Wheels of Aurelia from Santa Ragione
Wheels of Aurelia is a road trip simulator. Mind you, that doesn’t mean it’s a driving game. It’s not really about the driving at all, in fact. It’s about the conversations and unexpected occurrences that come along with a long time spent on the highway.
![Wheels of Aurelia game screenshot, Siena](http://indiegamereviewer.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/WheelsOfAurelia_game_screenshot_Siena_1920x1080.jpg)
Drive, She Said
Wheels of Aurelia runs on two separate mechanics. There’s the driving, which is simple enough – arrow keys to steer and space bar to speed up for a bit – and there’s the conversations. The latter are the real meat of the game, and are presented as multiple choice options in the vein of last year’s similarly dialogue-driven Dyscourse.
In truth, the driving is inessential, even a bit clumsy. While there are a couple of story developments that require paying closer attention to the road, for the most part a player can focus entirely on the conversations and let the car drive itself – the game more or less takes over once you stop hitting the driving keys.
![Wheels of Aurelia game screenshot, driving and talking](http://indiegamereviewer.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/WheelsOfAurelia_game_screenshot_DrivIngTalking_1920x1080.jpg)
Lost Highway
While players expecting a driving game might feel a bit disappointed, the setting and characters more than make up for it. The game takes place on La Via Aurelia – Italy’s famed highway built on the bones of the original Roman Road – in 1978, a tumultuous year for the country that involved terrorist attacks and politically motivated kidnappings.
The Santa Ragione crew have done a wonderful job recreating that time and place in Wheels of Aurelia, from the colorful geometric graphics and simple but evocative character portraits to the amazing retro-pop soundtrack by Nicolo Sala and Gipsy Studio.
The characters are also engaging and empathetic. Lella, the protagonist, is a rich girl on the run from traditional expectations – she’s an aspiring race car driver – not to mention some recent past trauma. Accompanying her on the trip is Olga, whose sunny disposition contrasts nicely with Lella’s sardonic cynicism but who hides a dark secret of her own.
![Wheels of Aurelia game screenshot, Lella and Olga](http://indiegamereviewer.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/WheelsOfAurelia_game_screenshot_LellaAndOlga_1920x1080.jpg)
The Journey, Not the Destination Matters
Along the road, they’ll encounter additional characters, from possible terrorists to former F1 racing legends, from hippies to priests. With each play-through taking only 15 minutes or so, it’s fairly easy to work your way around the cities along the Via Aurelia and explore a number of the 16 possible endings – many of which are as bleak as a Pasolini film.
Even so, the more I learned about Lella, Olga and the motley crew of possible hitchhikers, the more I wanted to know them. While the game isn’t perfect – in addition to the lack of integration between the driving and conversation, some of the dialogue trees got a bit jumbled in a couple of play-throughs – it’s incredibly evocative in a way that I haven’t seen before. The closest is probably the similar talking-while-driving game Three Fourths Home, but Wheels of Aurelia’s alternate endings give it much more of a sense of interactivity.
Lella’s story – or stories, given the disparate possible endings – will stick with me long after I’ve finished my own ride on La Via Aurelia.
[xrr rating=”4.5/5″]
Watch the official trailer for Wheels of Aurelia below: