Alaskan Truck Simulator

[Digital X]

Gave this a go earlier. I'd give it a 6-7/10 so far.

The pros: I like the interactive elements on the truck. Filling up the oil, interacting with the trailer cables and getting in the back to sleep etc. It's a nice new take on the driving simulation genre which I haven't seen much of in this particular simulation style. Also having storage to hold your food and inventory items is a nice touch. Having to manage your food and energy is nice too, it's a good combination of arcade and realism, which cane be quite hit and miss depending how it's integrated. The build up of frost/ice on the windows is very nice and looks great IMO, and having to have the heater on to remove condensation just adds to the immersion all the more.

The cons: Steering is stiff even with a controller, it "snaps" for want of a better word. Like an rocker switch almost if you look how the wheel interacts when you steer with a gamepad stick. The graphics aren't fantastic, being a game built in UE I did expect it to look quite a bit better. I know it's early days yet though. I had two progession blockers, one at the supermarket it just told me to "go there" but not what to buy, so had to restart the demo. The second was at the bridge where it told me to park and sleep despite there being no marker, they are aware of that now.

All in all it's OK. Definitely room for improvement but it's a good take on the simulation genre.

[Underscore_101_]

It crashed almost instantly the first time I started the game, then the 2nd time I was annoyed instantly with how the game starts.
Having to make food , after that when finally in the truck and drove for bit, can't compare that with SCS games much because I was just using keyboard and mouse
I went to get some fuel and oddly enough with all the detail they try to put on opening and selecting stuff I didn't have to remove the cap from the fuel tank to fill up
After fueling up I looked around for a few seconds and DIED because of hypothermia , that was game over and that's when I had enough of it

May try again with a better setup, also didn't really give the game a fair chance.

Did like that you can get out of the truck for fuel, that's something SCS should add imho (and also for checking suspension height when attaching a trailer if needed) but that first thing and I'm assuming there will be many more of them is way too tedious for me, already do those things irl when playing, don't want to do them in game as well

[rookie31st]

Interactions with the truck are the most exciting part of this game. I imagined if American Truck Simulator had fully interactive cabins (press any button with a mouse click), and the ability to exit the truck to lock/unlock the trailer, attach/detach the cables, and lift/lower the trailer legs manually. And going out to visit the company's office to get a job or complete it. Unfathomable that SCS Software still resists implementing this in their game despite numerous requests. I understand that many players don't want to bother, but many others do want this!

With Alaskan Truck Simulator, the visual presentation is no match for American Truck Simulator but it looks good enough. No chance for photorealism, but decent cartoonish graphics. Unfortunately, roads are also cartoonish. They neither look nor feel realistic - all roads have weird yellow dotted lines (too narrow and too frequent) instead of mostly double-solid, and no shoulders with a white solid line. Very gamey environment. The game clock moves 1 minute in every real-life 4 seconds, meaning the time moves 15 times faster in the game. It's very similar to what we have in American Truck Simulator.

It has some potential for sure. They definitely need to animate buttons inside the cabin and improve truck systems in general (like, it has only two ignition positions (OFF/ON) and electric components of the truck (headlights, heater, wiper) work even when the ignition key is turned to OFF).

[Optional Features]

I only had a chance to play for a couple minutes, so I can't give a full opinion on it.

As a proof of concept, though, it shows what seasons, some level of driver health, interactive cabins, and offices would look like in a trucking game setting.

The truck and trailers are horribly modeled and really show no connection to Alaska-spec trucks other than ice on the windows. The driver is constantly cold and hungry which means either he needs better clothes and bigger meals or he's a bear in human form that has somehow become a trucker. And the maintenance system indicates the truck has a bad oil leak and might need a head gasket.

What I can say is it's refreshing to see a trucksim take on a more feature-driven strategy rather than all visual like SCS games.

That being said, this game in its current state won't be unseating SCS from anything any time soon.

Hopefully, the devs will be responsive to criticism and improve the areas that most desperately need it. If not, who knows how many people will buy the full product, but I'd guess not many.

[Digital X]

They pretty active on Steam and have a form to give feedback on for the demo.

[Optional Features]

Yep, they have a discord as well, and I'm sharing some ideas. The main thing I'd like to see is more realistic truck models. They don't need to be branded to have tires that aren't 2x too wide, wheels that don't match front to back, or axles that are barely far apart enough for the tires not to scrub.

Hopefully they can improve that and similar issues with the trailers. The cab interactivity is probably the best part. I can actually look around for the right switch and click it on.

But the other stuff including eating needs a lot of help.

[rookie31st]

I was on Discord telling them about the tires months and months ago. They ignored it completely. Unless they get massive pushback now, they won't change them.

[DarkD92]

It is in our interest to have such games on the market,is competition and this is in our favor.

I understood that getting out of the vehicle is a great freedom, but they need to work on truck and trailer modeling, this is true. I hope they improve the game

[rookie31st]

I wouldn't mind the current truck model, frankly. The tire model is what was bothering me the most since the early screenshots. I just wish they animated switches in cabin and make gauges functional, at least pretending to function like in American/European Truck Simulators.

But there is something they are highly unlikely to fix at this stage - roads. They are looking way too cartoonish. Hard 90-degree turns everywhere. Intersections with tight corners. No smooth radius like we see in places frequent by trucks with long trailers. The roads look very gamey, and while I certainly enjoy gameplay elements and interacting with the truck and the world, I won't be able to enjoy those roads, especially with the weird physics they offer - even a bob-tailing truck can hardly hit 45MPH, and it's probably because going even 60MPH on those roads with 90-degree turns and other frequent unrealistic curves would result in going offroad way too often. They created a condensed environment where they had to limit truck performance as well. They could create a cartoonish but life-like environment, similar to SnowRunner at the least, but they failed. The world looks like it's from a simple game for mobile phones.

[55sixxx]

By looking at screenshots and the gameplay videos, I came to the conclusion that this game is EXACTLY what I expected. Overdone blurs, glows, fog and environment color saturation, mediocre interior quality/detailing, poor details on the truck exterior, wonky mechanics, quite a few unnescessary features for a truck driving sim game and so on. My thoughts?? Just another game that will try to take on ATS but will fail before it even begins, similar to Truck World: Australia (Although, TW:A looks, graphical wise, a 1000x better than this Alaskan thing).