Roadside Research has you and up to 3 other friends take on a very normal human job of running a gas station out in America while also researching your customers and avoiding the all seeing eye of the government forces that might try and stop you as you blend into society. (Because you’re actually aliens).
At first Roadside Research seems like a lot of other simulator style games with you doing very normal jobs like refueling cars, serving customers and restocking shelves but this is merely the tip of the iceberg as soon you will be scanning your test subjects, brainwashing people into accepting extortionate prices or just studying the unaware with whatever means are at your disposal.
As you progress through Roadside Research you’ll be able to unlock upgrades from different trees, some will allow you to upgrade your store with a larger building, new stock or even furniture to make the place seem a little less alien. You can also upgrade a tech tree to give you more ways to earn points and money as well as arouse the suspicion of the men in suits that will come and sniff out any alien action if you provoke too many people.
The overall experience has you and your friends building up a functional gas station while also trying to remain on the down low and avoid the law, set prices for stock and different types of fuel as well as build some wacky and zany creations to assist you in making as much money and upgrade points as possible.
At first I did find it very annoying that every single customer seems to just use any inch of floor space to drop anything they happen to hold or use, making it very difficult to keep clean. Pair this with the fact that as aliens you appear to goop on the floor every now and again making people even more suspicious of you. Cleaning and keeping tidy is paramount to running a successful business therefore I highly recommend you invest in the garbage disposal so that customers start to throw their own rubbish away.
Making money is generally quite easy, unironically fuel seems to be the best bet in our little group but if you find a sweet spot for your prices you can earn a lot from most of the products or services your Roadside Research station can offer. You can also buy a number of items that can influence the minds of those around you making them more susceptible to paying a premium for lower cost items but it raises your suspicion in the process.
You will have a number of meters to track how things are going in the top right of the UI, these track your suspicion and at different stages may trigger people to come and investigate the gas station. There is also a customer satisfaction meter which basically shows how good of an experience your customers are having, as long as you serve people in a timely manner and keep the place clean i’ve rarely seen the meter drop below full.
In the event that you do trigger the authorities they will make a move to try and take you down. You can try and stop them by throwing items at them and slowing them down to try and hide but they are a wily bunch and will generally chase you until they shoot you or stop you leaving nothing but a pile of goop behind so be warned about raising too much suspicion.
You can customise the shop in all manner of different ways from hanging flags, rotating shelves for stock placement and also buying all sorts of different items to place on those shelves from the alien computer out back. This is also delivered to your station in a state of the art disguised alien craft that would 100% never so much as raise an eyebrow if you saw it passing by. These options all allow for a highly customisable store although I do wish you had the option to actually manipulate the building itself rather than just unlock larger parts of it.
The characters you play as are also just as customisable with the options of many different alien bodies and masks available like the disturbing single toe feet that give me flashbacks to the thumb people from Spy Kids. For the more creative people you can also make an entirely custom mask allowing you to have whatever disguise you want and still blend in to gas station society. A
Overall Roadside Research is a great simulator style game with some humour and other mechanics added on to keep you on your toes and very invested in the success of your alien gas station.
You can find Roadside Research on PC.
