Image: Half Games

Driving is hard. Driving while trying to shoot someone out of your window is harder. Trying to do that with loading and pumping a shotgun in the middle of all that? Nightmare difficulty. Now try doing it with only one arm. If that sounds like hell, it kinda is, but as the Half Grip demo proves, surprisingly fun, too. There's no word on when the full version of this unhinged roguelike racing game will land, but you can try a significantly beefy piece of it for free right now, thanks to the ever-expanding Steam Next Fest.

There is something beautifully Mad Max-ish about this whole premise, even though the one-handed mouse-based driving is most likely based on Enviro-Bear 2000. Your lead-footed protagonist has their foot firmly down on the gas here, so all you really have to worry about is braking and everything else. Your mouse moves your hand, letting you grip the wheel, move the gear-shift, load nitro into the engine, reload your guns, and fire them, but you can only be doing one thing at a time.

There's a handy button to lock the steering wheel's position for a moment while you do other things, but you're always juggling the controls here. Every straightaway is a chance to take a second or two to do something important elsewhere on the screen, and depending on your choices and upgrades between races, you'll have plenty to do around the screen. Especially when you start getting upgrades that require you to attack other drivers, or maintain certain conditions during a race. It's fiddly, but in a very interesting, gratifying way.

The Half Grip demo is a beefy chunk of game too. A branching 7-race run with multiple objectives along the way. You've got three lives and plenty of upgrades to pick up, including a bundle of achievements to shoot for. It feels like you could easily sink a couple of hours into this demo, replaying it to see all the permutations and challenges. Plus, there's a lot to learn - this is an intentionally fiddly control scheme.

The Half Grip demo is live now. No word on when the full game will be landing, but we'll be taking the full game for a spin as soon as possible.