How massive is my failure? Rather than being able to start a new game, GearCity actually leaves me no choice but to exit to Windows, that's how bad it is. No warning at all, either, except perhaps from all those angry notices piling up on my desk stating that my company has been losing massive amounts of money every month while I've been tied up building this one terrible car. Just asking my factory to start cranking out these hideous cars has instantly caused my company to fail. Gotta keep the buyer coming back for a new one every few weeks, right? I set the price at five times the production cost - luxury like this ain't cheap - and press the button, ready to produce this crimson beauty and drag my country into the next century, by which I mean the last century. This means they'll be built quickly, but not carefully, leading to a poorer product, but I don't want my cars to last forever. I only have a single factory at the moment, but I crank up its production speed to full. With my bright red behemoth designed, I retire to my office to let my turn-of-the-century eggheads build the prototype, and then begin production. What we here in the States call 'the wrong side.' Oh well! At least this way I can pull right up to food stands and purchase enormous slabs of meat and sugary beverages. The only thing I've overlooked is that my steering wheel is on the passenger side, or the European side, of the car. I put a mirror, presumably meant for the side of the car, on the rear, so anyone I speed past will see their own jealous expressions reflected back at them. Why do I need to signal that I'm stopping? I don't plan to stop driving for anything, and if I do, it'll be someone else's problem. I super-size the door-handles as well, because why not, and I decide to leave off the taillights. I throw on some wheels and then some tires, making them as thick and chunky as possible - I might as well deplete the world's supply of rubber while I'm at it - and slap on a single enormous headlight, the better to blind any oncoming horses with my sheer awesomeness. I'm not sure what kind of roads exist here in 1900, but I'm going to require they be made much, much wider. I pull up the roof, extend the cabin, drag the front fender forwards and the rear fender back. I begin in the R&D department, selecting the largest auto body I can find, and then begin playing with the game's sliders to make it even larger.

So, I begin in Detroit, in 1900, and being an American, I decide to make the world's first car a really, really big one. Even the mass production of automobiles began in Lansing, Michigan, not Detroit, but look: I'm an American, and I'm used to history conforming to what I think happened rather than what actually did. Naturally, I want to begin where cars began: Detroit, Michigan! Sure, if you read up on the actual history of the automobile, they probably began in Germany, or France, or even China, depending on how you define automobile.

So, I decided to play GearCity to fulfil my minute-old dream.

My answer: no, I've never dreamed of running my own car company, at least until GearCity's website asked if I've ever dreamed of running my own car company. 'Have you ever dreamed of running your own car company?' asks the website of GearCity, a simulation game that lets you run your own car company. This week, driving a car company into the ground with GearCity.

Each Monday, Chris Livingston visits an early access game and reports back with stories about whatever he finds inside.

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