Route 24: A Drive through Rural Illinois & Indiana

Here's an art game about driving through rural Illinois and Indiana via U.S. Route 24. It's a little hyperbolic, but not as much as you might think. As always, the entire game uses ASCII + ANSI art / is entirely text-based. It was made in about 4 hours.

The MansterSoft duo recently drove from Easton Pennsylvania to visit family in Minnesota, and 10 days later drove back home. We've made the trip many times before via the U.S. Interstate system, but using the interstate with all of it's walls and city-dodging really prevents one from seeing the country.

I was struck by how extremely beautiful Eastern Iowa is. The Mississippi river valley carves hills and forests through it. Also the city of Dubuque and the island city of Sambula are both really interesting. I had driven through Iowa using many different highways in the past, and didn't even know they existed. Such an improvement over the rest of the state (corn).

I was also struck by the beauty of Eastern Ohio. Endless rolling pastoral hills and winding roads. There's also some heavy Amish country out there. We passed three different families riding via horse and buggy.

And then there's the issue of Illinois and Indiana. If you go too far north you hit the sprawl and traffic of Chicago and Gary. If you go too far South you hit the sprawl and traffic of Indianapolis. This time we tried U.S. Route 24, and it was striking.

I was reminded of a previous trip when we traveled from South Carolina back home to our then new-home in Easton. We took a state highway and every single town was the same. Extremely depressed, very small, and containing several walled up abandoned businesses and a single Family Dollar (which is a nation-wide chain store that sells a little bit of everything and they're kind of dumpy). The towns on Route 24 weren't quite as bad, but the landscape definitely made the whole experience worse.

What always gets me is that there are hundreds of town just like these in the USA and people choose to live in them.

#retro, #ASCII, #Text, #Minimal, #Arcade. #driving, #adventure