Locomoto: Come on and Ride the Train!
I’ve been having a lot of fun with new life sim game that came out last week: Locomoto. It’s basically an adventure game where your character starts out by fixing up a train and traveling between stations. And it’s really filling that void for me that Animal Crossing used to.
When the pandemic hit, I was gifted an Animal Crossing themed Nintendo Switch and fell into the game pretty hard. There wasn’t a lot of going outside or socializing, but that was ok because I could do it in game.
It also gave me a nice regularly scheduled game to play every Sunday that I knew would maintain a low-key vibe. I stream early in the mornings, and even though I’m awake, not all of my viewers are! So why not ease them into the day with something chill.
Locomoto fits the bill perfectly. As I said, you start out fixing up a train and learning to drive and maintain it. And before too long, you’ve driven the train back home and slowly get involved in a campaign to fix up the town and save its reputation.
There’s resource gathering, crafting, taking passengers from place to place and lots of exploration with an endless supply of coal to feed the engine! I’m only 3 hours in and I know I’m barely starting to make progress on the main story. It is a single player game, so unfortunately no getting together with your friends on the rails. But don’t let that stop you sharing tips with each other!
It does have the “life sim” trope AKA everyone else’s problems become your problem to fix, no matter how far-fetched they may be. Like trying to meet a new Furple (fur + people, that’s what the residents are called) and seeing books scattered on the ground. Ask them how they’re doing and they introduce themselves, then immediately launch into what a bother it will be to organize all the books and maybe you can do it for them! Sure… ok. 😳
The art style is really cute, all of the Furples have a unique look, clearly inspired by different animals. As you meet them, you can keep track of their names and pronouns and friendship levels. As for your own character, you can change up your personal animal look anytime and change clothes as the mood strikes you.
But I foresee this game taking up a good amount of my time, and being a Sunday staple for streams. Especially when I need to keep the vibes chill, and as a streamer it’s always nice to have a “fallback” game that, no matter what, you can play and enjoy. It’s not always easy to know what you want to stream!
Check it out for yourself, there’s still a demo available on the Locomoto Steam store page and if you aren’t convinced, take a look at my YouTube playlist of the streams so far! I’m enjoying it, it’s perfect for bite-sized sessions, but I could easily see having off stream time to gather crafting and decorating resources.
Until next Sunday’s stream… CHOO-CHOO! 🚂🚃🚃🚃💖
