Locomochi Steam Demo Review
Verdict: Play
A cozy toy-train puzzle game where the point is being a train, not solving the puzzle.
Locomochi is a Cozy Puzzle game where you drive a toy locomotive around handcrafted railway puzzles. Between missions the map is a chunky toy-set diorama built on stacked books, like a model train set on a bookshelf. Missions drop you into a cartoon landscape of ducks, little animals chopping wood, and frogs that jump on switches. The chunky toy-set art sealed it ten minutes in. I stayed an hour and a half, cleared the demo, and hit every optional side quest I could find. You have to be in the right mood for it. That means ready for some puzzles, brain engaged.
Play. Locomochi runs the movement puzzles I know from my phone through a proper 3D train and a diorama world. The presentation does enough to make the demo worth an hour and a half. It's five main levels and a handful of optionals, and I finished it wanting more. If the mood is on, this is a play from me. I'll come back for the full release when it lands, hoping for more levels and a bit more to do with the train.
Dropped Steam tag: Strategy (Steam filed it but Locomochi has no resource management and no adversarial systems). Do not apply Early Access.
Pros
- The 3D train presentation carries the demo with weight, smoke curls, and animations selling every stop and start
- Mechanics are introduced one at a time inside tutorial pop-ups that appear when you drive past them, and the game paces its own reveal
- The faffing is kept as the game's character: driving to the exit after the objective, and across the bookshelf between levels, instead of a menu
Cons
- Magnetic connectors snap wagons back the instant you detach them. Getting away takes a second try before the magnet lets go.
Art and first impressions
You play as a little boy driving a toy locomotive around handcrafted railway puzzles, delivering passengers and cargo to stations to clear each level. The map between missions shows level nodes sitting on a bookshelf, stacked at odd angles like a proper makeshift model train set.
When you drop into a mission it is a different look entirely. A cartoon landscape, ducks in the water, little animals chopping wood, actual environments you drive your train through. About ten minutes in I was already saying I liked the look of it.
How the game teaches you
Every new mechanic in Locomochi arrives in a little tutorial pop-up that appears when you drive past the trigger. I spent the first level ignoring most of them, working out the whistle for characters, detach for wagons, and camera rotation by mucking about.
By the second level I had learned to stop and read them, because I was messing things up otherwise. Mechanics come one at a time and do not pile up. The one thing that got old was the level-one music, which loops until you finish the level. It changed on level two and I stopped noticing it after that.
The faffing and the side quests
In most games, faffing is a bad word. Locomochi kept it in and made it the whole character, which is weird in a good way. When you hit the objective in a mission, the game does not fade out. You still drive your train to the exit, through the ducks and the animals chopping wood.
When you finish a level, it does not cut to level select either. You drive across the node map, a bookshelf diorama with a little chappy playing with his own train. You find the next station gate and punch your ticket. Either bit could just end, but if it did, you would lose the whole point of being a train. That is what puts Locomochi in the Cozy category rather than making it a puzzle test. The puzzles are the excuse to be a train.
The optional side branches took most of my time between story levels. A mouse wants cheese, so I reroute my wagons to bring it. A frog needs the water rerouted so it can jump on a switch. A bear on the mountain wants honey from a beehive four routes away. At the end I am delivering flowers from Mr Scone to his girlfriend.
The one that stuck with me was a wood cargo optional where I could not work out the intended path. I kept trying angles until three wagons sat somewhere near the right place. I feel I did it a very convoluted way, and I am fairly sure that is not how you were meant to solve it. That is the Wholesome layer sitting on top of the puzzles. When the puzzles are not cooperating, the answer sometimes really is just to ram it really hard.
Presentation and small complaints
The puzzles themselves are ones I recognise from a lot of hours in every Puzzle game I have played on my phone. Someone wants a thing delivered, obstacles in the way, work out the route. Nothing about the mechanics is new.
What makes Locomochi one to sit down with is that the same mechanics run through a proper 3D train. The smoke curls, the animations sell every stop and start. You are not tapping icons on glass. You are driving a locomotive through a cartoon world with actual space in it. It does not change the loop. It changes how the loop feels.
The magnetic connectors gave me a slight problem. When I detached a wagon, the magnets snapped it back on before I had moved off, which meant a second try. I would like it if the magnets were not so magnetic. I would also like a bit more to do with the train itself. It is what you drive. I wanted to tinker with it too.
Developer: Little Lantern Games
View on Steam
Watch the video review: YouTube
Watch the complete live play on YouTube
Tags: Puzzle, Cozy, Casual, Relaxing, Wholesome, Indie
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