represent the scale of it all, by a team of map designers who are strangers to American culture. (more…)