unplayable on steam deck. settings are locked on steam deck and you cant change ♥♥♥♥, also game freezes when changingoptions

I really want to give this game a shot but I can't get it to work with my wheel properly, how am I supposed to play a game about drifting if my wheel constantly snaps back to center.

P. S. If you have difficulties in the walktrough, this guide will be very useful:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3561496240


JDM: Japanese Drift Master is quite an ambitious attempt by a small studio to make a full-fledged racing game rather than just another indie project. Naturally, since the action takes place in the Japanese countryside, there will be a lot of drifting here.

About the world and atmosphere:

The map has a unique feel and does a decent job of capturing the vibe of rural roads, forests, and highways. However, it clearly falls short of the level of truly awesome twisty roads, canyons, or memorable landmarks. The landscapes are there, but they don’t really have that wow factor.

Fast Travel Problems:

The game has a classic Forza or Need for Speed Underground 2 issue—there’s a serious lack of proper fast travel. It’s unclear why they split up the features like this. We have a handy menu for selecting challenges and tuning cars, but as soon as you hit free roam, issues start. You can only teleport to the garage. If you want to get into styling, like changing paint or making small tweaks (of which there’s hardly any), you’ve got to drive extra miles just to repaint your car. It’s super frustrating and needlessly drags out gameplay, not to mention having to navigate twisty routes to get to story missions.

Customization — the biggest fail:

This is where the devs really messed up. In a game all about Japanese drift culture, proper styling is basically missing. Yeah, you can change the color, add some neon, tweak the interior a bit, or slap on a body kit, but where are the vinyls? No stickers at all and no way to create a unique car design in 2026 — guys, sorry, but this just makes people pirate the game instead of actually paying for it.

It's pretty clear why the game currently has about a 75% approval rating. If there aren't many complaints about the physics, the optimization here is honestly awful. Even on high settings, the visuals sometimes turn into a blurry, pixelated mess, and micro-stutters become a constant companion in every race. Apparently, the developers couldn't fully get a handle on Unreal Engine, which the game is built on, not to mention the bugs with endless traffic spawning in one spot and indestructible drift points despite tons of errors.

The game's story is about a guy who comes to Japan to build a racing career, taking part in duels and legal track races. The presentation is pretty unique — in the form of manga-styled comics before and after races. Some people might like the style, but personally, I found it hard to follow the story: there are too many characters, their storylines hardly connect, and it often seems nonsensical. If you haven't read manga before, this format might just feel completely forced.

There are really only three types of competitions: drifting, regular circuit races (usually in a Grip format like sprints), and drag racing. The problem is there’s zero balance between them. There's drifting everywhere — in free roam and in, like, every other mission. But drag races? You can count them on one hand over the whole career. Circuit races show up mostly in side missions and feel pretty much the same as regular sprints compared to drifting. In the end, the game gets repetitive fast, and besides drifting, there’s not much else to do.

The game’s progression is for a niche crowd and is based on a double leveling system. The first level is your driver’s reputation (up to level 30), which unlocks general access to internal car tuning. The second is each specific car’s level, which also needs to be maxed out to 30 to unlock visual customization. And you have to do this for every single car! To level it up, you have to grind drifting in free roam, look for photo spots, and hit checkpoints. It all feels like straight-up grind. Boring and ruthless.

As for the cars themselves, the physics are solid: rear-wheel, front-wheel, and all-wheel drive all feel different, which is nice. There are plenty of cars in the game, but the licensing is kind of messed up. Some models are copied exactly from real-life prototypes, while others — like the local Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution — have butchered names and no logos, even though they look identical. It comes off as a bit weird, especially since there are no basic VISUAL damages in the game.

Another thing they seriously messed up is the pre-race info. In NFS Underground 2, which I can't stand, at least you got to see the track map before the race. In JDM, there are gambling races where you throw a ton of money in, but you don’t even know where or how you’re going to drive. Yet the developers did take the time to make a decent in-game phone interface and a solid overall design. You can tell they put effort into it, but for some reason, they ignored the most basic player conveniences.

So, if you’re into drifting culture and don’t mind spending hours sliding around to upgrade every single part, JDM: Japanese Drift Master might be your thing. But if drifting is just one part of racing for you, not your life’s obsession, you can safely skip this game. It’s a solid but very niche title with its own technical and game design quirks.

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