The Alleged Car: The Game
Mon Bazou (Quebec French for "my shitty car") is an indie Simulation Game (currently in early access as of January 2023) made by the French-Canadian developer Santa Goat
. The game is set in a small village in rural Quebec circa 2005 and revolves around fixing and repairing the titular "bazou". Money is raised through various chores such as chopping and selling firewood, producing maple syrup, delivering pizzas, illegal midnight street races, fencing stolen radios and growing cannabis.
You can purchase the game here or visit the official Discord here. See also My Summer Car for the Finnish equivalent of this game.
Mon Bazou provides examples of:
- The Alleged Car: The bazou, and also the pickup truck.
- Bilingual Bonus: Characters speak (and swear) in genuine Quebec French, and French writing is present on products or signs, but knowledge of Quebec French is unnecessary, as all relevant information can be displayed in English (or is fairly easy to deduce).
- Bland-Name Product: The coffee in this game is from "Tom Houston", instantly familiar to anyone who heard of Tim Hortons (a Canadian chain selling coffee, donuts and sandwiches).
- Cool Car: What you want to upgrade the titular bazou into.
- Firewood Resources: Justified since most of your income (at least early on) comes from selling firewood to your brother, but building the sugar shack to start maple syrup production just involves stacking pine logs in a designated area until the titular shack pops out of thin air, none of the log being long enough to make the walls depicted in-game.
- It's Always Spring: With the caveat this is Quebec, so spring means leafless trees and clammy weather. On the plus side this means you can always produce maple syrup (maple season is in spring, specifically when the temperature is above zero in the days but below zero in the night and trees wake up from their hibernation).
- Moose and Maple Syrup: The game is set in a rural Quebec village and is a tongue-in-cheek parody of the lifestyle and culture. Two of your needs are even maple syrup and poutine!
- Relationship Values: Interacting with people raises you "friendship" with them, which can give you benefits. For instance Jacques, the shopkeeper, will let you access his scrapyard at 25 friendship.
- Rice Burner: If you focus only on upgrading the aesthetics of your bazou.
- Shown Their Work: The game's maple syrup production is fairly accurate to the real process.
- What a Piece of Junk: Nothing is stopping you from upgrading the bazou's internals but keeping the rest of the car looking shabby aesthetically.
