Choo-Choo Charles Review (80 Proof Hammered)
TL;DR: games good but too short, wait for a sale
I beat the game in less than 3 hours, and got all but 1 achievement in that time.
It's a good game although the price is kinda steep how long it is. I get this game took a little over a year to make by a single guy so i'm not gonna over commit to making the price a key point here, but i would recommend getting this game on sale if you can.
Bugs:
so the only major bug i dealt with was opening my map and all of a sudden im in the middle of nowhere and my train is still going, usually the train stops when you jump out, but i guess the code for that is a hollowed out cylinder around the train that you can jump over, somehow.
This is also where i learned charles follows near the train and not the player, thats really the only reason i could live long enough to hunt down my own train and hop aboard
the second and least impactful bug was a lighting issue underneath the bridge you plant 8 explosives on, for some reason the second coming of christ was happening and i couldn't see where to plant the bomb without burning out my retinas.
mechanics:
there are plenty, most of which have already been shown off even in the trailers, but i want to put a pin in sneaking for a minute. It feels incredibly under-cooked, there's no exposed meter that you can use to know if the cultists can see you, they just, see you. and since you never get a weapon that isn't connected to your train, you're better off making a b-line to whatever your objective was and run back to the train, and since they can easily corner you, you're more than likely going to die since there shotguns hurt, alot.
I think the dev knew this since dying really isn't a punishment, that most scrap i've lost from dying is 3 and by the halfway point, i was basically loaded and my train fully upgraded.
upgrading is very satifying, except maybe weapon damage, never really felt like i was doing anymore damage at level 1 than i was at level 10, but i can understand why, if maxed out damage did too much, the final boss would be a joke, which is kinda funny since its a meme game with a slenderman mission. all-in-all tho, the upgrading felt good, especially speed, you're zooming by level 4
Speaking of weapons, the only ones I ended up using, at least in the final boss section was flamethrower and rocket, one to slow, one to damage, works great. u just gotta be quick to switch them out.
The way you get the weapons is pretty nice too, but some of those optional quests are just so slow to trudge through, im looking at you witch. Thankfully they reward you a fuck load of scrap
final thought:
Could this game be more polished, absolutely, but it's better quality than a lot of AAA games i've played in the past. so congrats dev, you're already doing better than most. keep it up.