We did not make most of this up

When a level needed a hazard, we went and found the news story, checked the numbers and built the level around it. So the jokes are not about Singapore. They are Singapore, at 150 km/h, with a taxi uncle shouting over the top.

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It starts with a real deadline

The whole plot is one drive, in one night, because a Certificate of Entitlement expires at midnight. A COE is the licence to own a car in Singapore at all. It lasts exactly ten years, and it is bid for in an open market twice a month.

In the first September 2026 bidding, Category A closed at a record S$133,009, beating the S$129,000 record set only that July, and that is the certificate alone, before the car. So in level one you are not fighting a villain. You are fighting an expiry date.

Chapter 1: the island at night

Fourteen levels, north to south, before the certificate runs out at midnight. The full tour is on the Drive Home page; this is the part that actually happened.

Yishun, where the news stories come from

Yishun has a reputation as Singapore's strangest neighbourhood, the local Florida Man: cat killings, mall stabbings, a running joke about building a wall around it. Netflix even shot a Stranger Things promo asking whether Yishun was cursed.

Then CNA's Talking Point checked the numbers and found Yishun ranked 13th out of 28 estates for preventable crime, behind Changi, Geylang, Rochor and Marine Parade. The town is roughly average; the meme is what makes the news. That is why the level's subtitle reads "Where the news stories come from" and not "Where the crimes happen".

The PMD swarm that will not go away

Personal mobility devices have been banned from public footpaths since 5 November 2019, and were already off the roads before that. The ban landed hardest on food delivery riders, and it did not make the devices disappear. In the game they swarm anyway, and hitting one costs you 200 points and, the game notes, a lot of paperwork.

ERP, and why the toast keeps popping

Electronic Road Pricing gantries charge you for using a congested road at a congested time, deducted from a card in the car. In the game the charge pops up at the worst possible moment, usually while you are threading a gap, which anyone who has driven a Singapore expressway at peak hour will recognise.

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Chapter 2: the morning after

Seven levels back north, in daylight, to reach the Kranji scrapyard by noon. The full tour is on the Morning After page; these are the four true stories it is built from.

Sixteen otters, single file, with a police escort

In March 2022 a family of up to 16 smooth-coated otters crossed Orchard Road outside the Istana. Sentry guards turned the traffic light red and held it for about two minutes, and when the otters were still not across, one guard walked into the third lane and stopped the traffic by hand. A commuter filmed it from the top deck of a bus and the Prime Minister posted it.

Level 17 is called Istana Otter Jam and its subtitle, "The family has right of way", is a description, not a punchline. The game gives them the escort because they had one.

PSI 400, when the sky left

Singapore reports air quality as a Pollutant Standards Index. Above 300 is officially "hazardous", and a reading above 400 sustained over a day may be life-threatening to the ill and the elderly. The all-time record is a 3-hour PSI of 401, on 21 June 2013, during haze from peat and forest fires in Sumatra.

So the level named PSI 400 is roughly the worst day on record. The haze eats your draw distance until you find an N95 pickup, which is the real experience translated as literally as possible: you cannot see the lorry, and the lorry cannot see you.

The tank that hit a traffic light

Level 19 is subtitled "Tank-ful no one hurt". That is not our pun. It is a real July 2025 headline, written after a Leopard tank clipped a traffic light on North Bridge Road during a National Day Parade preview. MINDEF later called the fault an isolated incident.

The stranger fact is that the NDP Mobile Column really does drive 55-tonne tanks along ordinary public roads, in convoy, out into the heartlands. In the game one of them has steering that has, quote, developed a personality.

One of the busiest land borders on earth

The Johor to Singapore Causeway is a 1.056 km road and rail link built in the 1920s and opened in 1924. Woodlands Checkpoint at its Singapore end cleared an average of 327,000 travellers a day in 2024, with a record 376,000 on 20 December, which makes it one of the busiest land border crossings in the world.

Level 20, the Causeway Crawl, is the densest level in the game on purpose: less dodging, more barely moving. And you are not even going to Malaysia. You need the Kranji exit, 400 metres and forty-five minutes away.

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Chapter 3: the JB Run

Across the Causeway, Singaporean players start nodding and Malaysian players start laughing: all of it is procedure, and the procedure is the comedy. The full tour is on the JB Run page.

The three-quarter tank rule

Under the Customs Act, in force since 1991, a Singapore-registered vehicle leaving by land must have its tank at least three-quarters full, so drivers cannot fill up on cheaper Malaysian petrol and dodge Singapore fuel duty. Fall below it and you are turned around at the checkpoint, with fines of up to S$500.

The result is a ritual at every Woodlands petrol station: fill to exactly three-quarters and not one drop more. Level 22 is named after it, and the uncle who pumps $3.85 and checks the needle with a torchlight is drawn from life.

VEP, and the fine you cannot drive away from

Malaysia's Vehicle Entry Permit has been fully enforced against Singapore-registered cars since 1 July 2025. No valid, activated RFID tag means a compound fine of RM300, and you may not leave Malaysia until it is paid. By November 2025, JPJ had issued RM1.39 million in fines to 4,634 Singapore vehicles at the Johor border, and by April 2026 the total had reached 5,984 summonses worth RM2.19 million.

In level 24 a VEP gantry beeps angrily at a tag you do not have, and the fine is payable before you leave the country, so you are never leaving. Checkmate, gantry.

Why the prices change to ringgit

Once you cross, every amount in the game is in RM: the pothole rim damage, the speed-camera summons, the duit kopi, the banana cake. The money on screen is always the money of the place you are driving through, and nothing is converted for your convenience, because nothing is converted for a real driver's either.

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The part that is not a joke

Between runs the game stops being funny for one screen and shows a road safety fact. Those screens are the reason the rest of the game gets to be silly.

The police called the five-year trend "worrying". It is why Tailgate Champion is built as a trap: it pays you to ride the bumper in front, then brake-checks you and shows you your own reaction delay.

All the road safety figures, sourced

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Sources

If a figure here goes out of date, it is a bug, and you can tell us.

• COE Category A record premium, first September 2026 bidding: The Star, from The Straits Times; the July 2026 record it beat: paultan.org; every exercise: Motorist Singapore COE results.
• Yishun ranked 13th of 28 estates for preventable crime, CNA Talking Point: Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (PDF).
• E-scooters banned from public footpaths, 5 November 2019: Mothership.
• Record 3-hour PSI of 401 on 21 June 2013: BBC News.
• Istana guards halt Orchard Road for an otter family, March 2022: Mothership.
• Tank hits traffic light during National Day Parade preview, July 2025: Malay Mail.
• Causeway length and age: National Library Board, BiblioAsia; daily travellers through Woodlands Checkpoint in 2024: ICA.
• Three-quarter tank rule: Singapore Customs, ICA.
• VEP enforcement and the RM300 compound: Motorist Singapore; JPJ fines to November 2025: Malay Mail; to April 2026: New Straits Times.
• Road traffic situation 2025 (deaths, injuries, motorcyclist and elderly pedestrian share): Singapore Police Force, Mothership; the first half of 2026: Mothership.