Snap-on Gearhead Garage: The Virtual Mechanic is the car-repair game Mekada made in 1999: buy worn-out cars, take them apart bolt by bolt, repair or replace what is worn, and sell them on. We took the original ghg.exe apart, wrote it down, and rebuilt it screen by screen.
The game, as it was
- WorkShop: four views of the car; the air ratchet and impact wrench take a part off bolt by bolt; Show Condition colours every part by its wear.
- Catalog for new parts, and the JunkYard's three walkable areas of used ones.
- Car Lot and Auction: buying and selling against six bidders before the clock runs out.
- Jobs: the 31 written for the game, then made-up ones from its phrase book.
- Paint and decals, photos, and ten careers saved in the original format, so a career from 1999 plays on.
What the rebuild adds
- Direct3D 12 first, with Direct3D 11 and OpenGL taking over on a card that can't start it.
- Any window from 640 x 480 to 2560 x 1920, or full screen, with the 3D views widening instead of stretching.
- Mouse and touch, and the whole game on Android.
- One executable with no launcher; the old launcher's display options and snapshot browser are on the sign-in sheet's Settings page.
- A frame limit of 60, 120, 144 or 240, anti-aliasing up to 8x, and crash reports that name the build and the graphics driver.
Downloads for Windows and Android are on the game's own site, ghg.teamvanilla.dev.
