Vinkeveen Vice
A lake, a hire boat, and nine kilometres an hour.
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It is a lake, a hire boat, and a sunset that never quite finishes. There is nothing here you can break.
The boat. The deposit. And, on a good evening, the nine kilometres an hour. Somebody out there is watching all three.
Get on the water
Vinkeveen Vice is multiplayer: you sail live, on the same water as everyone else who is out at the time. No account, no code, no e-mail address. You get a boat and the lake is open.
Take a boat outAbout this game
This is the Vinkeveense Plassen, traced off the real map, at the exact hour the sun gives up. Pick a plas, sign for a boat, and see how long you can hold on to it.
The speed limit on the plas is nine kilometres an hour. It is enforced by eight police boats and one waterboswachter who has heard every excuse there is, and the map draws the water each of them can book you inside. You will break it in about forty seconds.
There are no guns in this game. There is a lake, a sunset that goes on all evening, several boats that are not yours yet, a crate of air tanks that were meant for the divers, an aeroplane that keeps flying into the helicopters, and out on the Zuidplas a race that nobody sanctioned.
The case
Air tanks go down full of air off zandeiland 4, and some of them come back up full of something else. Nobody on this lake has ever asked where they come from. Somebody is asking now, and you are the one already on the water.
You are Kroket, or you are Tubbe, undercover, in a hire dinghy with a sticker on it, because that is what nobody looks at twice. The jobs come from the guide on Bootje Kroket. She takes anybody aboard, tows your own boat along behind her, and refuses passengers with a wanted star — which makes her deck the one place out here where a police officer can stand in the open all evening and be furniture. Board her clean and he gets to the point.
Seven missions, in order, and they are all made of the lake that was already here: the duikzone, the werven that respray a hull, the submarine that surfaces and throws cylinders at aeroplanes, the four things under Paula’s counter, the shadow of Freedom where the police cannot see in. All of it was built as scenery. It turns out to be evidence.
The job arrives as a card with a button on it, and pressing it is a choice. Step off her deck without pressing and the lake is exactly what it always was, and the same job is on the table next time you come aboard. Between two missions there is nothing on your screen at all: no panel, no marker, no clock. Fail one and it costs you that mission and nothing else — it goes straight back on the table. On your own, the lake remembers how far through it you got.
What you can do
- Nine kilometres an hour The limit. Also a suggestion, a dare, and the entire plot.
- De flessenlijn Seven undercover missions off a tour boat, in the order they happened. Fail one and it goes straight back on the table.
- Two circuits One on the Zuidplas, one on the Noordplas. Cross a start line and you are in the race, in a boat they hand you.
- The whole plas Banks, legakkers, twelve sand islands, all of it traced off the real map, with sixty thousand trees in copses and reed down to every waterline. You can go anywhere a boat fits, and a few places it does not.
- Five stars of trouble Speed, steal, or cut through the duikzone and the police take an interest. Lose them in the legakkers, or up a bank where they will not follow.
- A map that says what they can see Every patrol and Thea carry the wedge of water they can book you inside. Wait for the bow to sweep past, and go.
- A horn The one control that does nothing at all. A rubber bulb on a dinghy, something much bigger on a motoryacht, and everyone within four hundred metres hears which of the two it was.
- Thea The waterboswachter. She has a hut, a duikzone, and a ten-second lecture with your name on it.
- Nine kinds of boat, forty of them out there A board, a canoe, a dinghy, a sloep, a sailboat, a speedboat, a motorkruiser, a yacht and a ski boat — the small ones tucked into the legakker channels where the big ones cannot follow.
- Boats that are not yours Pull alongside an empty one, hold Space, and it is. Two stars, and now the colour is a problem.
- Three werven They will respray a hull and lose the hire sticker for you. Not while anyone official is watching, obviously.
- Air tanks, and a rope The tanks were meant for the divers. Throw one with F. Or switch to rope and leave it astern for whoever is behind you.
- Dry land Space puts you on the bank, WASD walks, Shift runs. The police do not come ashore. They do wait by your boat.
- Bar Verloren On Get Lost Island. Hold Space for a round. For ninety seconds the helm has opinions and the scoreboard has enthusiasm.
- Paula’s Patatboot Comes round the west side. A board of seven things, and she patches up your hull while the fryer is on.
- Sunset, all evening The sun goes down slowly and comes back up in a hurry, because nobody wants to spend their evening in the dark.
- The radio Ten stations of synth. It comes on when you leave the jetty and not a moment before.
- Waterplanten Weed along the banks. At nine you sail through it and never notice. Open the throttle in it and it is round your prop.
- A hot engine Hold it flat out long enough and it boils, and then it is quarter throttle until it cools. Nothing happens at nine.
- Something in the sky, briefly A helicopter that comes and sits over you once you are wanted enough, and aeroplanes that keep flying into the helicopters. About one a minute goes in, and the club always has another.
- An electric motor, free One tick on the hire form. Same boat, same nine kilometres an hour, and from the helm you hear the water instead of the engine.
- Freedom A rusting barge with a house built along the deck, working her way round the legakkers. Lie alongside and nobody official can see you.
- Bootje Kroket A tour boat shaped like the snack. Step aboard and your own comes along on a tow while the guide talks. Not with a star on you.
- Mario's Verse Frituur A snack van up the path from the beach, for when Paula is on the other side of the lake.
- Sixteen boats, one lake Everyone out at the same time is on the same water. Fill it and a second one opens. Or take a whole lake for yourself. No code, no sign-up, no e-mail address.
Race times
Every race finished on Vinkeveen Vice is kept. A time only counts against times set on the same circuit. A sprint and a long round are not two attempts at the same thing, so each has its own two boards.
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