LOCO MOTIVE

Loco Motive is not exactly a brand new release. It originally appeared as a proof-of-concept at AdvXJam 2020, where at that event, indie developers have two weeks to develop and present a playable narrative game. Undoubtedly, a very big challenge, which was successfully accomplished by the four-member (at the time) team of Robust Games, and the excellent impressions it left after it appeared on the well-known itch.io platform, led to the decision to develop this simple idea into a full-fledged game. As a result, Loco Motive stands proudly as one of the best adventures of this year.

It might sound rash to come to such a conclusion at the beginning of a review, but the game is so full of quality that it's almost impossible to accuse it of anything else. After all, Loco Motive knows the rules of the game and plays by them rationally: it chooses to create an Agatha Christie-esque essence, both with its choice of the era in which it is set (the 1930s) and with its central idea (murder on a train) and with the "whodunit" question, which always manages to captivate the player/viewer.

The whole story revolves around Lady Unterwald, heiress to a vast railway empire, as her family is responsible for building the first steam train in history, the famous Reuss Express. On board this train, the elderly and eccentric Lady intends to make some important announcements regarding her will and who will inherit her priceless fortune. Naturally, such an event could not leave any interested party indifferent, with the consequence that the Reuss Express is full of... prospective heirs, artists and journalists.

One of those on board the train is the Lady's attorney, Arthur Ackerman, who, among other things, is responsible for guarding and keeping the will up-to-date. As you guessed correctly, Arthur is the protagonist of the story, or more accurately, one of the protagonists, since in Loco Motive we'll be handling a total of three characters.

Evil is not far behind, as Lady Unterwald prepares to announce the name of her heir, the Reuss Express passes through a tunnel and in the seconds that the passengers are in total darkness, the Lady is murdered in cold blood. This wouldn't have been a serious problem for the heirs (beyond where to store a body on a train) if Arthur had been less clumsy and hadn't managed (because it's about managing) to lose the will. And just like that, the mystery begins that we must unravel, first who killed Lady Unterwald and then discover who the coveted heir is.

A story that, like all murder mysteries, is full of twists and turns, intrigue, while at the same time being filled with brilliant humor and extremely well-written characters. Loco Motive is one of the rare cases where the writing is so tasteful that even characters who play a minimal role in the plot are at least memorable. Characters with their own opinions and personalities, such as the cauliflower-brained twins Gunter & Hagen, the "mobster" Donny Donato or the "fastest painter in the world" Pierre Bosse, who may often be in the midst of exaggeration on a caricature level, but remain likeable even within the game's lighthearted (in a way) atmosphere, without babbling to prove to the player that they are complete personalities. They are to-the-point.

This impression is reinforced by the fact that, after a few chapters (out of 7, plus the prologue), we take control in turn of Herman Merman, a conceited crime novelist, and Diana Osterhagen, a wanna-be undercover agent of British Counterintelligence, who give their own dimension to the story that takes place. This is because, in essence, the narrative of events in Reuss Express is told through these three "suspects" (Arthur, Herman and Diana), who tell their own version of events to investigators Lex and Justice. Each "suspect" narrates their own perspective and as we play through the story, following their descriptions, we gain a clearer picture of who and their motives, but more importantly, how each protagonist's actions affected, directly or indirectly, the others. Perhaps needless to say, at some point, the paths of these three heteroclite persons converge and they will need to work together to save the day.

Of course, the bet is how well all of these things "tie in" with each other. A bet that is won with characteristic ease. It's amazing how the game's creators have managed to combine an interesting plot, which keeps the mystery sealed for quite some time, apt humor, far from slapstick situations, satire (e.g. the whole sequence of Herman trying to convince publishers to release his new book is genius) and very remarkable point 'n' click adventure mechanics.

Let's not forget that Loco Motive is a pure adventure game and one of the highest quality we have seen in recent years. The puzzles are at a moderate level of difficulty, which are mainly inventory-based, but more than once you'll have to find the solution to a problem through the right choices in the dialogues. Regarding the controls, one won't have any problems, as everything is done with the left mouse click (except for the hot-spot indicator which is simply pressing the tab button), and by holding it down, the respective protagonist starts running (quite fast I can say), thus annihilating any annoyance any delay in switching from one screen to another could cause.

However, there are three or four instances where a little more imagination is needed to solve some puzzles, perhaps out-of-the-box, but Loco Motive has taken care of that if we get stuck, incorporating a very useful hint system. At certain points on the train (or somewhere else, if the narrative is outside of it), there's a phone that if we call, the person we're talking to is Dirk Chiselton, famous detective and author and "arch rival" of Herman Merman (or at least, that's what Herman thinks). This guy takes it upon himself to give us hints about the issues we're facing at the time, to the extent we wish (if we persist too much, he'll give us the solution on a plate).

But if there's one thing that dampens the excellent impression the game leaves, it's that there are still a lot of bugs and glitches, at least in the press version I completed. Some got to the point of being gamebreaking, as I took some actions before their time, which forced me to start the game over again (there are only 5 slots for save, plus one for autosave, so I didn't have any handy). Also, a lack of consistency in the dialogues is sometimes detected, such as when we communicate with a character about a topic that hasn't been mentioned before and the dialogue ends as if we are familiar with it, or the opposite happens: we have talked extensively about a topic and the person we are talking to reacts as if it's the first time he or she hears it when we mention it again. I would say that the problems I encountered were more than I expected, which often led me to believe that the reason I was unable to find the solution to a puzzle was that I ran into a bug again, rather than not thinking of the right solution.

I expect that by the official release in a few days, at least the gamebreaking bugs will have been fixed, but maybe the game needed to stay in the oven for a while longer. Only for the playtesting part though, because in the rest, like the audiovisual section, Loco Motive excels. The pixel-art as a technique may be off-putting to some players, but the game features perhaps the best we've ever seen, with the animation itself being a separate topic to explore.

The work that has been done in this area is incredible, with dozens of frames interspersed for the slightest movement, and there is a unique (!) animation on almost every item we put in our inventory or use in a hotspot. You'll have to see it with your own eyes to appreciate the amount of detail. And the NPC's on every screen have so much movement and vibrancy, that combined with the beautifully detailed backgrounds, they create such a rich and convincing world, that you can't help but let go of it. On the plus side, we must place the beautiful soundtrack and especially the diamond-quality voice-over, which is enviable even for AAA, expensive, productions.

In short, Loco Motive is a game that all fans of point 'n' click adventures should play. It's satisfying in length (about 8-10 hours), has sharp writing, memorable characters, an impeccable pixel-art approach and is a worthy challenge for your adventure reflexes. What more can one ask for?

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