Golden Lap PC Review
Summary: Golden Lap is an simple but interesting take on the motorsport management sim, set in a dangerous and unpredictable era that isn't often used in games.
3.5
Simple fun!
Every game that developer Funselektor puts out, seems to be exactly what I want, and their latest title, Golden Lap is no exception. In much the same way that previous titles, Absolute Drift and Art of Rally leaned into the minimalist art style, Golden Lap continues the trend by keeping things simple.
Set during the golden era of Formula One, Golden Lap is a minimalistic, racing management sim. Players take control of one of ten teams that mimic their real-life counterparts.
The setup is typical of the genre. As the team manager, the player has a limited budget. They must hire drivers and team members, buy an engine, and develop the car over the season. Both the drivers and team members who are employed have stats that reflect their ability to do their jobs, along with traits that can be both positive and negative. Some drivers get a boost from racing on home turf, some like to party a little too hard and occasionally turn up to the track hungover, lowering their stats in the process, and some are consummate professionals.
When developing the car, at the start of the season a development path is chosen, this path will influence your car over the season, defining its traits and potential. Do you go down the safer and reliable path, that gives higher reliability but with a lower ceiling? Or be more gung-ho in your design, taking a risky stance on your car, something that can potentially lead to better results, but with the increased risk of failures and accidents. Sponsors are hired at the beginning of the year and updated throughout the season and is essential to keep a healthy bank balance so that car development can keep up with rivals.
Career mode takes place over ten seasons, each with ten races out of a pool of 15 tracks. Like the teams, each track is a legally distinct facsimile of a historic track. Greats such as Monza, Brands Hatch, and Silverstone are all represented, albeit subtly different from their real-life counterparts but still immediately recognisable.
Race weekends start with qualifying. Once the cars are on track, dialing in a setup and setting a fast lap is the order of the day. The setup system is simple but effective. Each driver has 20 tokens to distribute across three categories, governing speed, acceleration, and handling. Each of the categories then has two options available to it, both using a different amount of tokens and giving a bonus in performance to that area across a range. Once all tokens have been depleted, it’s time to send the car out on track to set a lap. The process is then repeated throughout the session, gradually improving the car, and hopefully setting faster laps each time.
Each of the tuning categories is represented visually by a small meter. At the top end of which is a sweet zone, the golden tune. Landing your tune in this grants a big bonus to performance. However, overshooting will have a huge negative impact on performance. It’s a surprisingly effective risk versus reward system, it’s fun trying to get a golden tune in all three areas on both cars without pushing it over the limit, and very satisfying when pulled off.
Next comes the race itself. They’re all viewed from an overhead perspective, with cars being represented as coloured and numbered dots on a map of the circuit. A timing tower sits on the left with general information about all the drivers and their relative performances. When it comes down to actually relaying orders to your drivers and influencing the race, options are limited. This is to be expected, racing technology in the 70’s was relatively primitive by today’s standards.
A driver can be made to back off, saving tires and fuel, or push on extracting the most out of the car. The latter has to be done in moderation, however. Pushing increases their stress levels, which in turn increases the likelihood of making a mistake costing valuable time, or worse, crashing out of the race entirely.
Crashing out of the race has the potential to be significantly more disastrous in Golden Lap than in other games in the genre. The early days of Formula One are notorious for being dangerous and unpredictable, with many drivers of the era unfortunately losing their lives during this period, and the same can happen in Golden Lap. Big accidents have the very real possibility of ending a driver’s life.
The only other option during a race is whether to make a pitstop and change tires or whether to fight their teammate on track or not. Strategy comes from managing the race – taking note of what the weather is doing and making the best use of any yellow flag periods on track.
This loop of upgrading your car between races, qualifying and the race is the core experience of Golden Lap. Beyond the career mode, the only other option is a single race. I found that I could get through a single season in a few hours, so with ten available to chase the titles, there’s plenty of longevity here. My only concern is that the relatively limited gameplay options could have the game feeling stale relatively quickly as there’s not much in the way of variety.
Not yet anyway. Thankfully, Golden Lap has full mod support and Steam Workshop integration, allowing for a host of custom seasons from any era to be uploaded. I think this is where the real longevity of the game is going to come from and I’m eager to see what the community can create and bring to the game.
As mentioned towards the start of the review, Golden Lap and Funselektor’s games in general are all minimalistic in their presentation. The visuals all tie in nicely together with one another, but it is largely menu-based and there isn’t a whole lot to look at. Audio is similarly understated, it’s perfectly adequate but doesn’t stand out in any way.
Final Thoughts
Golden Lap is a fun and accessible entry into the seriously lacking motorsport management genre. Its simplicity may put some people off, games of this nature tend to have an insane level of customisation and detail, but if you’re looking for a more casual experience that doesn’t take itself too seriously and is very easy to just pick up and play Golden Lap might be worth a look.
It’s a budget release, coming in at less than $15 and thanks to mod support right out of the box it should have enough to keep motorsport enthusiasts engaged for a while.
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