Finally, a car mechanic sim where your mates do all the work

"There's nothing WRONG with the brakes on this thing, you fucker!"

I raise a car on the pneumatic lift and ignore Jonty's angry outbursts from across the garage. He has been working on that ancient red banger for a while now, swearing to himself the whole time. I raise my own four-wheeled task a little higher on the lift, pop off the oil cap and drain all the dark car bile into a funnel. Simple. Car Service Together is a good old-fashioned early access co-op jankfest, and even better when you have a car-obsessed friend to do all the hard jobs.

"This customer is getting charged 200 bucks for wasting my time," mutters Jonty.

I patiently change an oil filter.

"It's absolute bullshit that you have to take the spacer and the caliper out to change brake pads."

I lower the car on my lift and fill it up with new oil. My job is done. I saunter over to Jonty, who's still struggling with the rusty bolts on the wreck in front of him. If there was a button in Car Service Together that let me arrogantly wipe my hands on an old rag, I'd be mashing it. It's eight o'clock at night in this deeply unfinished job simulator and we have been working hard for days (25 whole minutes). I barely remember how we got here, or why we are doing this.

"Jonty," I ask with a child's innocence. "Can you tell me what I look like?"

After learning that my character has a soul patch, we get back to work. An average day in Car Service Together will see customers warping into existence next to your garage, each with a busted vehicle and a list of demands. Change my oil, swap my tires, wah wah wah, find a broken disc on one of the wheels. Sure, look, just give me the keys mate, yeah? 

There's a paint shop and a car wash across the road for those who save up enough cash to afford them, and space to upgrade your premises with more bays and machinery like tire balancers. But we run a tight shop taking only the jobs we can do, and turning away all those we can't manage. 

"If someone shows up and wants paint, the answer's no," says Jonty.

But our "simple tasks only" approach doesn't last long. While inspecting a vehicle I overhear Jonty looking over a customer's request. 

"Let's see... 'Change wheels to drift type'? Aw, sick."

He accepts the job in a spasm of excitement prompted by the prospect of new rubber. He does not know that this request will nearly bankrupt us. When it comes time to take all the wheels off, we look at the price of new drift tires - $300 each, plus the need for a higher reputation level than we currently have. It seems like we're stuck, so Jonty puts this job on hold and goes off to tinker with the suspension on another vehicle. That's when I am struck by an ingenious plan. 

It's simple. We don't need to complete this drifter man's car today. What if we - hear me out here - simply sold all this guy's current wheels? Think of it as a kind of small payday loan. 

"I don't think we're that desperate for money," says Jonty when I unveil my new business model. "Are we?"

I ignore his question and espouse the virtues of the plan. The only downside is that the car will be stuck on the lift for a while, but we can just buy a whole new lift with the money! This drifty dude's wheels are fancy and expensive. It's foolproof.

"Fuck it," says Jonty, "let's do it."

I sell the wheels, both tires and rims. This is when I notice a small, uh, discrepancy between the listed "sell price" and what we actually receive into our bank account. Jonty expresses some worry, and tells me to check the computer in the corner of the garage to see how much it's going to cost to buy the new wheels, you know, "down the road" as it were. I look at the prices. I walk away from the computer.

"Let's worry about that later," I say, quietly.

I stand back at the drifter's car, mulling over the problem. Jonty seems distracted with his suspension task, I won't bother him. On reflection, I'm sure that selling those wheels was the correct move. Now that I think of it, why not also sell the spacers, calipers, brake pads, timing belt, brake disc, coil spring, ABS, ECU, and radiator fan? The car can't go anywhere without wheels anyway. We can use the extra money to fund parts for other cars. Then, some day, when we have saved up a little cash and some extra "rep", we'll sort out those drift wheels. It's a loaner! I think that's what they call this. 

The logic is sound. It's so sound that I have already done everything I just said without communicating my renewed commitment to our business plan. Jonty is busy swearing at metal, I'll tell him later. It's better to mention this sort of thing when it comes up naturally in conversation. For now, I go for a walk around town. 

The game is set in a completely deserted neighbourhood with no signs of life but our own garage and the customers who blop in and out of reality, like quantum puppets. I can see one of them now, standing next to their vehicle as I arrive back from my lunch break. I hop into their ride and tell them it'll be done soon. Then I take it for a zoom around the roads.

I hear Jonty grunting and muttering about oil filters as I careen around. He's a good worker. A reliable guy. I honk my horn loudly seven or eight times as I arrive back at the garage, proof that I too understand my way around vehicles. It's night time now, so I go out for a smoke break. You can't smoke in the game, but it's important to role play. You understand.

I come back into the garage to find Jonty frozen in front of the drifter's car, the "loaner". He is staring at it.

"This--"

"Don't look at that one," I say.

"Not only does it not have any wheels, it also doesn't have any hubs, springs... it doesn't have anything on it, Brendy." 

He sounds remarkably calm.

"What's the plan here?"

I tell him the plan. My only regret, I say, is that I could not cannibalise more of the stranger's vehicle for cash.

"This is okay," says Jonty, walking around the crippled vehicle. "This is a teachable moment."

The lesson, it turns out, is to step aside and let Jonty fix the terrible mess I got us into. My only role for the remaining fifty minutes of our game is to accept the simplest jobs imaginable outside the garage - windscreen fluid refills, radiator fan replacements, maybe installing a fresh timing belt. Whatever can be done in a few seconds and rolled off the intake car park and straight into the customer pickup zone for a few quick quid. In other words, it's grinding time.

To maximise turnaround, I dip into our savings to unlock extra customer car parking spaces. I don't tell Jonty about it because he seems very stressed now for some reason. Better to save him the worry of accountancy and take care of the new investments myself. Soon we have a line-up of customers, and I start accepting harder jobs too. Suspension adjustments, coil fixes, flat tires - you know, Jonty stuff. 

"I'm making decent progress on this thing," he says, twiddling away on what we are now calling "the crime car". That's good, I think. There's a lot of work to do out here.

Soon enough I hear sounds of celebration. Jonty is driving the crime car out the door and into the pickup zone. The job is finally complete. The car looks great.

"It's probably got a worse timing belt than the one it came in with," he says, nitpicking. "It's definitely got worse wheels than it came in with, and we've been fined $900. But it's there. Excited to see what it does for our reputation."

The answer? It does nothing at all. The customer forks over $2000 and is none the wiser. At least, I imagine he is. You don't actually see any customers during pickup, the completed cars just vanish in a flash and your bank balance goes up. It barely matters, the job is done. The business model works! Jonty is laughing in what some might describe as "relief" but I choose to think of it as the type of laugh someone does when they feel the reward of an honest day's work. I'm very happy he sees now what a good idea it was to go into business with me.

"Is the tire machine on fire?" he asks.

What? I turn around and see black smoke coming out of the tire changing gizmo. The game's way of telling us we haven't paid our electricity bill. 

"It's all right," says Jonty, paying our 'leccy at the garage computer, with that calm gritted-teeth voice I know and love. "It's fine."

I'd better not tell him we owe rent too.