According to a report by Thank You Bus Driver for Rock Paper Shotgun, the game is Double Fine’s new comedy public transport sim in which players are simultaneously bus driver and disciplinarian. The passengers are described as almost invariably rowdy and entitled, sully the single-decker by picking their toes or bellowing down phones, and being seconds away from a tantrum if another traveller does likewise.
The playthrough lasts roughly three hours of “chaotic wheelsmanship,” dense in visual gags and exaggerated physics. When someone is spotted breaking bus rules, players leave their seat to deliver a corrective slap rather than tapping a sign; this risks the still-moving bus careering off course and missing a shift-ending stop, but silencing troublemakers ensures everyone else arrives happy. Happiness yields Thank Yous, described as the only currency that matters.
The report wonders which version of Double Fine made it: the “newly independent,” jokes-and-hugs studio behind Amnesia Fortnight, or the one that talked themselves out of a union and whose flight from Microsoft ownership involved jettisoning a quarter of their staff.
There are signs of the “nice” Double Fine. Though games like Keeper and Kiln were not creatively bankrupt trendchasers, Thank You Bus Driver has an endearing, rough-and-tumble quality of people trying something out. Passengers arrive as Bigfoots, swimming rings, and microwaves full of fish, each given uniquely goofy animations for dropping a coin in a slot; the slapping arm is described as uncomfortably long and rubbery.
Crashes and acts of open-palmed violence are played for laughs, including intentionally aiming at local cows for their betrayed expressions and excessively long windscreen-sliding motion. “Resetting” a bus from a stuck position drops it back onto the road from thirty feet in the air, metal groaning as it slams into the asphalt.
The game features heavy randomisation—from stop placement to passenger behaviour timing—and vaguely roguelike item upgrades offered by a commuting trenchcoat oddball. Players must juggle bus happiness with urgency: either moving carefully while watching the mirror to slap transgressions instantly at the cost of the shift clock, or focusing on speeding through town and attempting a mass slapfest to restore harmony at the last moment.
The report compares it to “a less subversive Roman Sands RE:Build, on wheels.” It is described as ultimately a Numbers Go Up game with no real narrative and no jeopardy beyond starting a new shift if time runs out; Thank Yous are delivered with slot machine chime effects.
The review notes the game lacks legs beyond a single playthrough. Players drive the same bus through the same small town with the same handful of rules each time, and attempts to vary it—night shifts, rain, and “conventions” where most passengers share an archetype—do not meaningfully change how a drive plays out.
The report concludes that as a single playthrough it is a decent way to chuckle through an afternoon, and still thinks Thank You Bus Driver shows off Double Fine’s creative flair more than it raises worries about the new era—hoping that spirit endures into future independent projects “maybe with a little less gacha ding-dinging.”
Rejoignez la conversation