Spooky Express Review (PC)

Whoever said locomotives weren’t fit for flesh-eating zombies and blood-deprived vampires ought to take a good look at Spooky Express. Oh, the freighters of Draknek and Friends’ seasonal puzzler aren’t just for the meat bags and morning commuters; they’re for the ill-hearted and the grotesque, the supernatural and the mythological breeds of all walks of life. Eat your heart out, Train Sim World.

In case you missed the memo, Spooky Express is a short level-based puzzler that meshes supernatural elements with locomotive-oriented puzzles. The idea itself is rather straightforward: you design a track in one of several seasonally rich dioramas—graveyards, pumpkin patches, haunted allotments, and so on and so forth—and manipulate the course to appeal to your passengers’ preferences. For example, if the game asks you to transport a zombie, then you must create a track that bends and weans through the diorama to eventually arrive at a gravestone. Naturally, that same basic rule applies for all of the curious folk that populate Spooky Express; a vampire will require a coffin, and a human will need a safe spot to keep them out of harm’s reach.

As Spooky Express is billed as a puzzler at heart, the game itself does feature one or two challenges for you to clamber over. For example, a track cannot cross itself, nor can passengers mistakenly stop at another destination that doesn’t suit their requirements. To add, humans cannot bump into vampires, zombies, or other supernatural riders, and can only ride to specific locations. There’s a little more for us to feast on here, for sure. Yet, for the sake of fleshing out the details, it seems only right that we start this journey from the beginning—the platform, that is.

Next Stop: Trainsylvania

Spooky Express takes us aboard the seasonal utopia of Trainsylvania—a bubbling cauldron of creepy yet lovingly wholesome hand-crafted dioramas where mysterious monsters and starry-eyed humans collide in search of their ever-elusive platforms. In this world, we take on the role of a conductor and, in some cases, the jack-of-all-trades of overground transportation.

As mentioned earlier, the job that you find yourself shackled to in Spooky Express is a multi-skill affair that requires a little more than your Line Rider-esque escapade. It’s a relatively simple job at heart, yet one that summons a few caveats to keep you on the tip of your toes as you gradually sift through the dioramas and develop your own railway empire.

The dioramas that you explore in Spooky Express each come equipped with their own characters—zombies, vampires, mythological creatures, civilians, as well as other common and supernatural folk. As the curator of locomotives and rail networks, you have the task of building tracks that can transport guests to their destinations, and keeping other pudgy folk from “accidentally” crossing paths with their ravenous oppressors. The tough part here is that, while each passenger has an obvious preference for where they want to travel, you, the quilter of conveyor belts, must figure out how to transport each guest without them clashing with another faction. In other words, it’s a “one-way ticket” ordeal; two passengers cannot bump into one another for, you know, reasons.

Delightfully Spooky

Spooky Express features a generous collection of whimsical and wondrous biomes with a decently-sized campaign that brings just as much variety as it does fun-filled carriage-based puzzle pieces. Thematically, it’s an absolute dreamboat for the seasonal enthusiast—a bouquet of ultraviolet contours and autumn frills, spooky set pieces and themed embellishments. It’s an absolute delight to watch unfold, too, more so once you begin to connect the dots and mount your trains on the tracks. A simple pleasure, perhaps, but one that happens to bring about a great deal of happiness and pride, strangely.

The core gameplay loop is about as on-rails as you might expect of a locomotive-centric puzzler. It isn’t a painfully difficult game, nor is it one that demands much of your attention, either. If anything, Spooky Express is a comfortable choice for fresh hands—a clean, entry-level affair that gives just as much as it takes. And frankly, it gives a lot, despite being the brainchild of a smaller firm with fewer resources at its disposal.

While the loop is simple, Spooky Express does offer a solid variety of puzzles and characters to unearth. It’s a good all-round crowd pleaser at heart, and one that, with all due consideration, ought to appeal to those with a sweet tooth for spookily pulpy graphics and familiarly satisfying soundtracks with whimsical notes and foreboding undertones; Priscilla Snow, of course, has a stake in that department.

As if to illustrate the greatness of Spooky Express, I also have to commend the team for their efforts to bring a well-oiled gameplay experience to the tracks. Granted, the journey itself isn’t blessed with the gift of longevity, though it is smitten with intuitive controls and seamless transitions. To add, Spooky Express isn’t with the usual bog-trodden technical flaws that often sully a game’s overall performance. Simply, it’s a well-orchestrated puzzler that oozes independence and collective passion. I’m all for that.

Verdict

If you’re looking to board a carriage that’s similar to the likes of Train Sim World, then you might want to find somewhere else to punch your ticket, as Spooky Express is of an entirely different locomotive set. It isn’t that it’s a bad game; it’s that it isn’t quite as authentic as your traditional railroad IP. Not that this comes as much of a surprise, mind you.

With all of the above being said, if you do happen to enjoy crowd-pleasing mobile puzzlers like Flow Free (or track-based games that foster thought-provoking mechanics and environmental curveballs, for that matter), then it’s likely that you’ll enjoy threading the needle and constructing a platform or two in Spooky Express. It’s a slick, spooky, and above all, a lovingly crafted ode to Halloween festivities with a notable pulse. If that’s something that tickles your fancy, then you should definitely consider jumping aboard the next time the train departs for Trainsylvania.