60 Seconds to Park
December 13, 2012 2 Comments
Not being able to get a driver’s license of my own, I’m at the mercy of others when it comes to going places. In a way, it’s fun. Nobody ever says “hey Cathy, will you run these errands for me?” No, I get to do all the asking and none of the doing. And because of that, I shouldn’t be able to complain about the driving abilities or quirks of those I’m parasitic towards. And I don’t. At least while I’m in the car with them. Once I’m home, venting to my boyfriend, I can and do complain. I can’t help myself.
For example, my mother will drive around a parking lot for hours waiting to get a space that requires her to walk the fewest possible steps to get inside wherever we’re shopping at. If there’s a space open and it’s the fourth closest one to the entrance, she’ll cruise around for up to fifteen minutes (yes, I’ve timed it) waiting to find one that is the third closest one. Why? I have no clue. And you can’t explain to her that “it’s only an extra four steps.” There has to be some kind of diagnosis for what she has. Parking-lot-exercise-phobia?
Mom, if you’re reading this, I’m so sorry. Honestly, I thought you were illiterate.
And I’m sorry to my readers who were looking for a game review and read that nonsense above. But what else can I do with a game like 60 Seconds to Park? There’s almost no actual game here, so I have to fill the space with something. The game is exactly what it sounds like: find an empty parking space within 60 seconds. Every stage, the parking lot gets larger, but there’s only one space that is randomly selected to be empty. Find it, put your car in it. It’s that simple.
Here’s why the game sucks: because there is literally nothing else going on here. Find the empty space, and aim your car at it. There is no penalty for hitting other cars, so you don’t have to worry about parking cleanly. You don’t even have to park straight. A stage ends once your car crosses the threshold of the space, even if you’re coming in at an angle that could politely be described as not insurance company approved. There’s no high scores, local or otherwise, and no real reward for playing at all. I figured this could be a quirky single-minded objective game, the likes of which flood the iPhone market. Instead, 60 Seconds to Park feels like it was developed in 60 seconds.
60 Seconds to Park was developed by SirBot Games
80 Microsoft Points love their Mommy very much and don’t believe that she’s illiterate in the making of this review. There, happy Daddy? It’s not like she can read this anyway.
Gameplay footage courtesy of Aaron the Splazer
Indie Gamer Chick 
Wow. I really assumed there’d be SOMETHING more to this. A shame; not because I thought it would be great but because it’s the sort of concept that occasionally turns out to be surprising.
Guess I know exactly what you mean. I hoped the game would offer at least a modicum of a challenge. Judging from the title I assumed that it would matter how well you can park the car and that you would gain bonus points for avoiding collisions. I imagined you would get increasingly difficult cars to park – in terms of handling, horsepower and turn radius – and that you would have to avoid traffic and such. But this is just as stupid as it gets. So disappointing because I really believed the concept could work out well for a decent indie game.