Will you master the art of rally?
Art of Rally (stylised as "art of rally") is a rally racing Simulation Game, created and published by Indie developers Funselektor Labs (of Absolute Drift fame), a six-person team hailing from all over the world, though primarily based in Vancouver, Canada. The game has players race in the "golden era" of Rally all across the world in stylized, low-poly environments.
Unusual among rally games however, is that all the driving gameplay takes place from a top-down view, rather than from within the drivers' cabin, or with an adjustable third person trailing camera, making for quite a unique experience when compared to other rally games.
The game has a campaign mode, spanning from 1967 to the late 90's, divided into group stages. Each Rally has approximately 4 races, though more get added for the player to finish the further you go. A Free Roam mode is also available, which has the player drive around the playable area collecting letters and cassettes, finding viewpoints, and hunting for the funselektor van, allowing the player to use any car they've unlocked from doing rally campaigns.
Despite the low-poly stylised look, the game features dirt and Damage models, and any dents taken from one race must be repaired regularly before starting, though even this has limits, as you're assigned a specific amount of points, and too much damage means your rally car will perform sub-optimally.
The game released on 23rd September, 2020 on PC via Steam
, GOG, Epic Games Store with console ports (PS4/5, Switch, Xbox One/ Series X) releasing over the course of 2021. An iOS and Android port released on January 3rd, 2024, partially developed by Noodlecake Studios. The game comes in both Standard Edition (the base game), Deluxe Edition (base-game and the soundtrack), and also has a separately released "Australia" DLC, as well as a soundtrack DLC.
The soundtrack, made by Ukrainian musician Vyacheslav Anatolevich Koristov, can be heard on Spotify. The games' developers also have their own discord and frequent it.
art of rally provides examples of:
- Achievement System: Several in the game, some logical choices like "rwd only" (finish all group 3 seasons), some oddly named, but not entirely unexpected like "where is the stage" (finish the stage during fog), and some plainly ridiculous, such as "group b" (finish a race while on fire).
- all lowercase letters: The games' UI text is consistently lowercase; in fact the only exception to this is in free roam, where the letters you can collect are all uppercase.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: Liveries, but the same idea. Each rally rewards you with lots of Unlockable Content, and you unlock special liveries for not using all your restarts (or in some rally groups, not restarting at all!).
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- You can respawn your car if you crash, and going too far off the track has the game automatically do this for you, ditto for plunging into water. You do incur a five second time penalty, however.
- Tree's and other geometry will be culled out if they block the camera's view, so that the car is always visible.
- The player is able to repair punctures on the track instead of trying to race with a flat tire or two. This does give the player a 15 second penalty, however.
- Bland-Name Product: Many of the cars and adverts are named generically, likely to avoid licensing fees. For example, the "Rightyho" adverts are in clear reference to the Marlboro ads, given the mirrored signature red "K" symbols associated with the former are still there, while "The Meanie" is very clearly a Mini MK1 Cooper S in all but name.
- Collect-a-Thon Platformer: The game has a free roam mode filled with lots of things to collect:
- Finding all the cassette tapes unlocks a new music track to listen to.
- Finding all the letters unlocks a new map to play in free roam
- Finding all the funselektor van's in all the maps unlocks the vehicle to use in-game.
- Creator Cameo: Funselektor is one of the sponsors of the races that you may see in the game, and is also a name of an unlockable van.
- Drives Like Crazy: Like with other rally games, this is a necessary style of driving to use if you want to score good times and place first on the various stages. That said, you do still need to keep your attention to handling and speed, especially when going round corners.
- Driving Stick: The game defaults to automatic transmission, and can be changed in the settings to set it to manual instead.
- Fauxrrari: All the cars are named generically, either being corrupted names of the original car, or generally acting on nicknames, references to their origin, or are contractions of the real car name:
- The das 119i is a Porsche 911; the name being in German and the numbers essentially being back-to-front.
- La regina is the Lancia Fulvia 1600HF. Regina meaning "Queen" in Italian.
- Le gorde is the Renault 8 Gordini, the "gorde" part coming from the original name.
- The "esky" cars (V1 and V2) are the Ford Escort Mk.1 and MK2 respectively. "Esky" being a contraction of "Escort".
- The meanie is a Mini MK1 Cooper S; the name likely a corruption of "Mini" when slurred in speech.
- The rotary kei is modelled after the Honda Acty. "Kei" means "Joyous" or "Blessed" in Japanese.
- The das 599 is modelled after the Porsche 959; it bears a corrupted number based on the real cars' suffix (599 vs 959).
- The "das hammer" series of cars are all varying Audi Quattro's; V1 being a regular Quattro with a long wheelbase, V2 being a Audi Sport Quattro S1 E2, and the V3 is an Audi Quattro RS001 Prototype; the name being largely speculatory, as the car is based on an unreleased prototype.
- Das uberspeedvan is a Volkswagen LT, the name being German for "about speed van", which fits with it's modifications to make it faster.
- Il gorilla 4s is a Lancia Delta S4; the suffix having swapped letters.
- Il monster is a Lancia Rallye 037.
- Le 502 is a Peugeot 205 Turbo 16 Evolution 2., with the "502" being reversed.
- Le cinq b is a Renault 5 Maxi Turbo; Cinq in French means "Five", which is part of the real cars' name.
- The 4r6 is an MG Metro 6R4, with the suffix reversed.
- The cossie sr2, sr71, and cozzie 90 cars are a Ford RS200, a Ford Escort RS1700T, and a Ford Escort RS Cosworth respectively. The "cossie/ cozzie" name is a contraction of "Cosworth"; the line of cars made by Ford. The numbers have also been largely reversed.
- The hyena is a Nissan Silvia 240RS, while "the king of africa" is a Toyota Celica TwinCam Turbo; both car names have thematic animal names that are likely referring to the update they released in; The Kenya Update in 2020.
- Das eibenhammer is based on the Audi Quattro RS002. The name is German for "Really awesome" (though the wiki offers several alternate names such as "Iron hammer", depending on how you spell it).
- Das superbaus is a Vauxhall Astra 4S, and the name is German for "Super construction", which is likely referring to the reputation of how efficient German engineering is.
- Il gorilla e1 is a Lancia SE041 ECV while the Il gorilla e2 is a Lancia ECV2, the latters' suffix being a corruptuion of the number designation of the car.
- Le 504 is a Peugeot 405 Turbo 16; the name being a reversed form of the cars' number designation.
- The rotary s7 is a Mazda RX-7S Group S
- The t22 is a Lada Samara EVA S-Proto
- The umibozu is a Toyota MR-2 222D; the name is referring to the Umibōzu ("sea priest"), a mythical Yokai known for causing sudden unrest in the seas of Japan.
- Il gorillona is a Lancia Delta HF Integrale
- The fujin is a Subaru Impreza WRC97-99; the name referring to "Fujin", a Japanese wind god.
- The kingpin is a Ford Focus WRC 2001.
- The liftback is a Toyota Celica GT4.
- The max attack is a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution VI.
- The pebble v1 and v2 are both Skoda's, a 200RS and a 30RS respectively.
- The original is a Toyota Corolla Sprinter Trueno AE86; the name is in reference to its use in Absolute Drift.
- The funselektor's van is a Ford Transit, the name being a Creator Cameo by the developers, which also carries the logo.
- The little monkey is a Piaggio Ape; the name being in reference to the "ape" part of the name.
- Invisible Anatomy: The spectators, who look a lot like large sentient matchsticks, can move out of your way as you drive past them like a human ocean wave, yet have no visible feet or legs and are just shown sliding.
- Game Mod: Has a fairly active modding scene over on Race Department, featuring player-made liveries (paint jobs).
- In-Vehicle Invulnerability: Played straight, but since you never see the driver, it's merely an implied trope. You can crash as much as you want, and your driver will be no worse for wear in the next race.
- Joke Character:
- Of the rally cars, The Meanie is probably the worst in the game. While it has decent acceleration, its inline 90hp engine does it no favours. Even La Regina, which is slower, is rear-wheel drive, has a beefier V4 engine, and thus has better handling. Considering it's meant to be used by starter players, it soon gets beaten out by La Montaine the moment that becomes available.
- There are certain cars in time attack that can be used that are not rally cars in the slightest, they are the props used in the scenery. Among these include the Logger hauling truck, a small tri-wheeler called the "little monkey", and a selection of vans too!
- Limited Sound Effects: There is very little foley noise in the game that isn't just sound effects for your car. There's some cheering from the crowds on the track, but that's about it. On a similar note, many of the animals you see act like statues and are oddly uninterested in your driving.
- Photo Mode: The game has a fairly in-depth photo mode, accessible by pausing the ongoing rally or time attack or entering replay mode of the track you just finished racing on, which lets the player make some cool and dynamic car shots by getting big air or going round a corner. The features include allowing the player to adjust the aperture of the camera, color temperature, adjust the bloom, contrast and saturation, and much more. The camera itself is orbital (I.E, a freecam with limits).
- Save Scumming: In a sense. You can restart any rally at least once, oftentimes up to five time. The only real penalty is that doing so does not unlock specific liveries if you use all of them in a specific rally group.
- Scenery Porn: There's a certain charm to the low-poly aesthetic the environments have, especially where the cars, despite having very simple colors and shading, are actually fairly complex models-wise.
- Sequel Series: The game is basically Absolute Drift but more refined into a rally game that encourages other aspects of good driving, rather than a challenge sandbox specifically focused around perfect drifting.
- Shout-Out: One of the banner ads seen in Japanese tracks has the word "saké" in the same style as the Sega logo.
- Subsystem Damage: Your rally car gets more damaged the more you use, and it's usually beneficial to repair cars between stages, in part because getting dirt on your car is unavoidable. On higher difficulties, where damage systems become less forgiving, you also need to repair your car from any tumble you take.
- Temporary Online Content: The daily and weekly challenges count as this. Every day and week, a new race is given to the player to try and get the best time on for leaderboard superiority and bragging rights. The catch? You cannot restart, you do not know what car you'll be using, what track you'll be racing on, or what weather conditions you'll be driving in. The only saving grace is that you get to see the leaderboard ahead of time, but even that deliberately blanks out what car is being used in the event.
- Unlockable Content: The more rallies you do, the more liveries you unlock, and having at least one restart left lets you gain an additional livery.
