The cards scatter like frightened beetles across the asphalt and my car’s tires are hungry. This isn’t poker with a velvet felt and a whiskey sweat, this is a feral hunt where a straight flush is built from roadkill. The engine growls, a low vibrato that syncs with the pulse in my throat, and I’m swerving to snag the Queen of Hearts while a jack of clubs bounces off my fender. The soundtrack is a sleazy synthwave loop that feels like a sticky floor in a neon lit bar, and honestly, it’s perfect. The voice acting, if you can call the breathy gasps and giggles that, is so unpolished it sc***. I hate it. I need more of it.

The real models, god, they’re not airbrushed fantasies. They’re pixelated in a way that feels almost voyeuristic, like a scrambled cable channel from the 90s. You win a hand, a pathetic two pair you assembled by nearly flipping your car, and the reward screen flickers. A girl with a bored expression and a silver halter top stares past you. You click to pay. The money drains, a digital waterfall of your ill gotten gains, and her top dissolves. The animation is a jerky, three frame stutter. It’s the most erotic thing I’ve ever seen. It’s a masterclass in anti climax. The whole thing feels like a forgotten arcade cabinet in the back of a laundromat, sticky with soda and secrets.

I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to optimize my racing line for a flush draw, completely ignoring the actual racing part. The car handles like a drunk refrigerator on a slip n slide. There’s a specific corner on the third track where the physics just give up and you phase through a barrier, and the developer left it in. That’s not a bug, that’s a feature of a mind that’s given up. A beautiful surrender. The whole experience is a lesson in desire, isn’t it? The chase is a clumsy, grinding mess, and the prize is a glitchy, unblinking jpeg that somehow knows your soul. I’m not sure if I won or lost, but my wallet is empty and the girl in the silver halter top is finally, completely, unremarkably bare.