Nomad Drive (Demo)

Review

I went into the Nomad Drive demo with some concerns after reading Steam reviews about poor optimization and high GPU loads. I experienced this firsthand; the game had a slow startup and noticeable stuttering. While lowering the resolution helped, I still encountered random frame rate spikes and some Z-fighting in the graphics. It feels like there is still a lot of work to be done on the technical side, but having recently developed my own game, I appreciate the effort that goes into optimization.

The core concept of building your own RV is a nice touch and something I haven't seen much before. I spent my time in a bit of a scavenger hunt, searching for parts like wheels, an engine, a battery, and a radiator to get my vehicle moving. The process of picking up and placing items is a bit suboptimal, and the controls take some getting used to. I also noticed that lowering the resolution made the text unreadable, which suggests the HUD should be handled as an overlay rather than part of the rendering. As for the world, it feels mostly empty, which is realistic but leaves the game lacking in atmosphere.

I spent a lot of time driving around and finding random objects like stoves and pans in odd places. There are some basic objectives, such as curing poison after eating a mushroom, but the experience currently feels a bit random. That said, the idea of slowly upgrading your RV to eventually get things like headlights is a cool concept that could provide a lot of longevity.

Overall, it's a very early demo with plenty of bugs and performance hiccups, but I think it's a good start. If you have a decent GPU to handle the resource intensity, I can give this a thumbs up. I'm glad to see it is heading toward Early Access, as that will likely provide the developers with the funds and time needed to polish the experience.