(ignore my playtime)
Have played this game for about 3 weeks via Patreon and this game has so much potential!

JEM has made a remarkably unique aesthetic that challenges the original format that the JDM Racing genre had created. It's a reminder from past games like NFS: Underground & Midnight Club.

THE PROBLEMS:
1. Since V.0.9943 made AI practically impossible in terms of progressing after beating S.K, It's good to see that the AI had been 'adjusted' compared to It's previous version. This game ironically made me better in the racing genre because of how brutal the AI had been. The AI tuning is still an issue. I like the idea of having aggressive AI vs passive AI. Makes the character's you race have a resemblance of personality and emotion in their choices when fighting you. Especially when AI changes during Double or Nothing events. However, the AI's difficulty is very inconsistent. S.K Had definitely left a difficulty gap in previous versions, but now AI just go from 'Easy' to 'Racing the Rep BOSS'. The difficulty scaling definitely needs to be adjusted more. I like how the scaling bases difficulty off your car's HP/Performance and It's strict range on AI rep. But It still feels like it needs a bit of tweaking considering the fact that the difficulty ranking system wasn't working properly in past versions.

2. Having to choose between an Automatic vs a Manual is cool, but I think that being able to swap transmissions between Automatic or Manual would give the player more freedom to choose whether or not they want to be insulted for driving an Automatic or buy a tier 4 car that's Automatic and swap it to a Manual.

3. Not sure if this is adjustable (I dont think it is but I'll put it here anyways) but being able to adjust camera position when driving would be a nice addition. I know I can switch camera ANGLES from top down to 'in person' driving. But, I'd like to at LEAST adjust the camera position and angle to my liking.

4. Navigation is pretty rough, it took me a few days to map out a path to a PA station and actually race the characters. But, sometimes I still find myself having to fast travel back to my garage and go to the P.A from there. A better navigation system would be nice. But, I still prefer the aesthetic of navigation that we currently have. If we could make navigation more dynamic, that would be perfect!

THE GOOD:
1. I like the UI aesthetic and functionality. I think it could still use some minor fixing, but other than that it leaves an impression that most games lack.

2. Customization is amazing, I don't exactly have any complaints other than having to choose between Performance or Appearance. But, that's IRL project cars for you. No point trying to hide from that reality lol.

3. Driving/Handling is pretty well maintained when you leave your shxtbox bone stock, but when It's upgraded it only gets better (as it should). Playing with the keyboard is surprisingly well performed, especially with the controller. And I can't wait for Wheel functionality to be added to the game!

Overall, I think the game could use some tweaking. The difficulty scaling is one of Its larger issues that will divide and impact the community of Night-Runners and leaves a disadvantage to the player's confidence in progressing. The game is a beautiful passion project for classic racing games and I hope to see it one day become one of its successors!
(please consider supporting PLANET JEM via their Kickstarter so they can drop a FULL RELEASE. This is a 1 developer project, and they deserve all the support they can get!)
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/night-runners/night-runners