How a unique competition helped an upcoming driving sim evolve Embryonic sim racing platform, The Last Garage, had a surprise online multiplayer test in public recently as it continues its development. This is as the first title to use its technology, MONOsim, edges towards release. First, a quick reminder. The Last Garage is a work-in-progress driving simulator, using scratch-built physics mixed with open-source elements, such as Godot for graphics. But it isn’t going to be a sim racing title you can buy. Well, not as ‘The Last Garage’ anyway. It’s currently used, in a ‘B2B’ sense, by the Dutch military for driver training, sportscar manufacturer Donkervoort for car development (including a laser-scanned TT Circuit Assen venue) and as a rally driver testing tool. The public will be able to drive it later this year, however, when the new driving game, MONOsim, will be released via Steam, utilising The Last Garage as its basis. Now we’re all up to speed, earlier this week, VCO’s Esports Racing League competition drew to a close, using The Last Garage and its custom VCARUS model. On the face of it, nothing new, the ERL had held an event using the vehicle and sim platform before,in particular at January’s Sim Formula Europe event. That time, however, all drivers were in the same room for a LAN race-off. What made this recent competition different was that the drivers were remote, debuting TLG’s online multiplayer for the very first time. Which wasn’t in the original plan, as an in-person event was meant to be the structure until just one month before the championship-deciding gathering. Oh, and a new track had to be built in that time, too. “I didn’t really have any plans to do [the ERL final] online because I was still working on some elements,” explains