City Connection (1985): Clarice’s Very Fast Method for Finishing Every Road

A road is not finished until it is white

Clarice has a peculiar idea of sightseeing. She takes her own car onto the highways of six countries, the police immediately object, and then she keeps going until every bit of road has been visited. Nintendo’s Famicom description makes the destination clear: America, Britain, France, Germany, India and Japan are the settings for Clarice’s pursuit by patrol cars. But City Connection’s best joke is hidden in the objective. This is not a race in which the finish line settles everything. The road itself has to be accounted for. 1 2

Nintendo dates the Famicom release to 27 September 1985. Its reissue page tells the player to steer Clarice Car around patrol cars and obstacles while travelling every highway in a stage. The reproduced manual makes the visual accounting exact: as Clarice passes a highway, it becomes white; cover all of them, and the next pattern begins. That single rule turns a broad, colourful road map into a to-do list written directly under the wheels. 2 3 1

Trivia Clarice’s vehicle has an absurdly heroic specification sheet. Nintendo’s manual calls it a four-wheel-drive mid-engined super machine with a V8, seven-litre twin-turbo engine. It can jump highways and throw oil at patrol cars before ramming them away. The fiction is wonderfully unbothered by moderation. A speed-loving girl from California has not brought a sensible commuter car to an international traffic problem; she has brought a machine whose brochure sounds as though it would arrive late only out of personal choice. 3

The white-road rule makes the car feel less like a racer than a moving paintbrush with bad manners. Each turn has two consequences: it may save Clarice from a patrol car, and it may leave another unvisited strip behind. The player’s real opponent is not speed alone. It is incomplete geometry. A road that looks safely behind the car can become the one awkward line still preventing the stage from ending, so every swerve has to remember what was left uncoloured. 3 2

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The car never waits for a plan

Clarice Car runs automatically. Nintendo’s manual says the player changes direction and uses jump, high jump, rapid descent and oil-can throw controls while the vehicle continues moving. That is an important distinction. The player does not choose whether to begin the next few metres; they choose how to manage the fact that the next few metres are already happening. City Connection turns the controller into a set of corrections for a car with a much stronger opinion about momentum than its driver. 3

At first the automatic motion feels like a small act of impatience from the game. Then it becomes its rhythm. A road segment approaches, a patrol car occupies a comfortable line, a gap looks tempting, and Clarice is already moving toward all three. The pleasure comes from making quick revisions rather than waiting for a perfect opening. A jump is useful because the map has not paused to discuss it; a reversal is exciting because the new route begins before the player has entirely congratulated themselves for choosing it. 3 2

Trivia Direction changes have a tiny but decisive side effect. The manual says Clarice Car enters a wheelie immediately after turning around, and while in that state it cannot jump or high jump. It is a glorious old-game compromise: turning away from trouble is possible, but the car spends a moment showing off instead of becoming airborne. The move that repairs a route can therefore remove the escape you assumed would be available one second later. 3

The cleanest way to understand the game is to think one decision ahead. Before reversing, look for the next obstacle or gap rather than celebrating the dodge just made. Before jumping, notice whether a rare unvisited road segment will still be reachable afterward. The manual does not need to state this as a grand theory; its automatic driving and wheelie rule already make the lesson plain. City Connection rewards a driver who treats momentum as a promise, not an inconvenience. 3

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Oil is a pause button with attitude

Patrol cars are not merely scenery in this chase. Nintendo says a collision with one destroys Clarice Car; the manual says hitting a patrol car or obstacle costs a car from the remaining stock, and a further miss at zero ends the game. Oil cans change the terms. Throw one at a patrol car to make it spin, then ram the spinning car to knock it away. The road becomes briefly negotiable, not because the police disappear, but because Clarice has created a usable opening. 2 3

Oil is satisfying because it is a two-part solution. Throwing it is not the final gesture; it makes a moment in which contact is suddenly allowed. The same patrol car that was dangerous becomes an object Clarice can hit. That reversal fits the game’s larger personality. City Connection does not hand out quiet safety. It asks the player to turn a problem sideways, then drive into the altered problem with confidence and enough room to survive whatever is waiting beyond it. 3 2

Trivia Nintendo’s manual gives a particular reward for making the chaos social: knock away two or more patrol cars together and earn a high score. The scoring detail encourages a very different state of mind from merely escaping. A convoy is dangerous, but it is also an opportunity if the cars can be made to spin in the right neighbourhood. Clarice does not only flee the police. At the best moments, she rearranges them into an accidental group project. 3

The stock of oil cans keeps bravado honest. They lie on the highway as items, and the score screen tracks how many remain. A player who throws one at every irritation may find that the interesting route has become much less flexible. A player who saves every can may turn an easy escape into a collision. The game makes oil feel like a compact form of patience: use it when a patrol car blocks the road you actually need, not only because the button is available. 3 2

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Six countries, sixteen patterns

The travel brochure is more exact than it first appears. Nintendo’s overview names six countries as the stage settings and says that the patrol cars, backgrounds and highway patterns change from stage to stage. The manual adds the full Famicom count: there are 16 patterns. That means the six-country presentation is the changing visual and thematic frame, while the actual journey has a longer sequence of road arrangements to solve. Clarice is not checking six boxes. She is learning a family of maps with different moods and traffic habits. 1 2 3

The change in pattern matters because a clearing route is a shape, not a slogan. A comfortable move in one arrangement may strand an unpainted highway in the next. Nintendo says the patrol-car designs vary with the country in the background, which gives the chase a playful sense of place without needing a long travel narrative. The player reads colour, lanes and remaining white space together. The game keeps asking the same simple question in a new accent: where has Clarice still not been? 2 3

Trivia The score display treats travel itself as an accomplishment. Nintendo’s manual says Clarice’s distance is tracked, and the score rises by 100 points for every 10 kilometres of highway driven. The game therefore keeps two little records at once: the roads necessary for a clear, and the distance accumulated while dealing with them. It is a charmingly literal way to reward a game about driving everywhere. Even a wrong turn contributes to the odometer, if not to the player’s pride. 3

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Small icons, big memories

A modern rightsholder anniversary project preserves a named contributor’s recollection of encountering the Famicom version in 1985. The same rightsholder’s anniversary exhibition singles out Clarice, Clarice Car and the obstacle cat as recognisable visual icons. City Connection’s roads are abstract, yet its ingredients are unusually easy to remember: a tiny car, a tiny driver and an enormous amount of traffic drama. The landmarks work the same way. They do not need to be carefully realistic to announce a change of scene; a bridge, tower or palace-like silhouette is enough to give the next road pattern a postcard identity. 7 8 2

That economy is part of the game’s charm. Clarice’s car is only a few pixels wide, but the player immediately reads its attitude in a jump or a sharp change of direction. A patrol car needs no personality beyond the pressure it puts on a lane. The cat barely has to move to turn a piece of highway into a joke with consequences. City Connection makes icons do the work of a travel diary, a traffic report and a comedy cast, then lets the player supply the urgency by deciding which unfinished strip is worth the risk. 1 3

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Balloons, cats and bamboo are route editors

Not every interruption has the same intention. Nintendo says three mystery balloons send Clarice to another stage and award a warp bonus; the destination is chosen automatically. The manual confirms that three balloons move the car to another pattern. A balloon is therefore not a straightforward shortcut selected from a map. It is a cheerful disruption. Collecting one may feel like progress, but collecting the third means accepting that the game, not the player, decides which piece of the journey comes next. 2 3

Trivia The obstacle cat is described in Nintendo’s manual as standing on the highway holding a chequered flag. That is such a specific visual gag that it almost feels polite—until the car reaches it. Nintendo’s overview warns that hitting the cat causes a miss. The flag suggests a sporting official, but this official is not there to celebrate Clarice’s driving. It is there to make a perfectly ordinary lane suddenly unusable and to watch the resulting plan collapse with feline composure. 2 3

Trivia Bamboo shoots are even more mischievous because the manual tells the player exactly how to invite them: continue driving on highways at the same height and one will grow. They are not a random prop; they are a consequence of becoming too comfortable on a line. Like the cat, bamboo is not affected by oil cans. The game quietly teaches that some problems can be spun away and some have to be routed around, especially when the player has made the route too repetitive. 3 2

These odd interruptions prevent the white-road objective from becoming clerical. The player cannot simply trace every lane in the tidiest order and assume the map will politely remain still. Balloons introduce an automatic detour; cats block a lane; bamboo punishes staying level for too long. City Connection keeps the road map alive by editing it against the player. The trick is not to find a perfect route once. It is to recognise when the game has changed the meaning of the route in progress. 3 2

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A chase without a co-driver

The Famicom game does offer a two-player selection, but Nintendo’s manual is unusually clear about its form: 1P and 2P cannot be operated at the same time. In two-player mode, the controls are switched each time the character changes. It is a turn-taking road trip, not two cars weaving through the same patrol-car crowd. That limit gives the cartridge a small social rhythm. One person drives, one person watches the missing roads and the approaching trouble, then the responsibility changes hands. 3

Trivia Extra cars arrive at two score thresholds: Nintendo’s manual says the remaining Clarice Car count rises when the score passes 30,000 and 100,000 points. That makes score more than a distant bragging number. Oil hits, patrol-car knockouts, balloon pickups, highway distance and cleared-pattern bonuses all feed a score that can eventually purchase another chance. The clever part is that the game rewards both audacity and coverage, so a cautious route and an energetic police-clear can meet in the same small reserve of survival. 3

Version labels matter here. Nintendo currently sells a separately identified Arcade Archives City CONNECTION, and HAMSTER’s product history lists a 2008 Virtual Console City Connection release. Nintendo’s European City Connection page identifies a distinct NES product and presents a different publisher-supplied English setup about a New York paint store. The Famicom edition covered here is the Japanese reproduction documented by Nintendo: its automatic driving, 16 patterns, wheelie limitation and turn-taking two-player handling give Clarice’s journey its particular character. 5 6 4 9 3

City Connection is a wonderful contradiction: it looks like a carefree international chase, yet it asks the player to become meticulous about every unvisited scrap of highway. Clarice’s car is fast, the police are persistent and the obstacles are silly, but the real pleasure is learning to turn frantic movement into a completed pattern. Current Nintendo Classics media is the proper place to see the official game record. The reason to drive it is simpler: few Famicom journeys make a road feel so much like a drawing that refuses to stay still. 1 2 3