Backseat Drivers
by GhostJam Games · 9 Oct, 2025
89 downloads
Important Note
Get the Friend Pass on Steam and apply the Online Fix down below.
This will unlock the FULL GAME on Steam for Free.
About the Game
You’re two hapless road-users in the world’s least roadworthy car, and you have a long, long drive ahead of you. The driver can’t see where they’re going. The passenger can see, but can’t drive, and desperately shouts directions from the back seat. All while the car falls to pieces and the world does everything it can to ruin your day.
Have a nice trip!
Gramma take the wheel! As the driver, you have to contend with the car working as hard as it can against you and listen to your passenger if you’ll have any chance of reaching your destination.
Ohhhh boy. Only the passenger can see where the car’s going, so you’re both at gramma’s mercy. Clear communication is key to keep the car from crashing!
Smash, shunt, and crash your way through one big detour of a journey taking you up mountains, down subway tunnels, onto insane highways and through secret government facilities.
Left! Left! No, RIGHT! Stop stop STOP!! The couple that jives together drives together. If the passenger gives good directions (and the driver can follow them) you’re guaranteed a smooth and blissful cruise. But when something goes wrong — which it will — it’s both of your faults.
The car may be an ancient piece of junk, but they don’t make ‘em like they used to. Every component is swappable with something else. No brake pedal? No problem. Just snap a cassette tape where the pedal used to be. Good as new!
Friend Pass - Bring Along a Friend FREE!
Anyone who owns a copy of Backseat Drivers can play with one person who doesn't! If one of you owns the game, both of you can play together.
Note: Friend Pass is limited to 1 free player per 1 paid player. For a 3 or 4-player co-op session, a minimum of 2 paid copies of the game are required.
Screenshots
8 images
Version Information
Steam Patch Notes
Official update history
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45577352/398cbcfa561ef9338f2133ccbf228d0d666fd9cf.png"]
We've fixed the issue with Level 8's ski lift, whose arms were spinning wildly out of control. You can once again grab the clamps and drag 'em back onto the car, so you're not guaranteed to fall to your doom.
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45577352/398cbcfa561ef9338f2133ccbf228d0d666fd9cf.png"]
Holiday Heist Hotfix
Happy Holidays and a quick hotfix for the Holiday Heist level from us, with:
An out of bounds path, previously available on the immediate left and right on entering the Port of Pebkac, have been blocked off. You forgot your hardhat, so...
The stevedore working in the warehouse doesn't warp around no more
Driving out of the metropolitan elite restaurant tower to the action movie down-the-side-of-the-building path no longer makes the car flip out and go nuts
Doors on the smash-thru container shouldn't get stuck
Added collision to props and environment that was missing it
Removed collision from props and environment that didn't need it
Made it harder to fall off the sides of the down-the-tower path
Told the bartender to chill out. Rather than fidgeting around on the spot he's now reading his phone
Pick you up for the next one.
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45577352/398cbcfa561ef9338f2133ccbf228d0d666fd9cf.png"]
Sorry for the delay on this patch — it's a few days later than we wanted — we've been super busy working on more content!!!!! coming soon.
Now get in loser, we killed the scariest bugs in the car!
Fixed the skin system bug in which swapping from driver to passenger in gameplay didn't respect which character you chose, sometimes giving you the other player's character or a default selection. Now it should respect everyone's choices.
Fixed an issue with pedals not being able to swap between displaying (and being pressed by) Q & E. As if this game wasn't confusing enough already.
Fixed an issue in level 8 with the snow plow chase sometimes failing to trigger on successive respawns. Now he won't stop til he gets you or falls off the mountain
Also fixed an issue in level 8 with the metal jingle bells cover coming from the murderous snow plow sometimes not audible for everybody in the car
Cleanup of some misbehaving rascals in the netcode
Pick you up when it's time for the next one.
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45577352/398cbcfa561ef9338f2133ccbf228d0d666fd9cf.png"]
Another round of windshield wipes for another round of sneaky little bugs that got all smooshed and dried on there.
As follows:
Fixed VSync. Vs now properly synced.
Ys can now be inverted! Added a new "Inverted Y axis" option in the settings since it'd been highly requested, possibly by those of you who are airplane pilots and are used to it being that way? Just kidding, this had been on our radar a while — thanks for the requests and for your patience.
Ragdoll issues resolved. Let us know if they continue to misbehave.
Fixed the food order in level 2. You can now, once again, see what you're meant to order and how to order it.
Fixed collision in various places basically in every level. What you collide with is important. That goes for outside the game, and in.
Checkpoint in level 4 fixed, shouldn't put you inside some horrible boulder for no reason after ramming poor innocent sweet gremlin Froyo Hopkins
Added glare FX to dome light in car to make the reason you're horribly flashbanged a little clearer
Your "Gashole" in level 6 will now flash when your hole wants gas. Er, no comment.
Adjusted bounds for coin toss to make it easier to land your "Kobe!"s into the coin baskets and so on
Adjusted bounds for level 2 park puzzle so less undesirable stratospheric escapes and other mischief can happen
Don't play with fire, kids!! Except in level 5, where we have fixed an issue that could sometimes break the lighter.
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45577352/398cbcfa561ef9338f2133ccbf228d0d666fd9cf.png"]
Here's the notes for the next incoming hotfix. Please keep your reports coming!!
Speculative fix for a GPU crash that's been reported 🤞
Less of the weird wheelies when the car respawns in level 05 (it's already hellish enough)
Tweaks to the Niles Pirelli statue puzzle in 2 to draw a little more attention to its pertinent focal points
Characters now save when progressing from one level to the next; if you were driving at the end of one level, you should still be driving at the start of the next
Potential fix for ingame VOIP breaking when moving to the next level
Removed the extremely effective quadruple glazing on the car's windows that Gramma paid extra for (you can no longer throw an item through a closed window!!)
Fix to an issue with the level 06 CCTV puzzle that caused a softlock for some players
Fixed flamethrower culling
Fixed collision on some assets in level 04
Level 05: slowed down the lava balls
Level 05: cannon tweaks to better signal what to do
Level 07: coolant trigger behaves correctly
Level 08: ski jump fix (stick the landing!)
Friends list should be more responsive
Overfilling gas now explodes the car as intended
Skin system fixes and general polish
Added vsync option to the settings
Thanks. Pick you up when it's time for the next one. 🚘
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45577352/398cbcfa561ef9338f2133ccbf228d0d666fd9cf.png"]
Swingin’ by with an incoming hotfix for immediate bugs (please keep ‘em coming):
Tuned the deafening flood sound in the level 3 poo room
Minor FOV issue fixed in menus
Tuned music volume in one of the level 5 areas
Removed some lingering debug bits on the fuse from level 5
Tape-in-mouth issue (noted in the earlier release post) has now been squashed
Fixed collision on some stalactites in Level 4
Thanks again!
[img src="https://i.imgur.com/GtxDlfk.gif"]
The winter tires are off, the AC is on max … and Gramma and Timmy are still trapped inside the car. They did find time to join the community Discord, though, so you should probably do that too.
AND they found the time to give the car a summer tune-up! So here’s the notes for today’s stability and quality of life patch, dubbed the “Summer Tune-Up-date”.
Car fixes and improvements
Added your very own owners manual for the car. Take a look! It’s got a red cover. It may help explain whatever the heck is going on in there.
Replaced the “get out of the parking complex” map with an atlas item which might possibly maybe kinda help with that tricksy keypad puzzle … while also illuminating some of the game world’s rich, deep lore.
The gas + brakes’ Q/E swap system wasn’t working right. But now it is. Your brake pedal no longer continues acting as a brake when you attach it to the gas and vice versa. Because why would it? It doesn’t KNOW that it’s a brake. It doesn’t know anything. It’s just a stupid pedal.
AC is no longer hovering a lil bit away from the car’s interior, and windscreen wipers now actually touch the windscreen. It’s frustrating enough when they don’t wipe properly in real life so we thought we’d save you from having to relive that horror here.
Can no longer see weird clipping from the wheels or when ragdolled because we removed the passenger’s x-ray vision.
Headlights now illuminate the environment as expected. You are now free to enjoy our gorgeous artistic vision in full glorious brightness.
Level tweaks and fixes
Removed a bunch of redundant meshes throughout the level. Nobody likesh to look at a big messh.
The pillars and the cable traps in the plank section all connect properly now. It was ruining everyone’s immersion that the structure was somehow floating so we’ve glued pieces together and it’s now 100% realistic.
Adjusted some art on a billboard. Just straight up painted over it like that Jesus fresco in Spain.
No more gaps in the ceiling above the exit, and the bottom surface on the spiral/berm turn part is now visible. All the structural engineers who have been writing to us about these can breathe easy.
Got rid of the gap in the pipe before the "Here at GhostJam…" billboard. Really had to get this one sealed up. Who knows what was leaking out of there?!?
Other performance and QoL improvements
Added an extra category when launching the game: now has the options to launch in base DX11, DX12, or Potato Mode. We’re continuing to explore ways to make the game more accessible, so potato mode disables all that pointless fancy stuff to hopefully allow a better experience for people running the game on their fridge, their GameBoy, their in-car entertainment system (pls don’t do this), etc.
Compressed replicated variables. As you can see, this patch note comes from a programmer. After asking 4 times what it means, they simplified it to “netcode good now”.
Added a mouse sensitivity setting and a Vsync option. Every game should have these. What were we thinking.
Most recently-interacted objects no longer remain highlighted when swapping places. Because when you throw something away, you don’t want to think about it ever again.
Optimizations to AI cars. They were being a bit greedy with their calculations so, to teach them a lesson, we reduced their math allowance.
Gramma is less jittery when the client is playing as her. She’s picked up her prescription, finally.
The keys are now easier to select. Ever have that dream where you’re trying to grab something that’s right in front of you and it keeps slipping through your grasp? Yeah, we made this less like that.
See you on the Discord, and we'll come pick you up when it's time for the next one.
[img src="{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45577352/ba3a83096459657951e3ae4cff4a2ba4dc43ba87.png"]
We're floored that so many people are continuing to enjoy our demo. We had a peak of 3,472 concurrent players over the weekend, which is sooo many more than we ever expected. We want to give our sincerest thanks again for playing, and for sharing your stories, videos, and feedback. Getting to watch you guys have fun together is what it’s all about. So please don’t stop! Continue to share your feedback on Steam and Discord, and Wishlist the full game here!
Enough mushy stuff, grandma. What’s in the update!?
Well. We’ve given the ol’ girl a tune-up! This is our first larger update for the demo, with a focus on stability and performance (or "Transmission & Suspension"), along with some quality-of-life improvements and about a zillion bugs killed. We think the demo is in a much better state now to facilitate
Here’s the
- Increased the bandwidth limit. Your car and the things inside it will be able to keep up better with the abuse you're subjecting them to. The game will also more reliably understand when the client and host interact with objects, which will help avoid that item duplication weirdness that everyone hates.
- Stability improvements! Tons and tons of them. Many tweaks and fixes have made the game more stable, especially on older or lower-end hardware. The car itself is most definitely still classed as "lower-end hardware", though.
- Callouts (Forward/Right/Back/Left/Stop) are now represented as icons and arrows, so non-English drivers will understand what the passenger is rambling on about. AND passengers now see a visualization of what they're yelling when using callouts. No more trying to guess what "aktahtapos!!" means.
- Lost items no longer always respawn under the driver’s seat in the endless nether-realm. They’re more likely to pop back up somewhere on the floor in the car, so you won’t have to do as much accelerating-and-hard-braking to get stuff back, you lucky thing.
- Your mouse won't lose focus on the game when alt-tabbing in the pause/settings menu. Pay attention, mouse! 🐭
- Sticky notes will always face upward when removed and then stuck back onto a vertical object in the car (e.g. the seats). You don’t need to strain your neck any more. Unless your monitor is upside-down.
- Items thrown inside the car while moving now consider the car's velocity and inertia. Things won't fly off behind you if you try to hurl them at gam-gam to distract her as she determinedly accelerates towards a wall.
- More clues around and leading up to that bamboozling keypad puzzle. This one's been a real brain-teaser. Please let us know if it still hurts your head.
- Fixed gramma's cardigan. Her shirt shouldn't saucily peek out from beneath it now. Ooh matron!
- For clarity, resolution scale is now described as "Screen Percent" in settings. Me? My day's Screen Percent is at 100. Every day. 100%. They won't let me stop writing these patch notes. Seriously please send help I'm located in--
- You get an "Are you sure?" prompt when clicking "Restart level" or if you try to quit mid-game now, so that it's harder to toss away all the progress you worked so very hard for.
- Windows don't clip through their frames. And in the game!
- Lose audio when restarting the level? No you don't! Not any more, anyway. If you do, we'd like to … hear about it. (Little audio joke for you there.)
- Tapes in the passenger's mouth are now hidden when he's ragdolled. It'll still be there when he's back in his seat though. You're not getting out of it that easily, young man.
- There's a new accessibility setting, "Center Interact", which works on rotating items. You can now consume fewer motion sickness tablets before playing.
- The collision blindspot on the front-right footwell has been improved so you can see the crap you keep over there even better.
- People were getting flashbanged and had no idea why. No, your car wasn't too hot or too cold! You couldn't see out the windows because of your interior light. We've made the glare FX on the light and windows more obvious so you know what to switch off.
- Connected window rollers in the back won't be phasing through the front seats because they are no longer accidentally made of pure energy.
See you on the Discord, and we'll come pick you up when it's time for the next one.
https://i.imgur.com/0JZ6IgE.gif
First, we wanted to express our heartfelt thanks to everyone playing the Backseat Drivers demo. We've been AMAZED by the response so far. Over 30,000 demo players and tons of wishlists is way more attention than we expected on our little game, so THANK YOU for playing, streaming, and for all your videos and your feedback. We've found it incredibly motivating to see so many people having fun with the game, and it's made us all the more excited to navigate our roadmap to a finished product you and your friends will love. If you haven't already, be sure to join the GhostJam discord here to share your experience and suggestions!
We're hard at work on the full game and its levels, features and other content, but in the week since the demo's release we've been listening to your feedback and collecting bug reports to smooth things out for those of you who have had a bumpy ride so far. Here's the patchnotes for our first hotfix:
- This hotfix has a "hot" fix! Some passengers were having a little trouble extinguishing themselves after getting set on fire, so the car's cool AC setting is now more aggressive with extinguishing flames.
- We've tweaked the checkpoint after the end of the death-defying plank crossing section to be a little more forgiving — it's now closer to the end of the planks so that players who manage to JUST ABOUT cross the planks (but then accidentally reverse to their doom) don't have to cross all over again. So now if you make backwards progress it's just a skill issue.
- Fixed some syncing issues when a seat rolls back. Should be able to push gam-gam back to the steering wheel a little easier now.
- Any rolled back seats now reset when restarting at a checkpoint, as if by magic.
- Annnnnndd! Grandma's "help I'm stuck looking at the roof because my seat is tilted back ahhhh" rollback animation loop now ends properly when her seat is reset.
- Made it easier to invite an antisocial friend to a lobby when appearing as offline or invisible on Steam: there's now an "Offline" category.
- Added input/keys overview when accessing the Esc/Pause menu in gameplay, so you can figure out how your own hands and body work even if you've lost all your post-it notes.
- Smoother movement for items + physics objects! This is now independent from the host's frame rate/netupdate rate, so you won't see a slideshow of junk flying around when you smash into a wall if you're playing with somebody on a slower connection or machine.
- Tweaked the car's collision to help with grandma's "blind spot" (as if everything isn't a blind spot for her). We're still addressing more issues here, so please keep the feedback coming.
- We've also tweaked collision of items inside the car to slightly favor visibility over "realism" (lol), so you won't e.g. lose the parking ticket underneath the surface of the center console
- We did an evil ritual with some dark spirits and they responded favorably: there should be no more doubled up ghost barriers.
- Voice chat has been fixed. When using ingame voice chat, you should no longer hear yourself back, and the other player should now be able to hear you. I mean, come on, voice chat. You had one job.
https://i.imgur.com/Hpnlnu5.gif
Don't forget to join our Discord here to give your suggestions, feedback and bug reports, and wishlist the game on Steam here!
Thanks again, everybody! We'll come pick you up when it's time for the next one.
Current Release
Not available
System Requirements
How to Install
BDS.exe to play
Troubleshooting tips
• Run Redist/_CommonRedist installers if game won't start
• Add folder to Windows Defender exclusions
• Run as administrator
Download
Direct link available
10 MB
Get the Friend Pass on Steam and apply the Online Fix
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Download Backseat Drivers for PC with a direct link or via torrent. Get the full version of Backseat Drivers for free. Backseat Drivers is a Casual released by GhostJam Games.