The holidays is a magical time for gaming. Time seems to stand still. There’s minimal work to do, news slows down, and for a few days, you can entertain the idea of doing whatever you want. For me, that was catching up on all the games I’d missed in 2024, and experiencing a few others besides.
To end the year, I finally finished Dave the Diver. I enjoyed the cool, quiet calmness of Minami Lane. I played through the delightful, heartbreaking Lil Gator Game. I began my journey in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (and it’s as good as everyone says). I was also gifted a copy of Loco Motive – and far and away, it was the best game of my indulgent two-week holiday.
Loco Motive launched in late November 2024, and seemed to float relatively under-the-radar at launch. For me personally, I knew I couldn’t spare time to review it as the end of year wrap-ups, gift guides, listicles, and GOTYs took up every hour of my work day. There’s never a “right time” to release a game, but being swept up in the holiday buzz is an unfortunate fate – and I know now that Loco Motive deserved my attention much, much earlier.
This is a game for all the Monkey Island heads out there. It’s for those who loved Thimbleweed Park, Unavowed, or any of the other Wadjet Eye games. If you love a puzzle, and you love thinking “what I poured a drink into this hearing device?” or “how do you entice a mouse out of a hole with only a plunger and a block of cheese?” then this game is for you.
Loco Motive, like all good point-and-click adventures, starts with a compelling mystery: who killed the rich heiress Lady Unterwald aboard the Reuss Express? The murder begins the game, as its key players stand around a stage, waiting for a will reading. Of course, it’s not to be, as the lights black out, and Lady Unterwald collapses in a hail of blood.
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As hapless estate lawyer Arthur, you must play detective. There’s only so many folks aboard the Reuss Express, and their mysteries must be unravelled with clever thinking and analysis. Is the local card shark on the level? What about the doofus Gudrun twins, with their Tweedledum and Tweedledee antics? And is there a strange and mysterious cult hiding behind the curtains of the train’s gaming room? What’s that about?
The narrative may be trope-filled at times, but Loco Motive is fun and clever in ways that keep it fresh, even when your assumptions prove correct. It leans into the humour of the murder-mystery genre, becoming a lovely parody that evokes tropes as it pokes fun at them.
It’s all buoyed by an expressive pixel art style that looks bouncy and dynamic in motion. Arthur’s bouffant hairstyle bobs and dips as you run. The local bar tender creates a drink with a rush and flurry that calls to mind Guy Buffet’s The Making of the Perfect Martini.
In a game like Loco Motive, expression is everything.
While the game’s characters are simple, animated specks on screen, an excellent art style means you can always tell what they’re thinking, and what sort of character they are. The aforementioned card shark slinks across screen, slimy and greasy in approach. The femme fatale spy is more poised, with shoulders that swish, and feet placed primly forward. There’s one particular meeting with the Gudrun twins that perfectly depicts “no thoughts, head empty” in human form.
In these touches, Loco Motive adds to its compelling, well-built mystery, while elevating a world you’ll want to explore from every angle.
That’s all before getting to gameplay itself, which features a strong logic flow that tickles the brain, with minimal friction in actually solving puzzles. Robust Games has made even more clever choices here, in the layout and segmentation of puzzles, and just how many useful items players will encounter in any one chapter.
A common frustration in point-and-click adventure games of the past is just how much possibility there is between solutions. You might find yourself clicking random items and combining them, frustrating yourself in the process of finding an obtuse solution. Loco Motive firmly grounds itself in logic, ensuring that any puzzles can be solved by thinking through your found items, and what the game presents you.
If you discover cheese, surely a mouse follows. And if someone, in passing, mentions a hearing device looks like a drinking horn, maybe there’s some assumptions to be made. It’s a delicate balance between leading the audience through a puzzle, and letting them take their own steps – and Loco Motive nails it. There were moments in the game where puzzles confounded me, but a brief break and a return sparked new thoughts and ideas, and I was able to continue.
When I finally wound my way towards the tale’s conclusion, I felt like I’d earned its finale. That, to me, is the mark of a good point-and-click adventure. It’s not about the obtusity of puzzles and clicking one certain pixel to find a very-well-hidden object. It shouldn’t be about trial and error, or a constant giving up and looking to guides. A good point-and-click presents you with a head-scratching puzzle, and leaves you to unlock its mysteries, head-first.
In this approach, in combination with its cast of characters (all wonderfully voice-acted) and its fun, morbid mystery, Loco Motive is a real triumph. It’s an absolute gem of its genre – and it certainly deserves more attention for it.
When you’ve got a spare moment, whether you need to wait for a sale or otherwise, make time for Loco Motive. After completing it over the holidays, I’m convinced it’s one of 2024’s most underrated and overlooked games.
