Game review - The Endless Express
[Florian Veltman, AlexTai]
Developers: Florian Veltman, AlexTai
Publishers: Florian Veltman, AlexTai
Genre: Adventure
Original release date: June 27, 2016
Platform(s): Windows, macOS, Linux
Reviewed on: Windows, macOS
"Oh no, I fell asleep on the train… Where am I?"
Concept games are made by developers to showcase their bold ideas in the interactive medium, and The Endless Express is among those. Developed by five people (Florian Veltman, Alexandre Taillefert, Martin Gugger, Felix Meunier, and Baptiste Virot), this is an expanded follow-up to their 2014 game jam entry Endless Express (which I have no played as of yet). In it's cancelled state, it has rendered many features which may be incomplete, but has that imaginative spark in many of it's gameplay.
As an unnamed protagonist, you wake up onboard a mysterious train with no idea where you are or where it's heading. On the next stop off, its up to you to find your way home by transiting between trains and meeting unusual characters along the way. It's a simple setup that opens the doors for exploration, where the absence of time limit allows you to take in the texture-less scenery at your own pace.
[Florian Veltman, AlexTai]
Speaking of time, The Endless Express utilises real-time where the game takes based according to your computer's clock, compete with a day-and-night cycle. This is implemented for the train system's schedule which is viewable on the train station note boards. Each train that arrives has a specified colour indicating the station it travels to, and it's own schedule (once every two minutes for example), though it can be confusing at first to understand the routes. While you wait for your next train, you can explore the area are talk with the citizens of the area. Plus there is no need to look at the nearest clock, since the game has a conveniently-placed wrist watch that can be viewed in the first person perspective.
The idea of traveling around in a scheduled railway system is indeed a great idea, especially for an exploration game like this. However, in the game's incomplete state, it doesn't explore those ideas fully, which results in some gameplay problems. A few of the characters you interact offer a fetch quest, whether it's finding a lost child or scavenging a gas container. When I did find the lost child, I went back to inform the family about his whereabouts, but there was no way to tell them that and finish the quest. As for the gas container quest, it was nowhere to be found anywhere. The only collectable object I found was a useless watering container. The creative navigable game menu does have a storage area to put your collected items. But with just only useless item that can be picked up, it the storage area seem rather pointless.
Despite the unfinished quest and inventory system, The Endless Express' empathises on exploring the unknown seems to be the main area that the developers focused on. The game's catchy music is nice to listen to while you explore the many virtual landscapes. With the Unity engine utilised, it visually looks basic, but creative in a minimalist sense with creative character designs and decent models in both environments and vehicles. However, the lack of any passengers on the train coaches renders the rides disappointedly empty, and with the background and sky sharing the exact same colour, it can make navigating the landscapes confusing.
With The Endless Express ending up in an abandoned state, it is understandable how the game ended up being too ambitious for the developers to create something of this scale. Sure the release has it's pitfalls with unfinished features and sometime confusing graphics, but their idea of exploring the world via railroad is defiantly something to admire, Especially with the game's quote at the end (which kinda contradicts the title) where "embracing the unknown, without a clue of what'll come next" is "the nicest way to travel". With a promising and creative concept, this is one game I would love to see expanded into a full release with the developers' vision fully realised. But for now, you can download the game's current for free on the it's itch.io page.
