Intro to Car Parking Games

The category of parking games covers a large variety of games, from slow-paced puzzles to reflex-testing timed games. In the simple, puzzle-based mode, this is an relatively old genre of game. You can follow them back to old fashion slider puzzles with names like “Gridlock” and “Traffic Jam”, which your task is to move blocks, or vehicles around until you get one or more target vehicles to one or more target positions. The modern incarnations range from faithful implementations of these puzzles to what are like scaled down driving simulations.

In puzzle-type parking games the goal is to figure out the sequence of turns needed to get from the starting position to the end. Sometimes you will have multiple vehicles that have to be moved, either to the same or different starting locations. It may be timed, either to set a hard maximum on the time required to figure out the puzzle, or simply as a means of providing some measure of success more graded than simple completion. The degree of realness can vary as well: Several games in this mold are fairly firm copies of the old block-and-slider type games, while numerous offer a more realistic space for the player to proceed in with more possible directions of movement. For the most part, in these puzzle-type parking games, the player is in total control of what happens: the environment is set, and the main task of the player is figure out the best sequence of moves to manipulate it.

In contrast, the other end of the spectrum consists of games where the environment is not static, and the goal of the player is to react to it. The original goal remains the same: get from some point(s) A to point(s) B. But now the goal is to respond to obstacles that appear along the way—generally other vehicles. These are a great deal much more dependent on quick reaction time on the player’s part, and plans formed at the beginning of the level are generally less useful. The main emphasis is on the player’s ability to react to either random or timed obstacles.

From the standpoint of a developer, the core mechanic of car parking games gives plenty of room for fine-tune side-mechanics and themes. For instance, one newcomer into the field involves moving snow to a target zone with a snow plow while avoiding parked cars. Likewise, levels can a great deal be automatically generated pretty successfully, giving huge replay value. It is also ordinarily reasonably obvious what will create a difficult level and what will make an easy one, allowing for simple tweaking of the difficulty level.

From the point of view of a player, parking games generally go into the category of “difficult to master, easy to learn.” Usually the primary goal and mechanics of parking games are reasonably natural, but a well-designed one can continue ramping up the difficulty level as well as tossing new obstacles at the player. As well, the range of games from puzzle-based to twitch-based means that parking games can appeal to a wide range of casual and not-so-casual gamers.

Parking games are a somewhat new niche, and there is a lot of room to grow. Happy gaming!

Playing parking games online can be huge fun! There are so many different difficulty levels and types. Really anyone can have fun with these games. We recommend going to www.parkinggame.net for all your parking pleasures.