Lahore. One borrowed bike, one loan to clear, and a whole city that does not care whether you make it.
Liberty Drive is a top-down driving and hustle life-sim set in a Lahore you can actually navigate — The Mall, Anarkali, Liberty Market, MM Alam Road, the canal, Minar-e-Pakistan, Badshahi Masjid, Gaddafi Stadium. You start out as Billa, though the name is yours to change. You ride for Chacha Sattar, you pay off the bike, and then you find out that delivery money was never going to be enough.
The hustle
Deliveries pay for petrol and paratha. Businesses pay for everything else. Buy a paan khokha, then a chai dhaba, then the auto workshop — eight businesses, real Pakistani prices, and a till that fills whether you are watching it or not. Nobody gets rich delivering parcels. That is the point.
The city
A whole street network with one-way roads, roundabouts, traffic lights, a traffic warden who unjams the chowk when it seizes, khokhas, chai stalls, petrol pumps, and pedestrians who will swear at you if you park in the road. Day turns to night, and your headlights matter.
The work
Seven shift jobs off eight depots — taxi, cargo, tanker, ambulance, school van, airport run, baraat. Take a vehicle you do not own, work the shift, park it back. Or take your own ride out and find your own money.
The story
Eight chapters, in Roman Urdu the way people actually talk, with a cast drawn as comic panels: Chacha Sattar, Ammi, Munna, Rafiq, Zainab, Feeka — and Seth Kamran, who wants your father's workshop and has the paperwork to take it.
The rides
A JD-80 to start, then a rickshaw, a JG-125, a Tehran, a Bultus, a Gorolla. Paint them, put truck art on them, upgrade the engine, tyres and tank. Race Feeka on the Liberty Circuit when you think you are quick enough.
And the rest
An in-game phone with jobs, goals, contacts, a bazaar and a ledger. A full city map you can pin a destination on. Hunger, thirst, tiredness and vehicle wear. A chauffeur that will drive you there if you would rather watch the city go by.
Screenshots
Get it
Liberty Drive is out now, free, on Android and on iPhone and iPad.
Found a bug, or stuck somewhere? Mail [email protected].