Screw Drivers

I have a tremendous amount of time for Screw Drivers. It's hard to make a vehicle construction game that hits the right balance between not being annoyingly fiddly but also not being a simple matter of slapping the parts with the best stats together any way you feel like, but the Screw Drivers approach where you have prefab engine units and wheels but have to build the chassis and gearbox yourself is endlessly rewarding. Handling is solid and predictable, with changes you make to the vehicle being reflected in how it drives. Races take the form of time trials with pre-recorded ghosts, and there are multiple approaches for building cars capable of winning: you can go for light weight and good handling, or decide on a car that merely survives each corner but obliterates everything on the straights. Different races will require different cars, so while you're likely to settle on a few common design elements as you unlock parts you'll still need to tweak them between smooth circuits and bumpy offroad tracks. As an indie project it can be a little rough around the edges, and sometimes the developers get a bit lost in grand ambitions ahead of keeping the basics working; the few months after the Pretty Fly DLC were rough but a lot of that has been fixed now and the ghost cars are starting to be re-recorded after the big expansion in number of game islands. Even when bits of it are janky it's still a lot of fun to come to with a new idea for a car and see how it works, though.