Honcho

Honcho comes from the creator of Jalopy, and it’s got that same love for battered old vehicles and long winding roads, just with a story all its own. You play as Keiko, a young girl who inherits her late grandfather’s business and gets thrown headfirst into the surprisingly ruthless world of vending machine tycoonism. Turns out there’s serious money in keeping Japan stocked with drinks and snacks, if you can survive the people already running the show.

Your Kei truck is the heart of it all. You’ll pick one up at auction, learn its quirks, and slowly build it into something legendary through upgrades, repairs and a bit of stubborn love. From there it’s all about deliveries, installing machines, buying up real estate and clawing your way back into the financial elite your grandfather once belonged to, all while dodging the Keiretsu who’d rather you just went away.

The whole thing plays out across a procedurally generated take on 1980s Japan, stuffed with stylised Shōwa era streets and mountain roads. Underneath the truck maintenance and business grind there’s a proper story too, one about betrayal, mystery and figuring out what your grandfather was really mixed up in. It’s a strange and lovely combo, and we’re well up for it.