Slapstick comedy meets a classic whodunit in pixel art point-and-click Loco Motive

Alex Raisbeck, 7 November 2024

Unfortunately, Agatha Christie didn’t live long enough to witness the thinky game golden age we’re living in today, which is a shame because the upcoming Loco Motive is a game that would have been right up her street. A wealthy railway magnate is murdered on their prized train and there’s a laundry list of suspects, each with their own potential motive—sounds familiar, no? If you take Murder on the Orient Express (minus a certain Belgian), add a touch of Knives Out wit and turn it all into a point-and-click puzzle game, Loco Motive is exactly what you get.

Aboard the Reuss Express, while preparing to announce the contents of her new will, the exceedingly wealthy Lady Unterwald is shockingly murdered while the train passes through a tunnel. Unfortunately, due to a clumsy mistake made by Arthur Ackerman, the late Lady’s attorney, the will that held the key to the case was unceremoniously blown out of the train’s window, forcing Arthur and others to investigate the case to catch the killer and prove their innocence. During the demo, you’ll play through a section of Arthur’s investigation, but there will be two other characters will have their time to shine in the full game.

It’s a classic whodunit, and if there’s one aspect that’s central to any good whodunit, it’s murder puzzles!

Loco Motive follows a fairly standard point-and-click formula. The Reuss Express is made up of many carriages - cabins, a restaurant, a casino, etc. - and your job is to explore the train and hunt for clues. At first, this is largely just being confronted with a problem and heading off to find an item to fix that problem with, whether that’s something to open a locked drawer or a way to get past a strict security guard. Sometimes, items can just be picked up, while other items require talking to certain passengers or solving a smaller puzzle to obtain. The linear nature of the train does mean that, at times, you’ll be running back and forth a lot, but you can hold left click to sprint down the carriages, allowing both you and your investigation to run much more smoothly.

Later in the demo, things start getting a bit more difficult. The items you need to find require a bit more outside-the-box thinking to get your hands on, while certain puzzles require you to use an item or go to a particular part of the train while another character is busy, adding an element of timing to the puzzle. If you find yourself getting stuck, there are telephones set up throughout the train where you can get some hints from a call line. None of the puzzles in the demo are particularly difficult, of course, as I’m sure developer Robust Games wouldn’t like to give away its best puzzles for free, but there’s enough of an uptick in difficulty that I’m very excited to see what other creative puzzles lie in store in the full game. 

As an amateur investigator, part of your charge is also to talk to the various witnesses of the crime, such as various high-ranking employees of the railway company, or the brash and hard-of-hearing Arista Gudrun and her bumbling, idiotic twin sons. While searching for clues, you’ll regularly chat with the passengers to fish for clues, and thanks to the witty and sometimes absurd dialogue and excellent voice acting, you’ll often find yourself speaking with them for fun rather than anything to do with the investigation. 

While Loco Motive’s puzzles are certainly the heart of the game, I would be doing it a disservice not to mention the game’s incredible art style and animations. The game goes for a pixel-art style and pulls it off with aplomb with every character, item and background looking absolutely stellar. It’s only made better by the animations which are so smooth and full of life, and bring so much character to everyone you speak with—just watch the game’s trailer and you’ll see exactly what I mean.

If you’re someone who needs their puzzle games to be mind-bendingly difficult at all times, then Loco Motive probably won’t scratch that itch for you. But the brilliantly funny dialogue is entertaining enough that if the puzzles were all terrible, I’d still say it’s a game to be excited about. Luckily, Loco Motive’s puzzles are far from terrible, so you’re really getting the best of both worlds and if you haven’t tried out the demo yet, it’s currently still available on Steam and is well worth your time. In the meantime, if you’ll excuse me, I have a train to catch.