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I Rode a Train While Playing this Game About Trains

And another game about not getting hit by trains.
​In the game Endless Express, you play by taking the train home. Photo: The Phawx/YouTube

A train station can be such a familiar, comfortable space, even if it's based on a shared anxiety. A place you've never been before, a place you're only two-thirds certain is the place you're supposed to be. Waiting as the sun's fading light blends into a cocktail with the shades of night, it's just you, alone, with a schedule, a destination, and a train to catch.

I didn't expect to encounter this place in a video game. But that's what I found in Endless Express—a short, clever entry into itch.io's recent game development challenge, a first-person shooter riff-a-thon called 7DFPS—which I started playing shortly before hitting the rails again myself.

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In the game, which takes place in real time, you simply have to take the train home—easier said than done. This is accomplished by commuting along a series of railways, requiring you check both your watch and the schedules posted nearby to make sure you're heading towards the correct junction points, and not boarding trains that will send you in the opposite direction. As you speed along your journey, you'll see distractions, strange lights, caverns, and critters that will disrupt your quest. Well, disrupt in as much a way as you'll just have to cool your heels until the next train arrives.

Seeing a train pull in and having to decide quickly if it's really your chariot that's arrived is a familiar stress; I can totally recall my last global meander, two years back, debating whether leaving my Prague-bound train for a bottle of water from an out-of-reach vending machine was worth the risk of being left behind. I've confidently self-diagnosed myself as having early-stage obsessive compulsive disorder, and each time I've backpacked or EURailed around Europe, I've had to trust that I am, in fact, boarding the right car, without reviewing the schedule several dozen times, or running my planned route by befuddled, foreign-speaking strangers.

The moment of confirmation—an announcer speaking the name of the place you're hoping to go—is a bliss only outdone by the feeling of putting on underwear fresh out of the dryer. And it's these little ego boosts that are critical in game design—rewards for zagging when you should have zagged. In many games, those rewards range from typical desserts, such as successfully hitting key strikes during a quick-time event, to getting the 'good ending' of a 30-hour saga. In Endless Express, your reward is the conclusion of one voyage, and the beginning of another.

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At one point during my current travels in Japan, I was torn between two Shinkansen—bullet trains. A pleasant local's friendly advice only made me less certain. But I stuck with my first choice, sat down, heard the stop read aload, and sighed heavily with relief. It being night, and with no sights to see as the country whipped by, I took my phone out of my coat pocket and traded Endless Express for Crossy Road.

I doubled my previous high score in the first run.

Crossy Road is also about getting from one point to an indefinite other—a freemium, endless runner version of the classic game Frogger. Available for iPhone and Android, the game is cutely cubic and brightly coloured, with some quirky easter eggs and memes if a high score alone isn't good enough for you.

One of the big reasons it is close to Frogger, but is not Frogger, is the game's controls and used of perspective. You're forced to outwit your usual sense of judgement—hop forward in spite of obvious, vehicular danger. Sometimes it feels like a gamble. Emergency cruisers, oncoming trains and, less forgivingly, tiny cars hidden out of sight behind big cars break up the flow of traffic with oft-disastrous results.

But I'm more easily defeated by my own hesitance. In reality, it's good to check both ways. In Crossy Road, wait for the light to change, and an eagle will swoop down and snatch you off the screen. There's something to be said for that.

Moments after being told my real-world, train boarding snap judgement was correct, I kicked my Crossy Road chicken's ass across lanes, tracks, lily pads and logs. I was in a rattling, fast-moving peaceful place, sitting (or slouching) in a big metal thing that will be taking me home—and in Japan, there's 50/50 odds it has heated seats. But games like Crossy Road are a good distraction from worries about warmth. And anyways, I suppose all I really need to be concerned with is not missing my next stop.

Playing games on a train can be sublime, and I can only wonder about what it would take to make one of my own. With mobile and portable games being an increasingly valuable space for the industry, more of us will be playing on the commute, and those contexts are important to meditate on in the ongoing design of games. While in Crossy Road, the consequences of making a wrong move are often drowning or being hit by a fast-moving car, Endless Express has a slightly more comforting view of commuting failure: okay, so you screwed up. You'll just have to wait for the next train. And enjoy the view.