The Joy of Focus

This column is a reprint from Unwinnable Monthly #196. If you like what you see, grab the magazine for less than ten dollars, or subscribe and get all future magazines for half price.

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Wide but shallow.

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Visiting family a few years ago in North Dakota, my wife and I found ourselves driving many long, straight, mostly flat miles. There’s a dangerous serenity in that kind of drive, where you can’t allow yourself to get too comfortable. Driver’s seat karaoke allows for some passion as long as the eyes keep forward and hands stick around four and eight, and audiobooks must remain suitably un-engrossing. Even a wide, flat view can hold a few surprises for you.

Birds, for example. Making our way to my uncle’s house, many dark birds were seemingly diving directly in front of the car, almost as if they were daring each other or just themselves to fly as close and fast in front of us as possible. I mentioned this to my uncle, who said these birds were thrill-seeking, playing chicken with cars passing by for a little dopamine squeeze.

Who knows with uncles – mine are smart but no ornithologists, but it sounds correct. If I could fly, you’d bet I’d be pushing my luck bit by bit, starting with a branch dive going into a low fast glide, carrying on above. There are limits, and birds regularly mis-read them on the road and elsewhere, but if you’re flying where’s the joy without a little press on those boundaries.

This is the kind of road thought that emerges while playing a game like Lanesplit, where a dangerous second of idleness ends with a hard cut to black because I kissed the wrong bumper. The premise is taut – you’re riding a fast motorcycle through one highway or another, at dusk or dawn, racking up points by weaving as closely around traffic with as much speed as possible. As a biker you need to be watching as far ahead as possible to recognize an incoming turn by the lights on the guardrails or using your spider-sense to determine if that bus is looking to switch lanes. More points in a single run means more bikes to use on one of the three current maps.

Lanesplit is being developed by a one-person studio, and in some ways that shows. I’m not complaining, though others might – it’s rough, it’s buggy, it probably feels more Early Access than complete with just three maps and a limited number of cars to weave around and strangely no cops hassling you (but then again, the interstates seem explicitly non-enforced around here so maybe that’s less of a dealbreaker) and no modes other than “go fast don’t crash.” There is a multiplayer online mode, but I didn’t try that.

Because the solo ride is exactly what I was looking for here, along with the crepuscular VHS aesthetic. The game has a few drum n’ bass tracks but I’m more inclined to dig up old my old MTV AMP comp or put together some jazz freakout playlists, grooves to really dig into while cutting left and right and hard braking before a wet curve. Sometimes a good ride takes a few crashes to start but eventually my eyes settle in, there aren’t a ton of dials or heads-up-display elements to call me away from the road. Every now and again I’m able to peek at the landscape and appreciate the immeasurable yawn of the world, but then a pair of cherries pops into the center and it’s time to refocus on my speed.

The joy of Lanesplit is realizing that never getting one of these bikes was the right call for me, as I’d probably be a smear at this point, but here I am able to dole out my own little serotonin drip. Swooping past a car delivers a satisfying swoosh sound, and looping them together bundles me in a cozy aural Afghan. I feel myself transforming into a highway-side bird, all pecks and chirps and daily bird life until I spy a car coming down the road, and I just gotta dive in close. Many times this results in an instant collision to black, and in this way I am thankful that Lanesplit allows me die vicariously.

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Levi Rubeck is a critic and poet currently living in the Boston area. Check his links at levirubeck.com.