Gameplay Journal Entry #1 — Endless Express

(Video went over 5–10min because I ended up finishing it while recording)

Endless Express is a (sadly unfinished) game centered around exploring an open cartoony world through the means of a train system that runs on a real-time schedule. Each train stop has a unique location with unique characters and places to explore, and have different colored trains that arrive at different times to bring you to the other stops. Not every train stops at every stop, and if you miss the one you need then you have to sit and wait or decide to try a different train. There is also a day/night cycle that passes in real time as well, which can be tracked along with arrivals and departures with your watch. Every location has characters you can talk to, and some have items you can collect and store in your menu/inventory pocket dimension room that can be called up whenever the player wants to. Unfortunately the game never got finished, so there isn't a lot, but what's there is super charming and a lot of fun to explore.

Because of the game revolving around a real-time train system that doesn't wait for the player, a reflection of public transport in the real world, it pushes the player to stop expecting the game to move at their pace, and instead start to move at the games pace. In a world where games tend to focus on being able to be controlled by the players, which could theoretically be traced back to how “Many senior industry figures found their predispositions towards games and complex controllable systems were satisfied by paper and table-top role-play gaming, usually in the form of the Dungeons and Dragons format.” (Dovey and Kennedy, 70) which lead to videogames also looking to satisfy this need for control. I find it an interesting rejection of that standard technicity in games, which makes Endless Express stand out as unique even with how small or short the game is. This sort of rejection of what have come to be standard game design decisions is one of the reasons I have found myself leaning further into indie games, some of which have been more memorable than AAA games and even become some of my favorites. Endless Express, for example, I first played years ago but still comes to mind simply because of its real-time train system and what I feel that design decision represents.