Choo-Choo Charles

There are a lot of scary horror games where you're chased by terrifying monstrosities, but there aren't many like Choo-Choo Charles. In this odd and darkly comedic horror game, you are sent to a shadowy island to hunt down a mysterious beast in your efforts to become the best monster hunter alive. However, when you arrive on Aranearum to complete your hunt, you realize that not everything is as it seems. While Choo-Choo Charles is light on gameplay and entertainment, its weirdness is worth discussing!

Main Game Features

• Intense first-person horror survival
• Gather resources to power up your locomotive
• Escape from a terrifying train

Story

Similar to other first-person horror games like Slender: The Eight Pages, Choo-Choo Charles doesn't bog you down with tons of exposition or background. Instead, it throws you straight into the action. In the game, you are an expert monster hunter called to a mysterious island to handle a situation. According to your friend Eugene, a mutated train caboose is on the loose, and only you can stop it. In order to defeat Choo-Choo Charles, you'll have to track down its three eggs and summon it for a final showdown.

Preparing for the fight against Choo-Choo Charles takes you all across Aranearum, where you'll meet several characters who need your help. Unfortunately, the dialogue is often cringe-worthy and unfunny, or simply boring. There are a few jokes here and there that work, but the characters and dialogue are so odd when compared to the rest of the game. The ending is also quite anticlimactic, so you shouldn't expect any grand plot twists either.

Gameplay

When you first arrive on the island, you are immediately attacked by Choo-Choo Charles and it becomes apparent that you need your own train to survive. Luckily, Eugene has a spare locomotive for you to take as your own, but it's poorly equipped to fend off the killer Choo-Choo Charles. To upgrade your train, you'll need to complete quests for characters scattered around the island. Additionally, while you ride through the dense and foggy woods, you'll occasionally see loot on the side of the tracks. These resources will help you further level up your weapons and durability, but they can be dangerous to retrieve.

Ultimately, the game boils down to a predictable formula of completing side missions, upgrading your train, and fighting off Choo-Choo Charles whenever he pops out to play. During these boss segments, you are stuck to your train and must shoot at Charles with every weapon you have, similar to on-rails games like House of the Dead: Overkill. However, each encounter is the same as the last, quickly making it a boring affair. This is pretty disappointing, as the most unique part of the game is also the most repetitive.

Conclusion

Choo-Choo Charles is a weird indie game with a fun idea at its foundation, but most of the experience feels poorly put together.

Pros

• Unique idea and concept
• Choo-Choo Charles is pretty scary
• Some funny moments

Cons

• Stealth sections are awful
• Repetitive boss encounters
• Weird voice acting and characters

Gear up and ready yourselves for Choo-Choo Charles, an incredible first-person survival game that is sure to leave you shaking in your boots. This is easily one of the most inspired games I’ve seen in a long while. It really moves to its own beat and tries something new with the horror/thriller genres. Throughout this game, you will be hunted down by an enormous man-eating spider train that runs way faster than you would like it to and will absolutely chew on your bones if its catches you. There is something oddly compelling about the world and its story, so I have no doubt you’ll find this as captivating as I did. Let’s get into it.

Gameplay

So, first and foremost, this title is a survival action game with strong horror and thriller elements. You will be spending much of the time avoiding a murderous spider train and scavenging the land for scraps. A bit like Metro Exodus, you take control of a train and use it to travel across the region. As you progress, you will need to regularly stop and investigate various areas to discover scrap to upgrade your train and make it a fighting machine able to take on Charles.

This game is a bit like Alien: Isolation, as Charles could be waiting for you at any place. Be wary of travelling on foot or taking some of the lesser travelled paths, as you may find yourself stuck with very little protection and too far from your train to escape. Your objective in all this is to summon the beast in a mortal duel, and finally be Charles’ match, putting an end to that freaky long-legged boy once and for all.

Visuals

So, the visuals to this title are pretty simplistic and although they look nice, they aren’t high-resolution textures like you would find in a AAA game. That being said, the way that Charles looks and is animated is more than enough to scare the absolute bejeezus out of you and potentially induce a nightmare or two after the fact. The world has diverse biomes and each one is well-designed and well-represented, so you don’t have to worry about everything looking the same while running away from this horrible hate monster.

Story and Ambiance

From start to finish, you will be hunted across the island by a huge train with a terrifying face and long spider legs. This creature is called Choo-Choo Charles and it’s a play on Thomas the Tank Engine, and manages to capture that same vibe that Poppy Playtime has with its uneasy take on murderous kids’ toys. There is something uniquely unsettling about this genre of game and Choo-Choo Charles really gets it.

Sneaking around in the dark trying to keep an eye out for a giant killer train is probably one of the weirdest sentences I could write, and somehow that bizarre sentence doesn’t do justice to how well this game was designed. If you love a creepy game that offers some genuine pant-pooping moments, you could not do much better than this.

Pros

• Excellent monster design
• Great gameplay
• Brilliant ambiance

Cons

• Low detail characters and environments are a little difficult to overlook