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About Van Wheel Gone
Van Wheel Gone is an indie adventure platformer developed by Zhengyu Ye that launched on PC in September 2025. You control an anthropomorphic orange van stripped of its wheels and tasked with retrieving them from nine increasingly absurd hellscapes. Each level throws surreal obstacles at you, from floating debris fields to gravity-defying terrain. The game leans into its quirky charm with over-the-top visual design and a disjointed narrative about theft and redemption. It’s a single-player experience that prioritizes creative problem-solving over combat, letting you wield tools like a pair of scissors, a spotlight, and time-manipulation abilities. The core hook is its eccentricity, blending environmental puzzles with moments of slapstick humor.
Gameplay
The van’s movement feels floaty but precise, with each level requiring you to balance platforming and item-based abilities. Scissors let you cut through barriers, headlights illuminate hidden paths, and time control pauses or rewinds physics to bypass hazards. Flight briefly lets you hover, but stamina is limited. Levels are short but dense, often forcing you to backtrack using newly unlocked skills. Controls are straightforward, WASD for movement, mouse to aim tools, but some puzzles require timing, like freezing a crumbling bridge mid-step. The game’s rhythm shifts constantly: one moment you’re dodging lava bursts, the next you’re slicing through a spaghetti-like tangle of roots. The surreal aesthetic means rules change frequently, demanding adaptability.
What Players Think
Van Wheel Gone holds a 8.3/10 average from 12,400 PlayPile users, with 87% positive sentiment. Only 10% of players have completed all nine levels, averaging 7 hours per player. Community moods skew toward curiosity (68%) and humor (32%), but 22% report mild frustration. A review snippet: “The puzzles are wild but fair if you embrace the chaos.” Another: “Wasted 3 hours trying to figure out the scissors vs. time controls in Level 5.” It’s priced at $29.99, currently with a 30% discount. Achievements include “Wheel Reunited” (15 total), with the hardest being “No Time for Tears” (finish a level using only time rewind).
PlayPile's Take
Van Wheel Gone is worth playing if you enjoy offbeat platformers that prioritize lateral thinking over linear progression. The $19.99 price tag feels reasonable for its 7-hour runtime and 15 achievements, but the 10% completion rate hints at punishing difficulty spikes. It shines most when its tools interact in unexpected ways, like using scissors to snip a bungee cord while rewinding time to bounce across a chasm. Not every puzzle lands, but the best ones feel like eureka moments in a weird, wonderful world.
Game Modes
Single player
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