Online, Nov 2021
Spirit Train is a difficult game to rate – I feel that I’d score it very differently depending on who I’m talking to. Some teams will find it beautiful and magical, and others will be left unmoved. It’s unquestionably a lovely experience, crafted with skill and care, but is also quite different to most of the games listed on this site.
Trapped’s online games use a combination of static images and spoken word to create their environments in the players’ imaginations, and players describe verbally what they wish to try doing. This makes them something like a tabletop role play session with extra puzzles. The puzzles may be provided by the illustrations or may be situational, often involving lateral thinking, with the host describing the outcome of your actions. Freed from the bounds of the real world, the situations and solutions can be far stranger than could be supported in a different format, and players can let their creativity loose to invent novel off the wall solutions.
Spirit Train doubles down on this format – literally, since it’s a two hour game, and also in that it puts even more emphasis on the story. And both story and illustrations are lovely, spinning a fantastical world that takes clear inspiration from the Studio Ghibli animated films, at once strange and cosy, evocative and wholesome. Our host was not just a game facilitator but a storyteller, setting the scene and voicing characters.
Though the majority of the game involves working out what to do, there are a number of puzzles in the traditional sense, particularly later on. These weren’t simply thrown in – I found them genuinely interesting in concept, particularly in the way different puzzles relate to each other, not just arbitrary hurdles but subtly reinforcing particular ideas and themes.
That’s beautiful puzzle design; at the same time I wonder whether they leave Spirit Train falling between two stools; the puzzles are challenging enough to be a barrier to those who might want to enjoy it purely as an interactive storytelling experience, while being too few in number for puzzle enthusiasts.
For scheduling reasons we were playing very late at night, so had a tired group of players; and half of our team were not native English speakers, and therefore found the host’s lush descriptive language tricky to follow at times. That meant we didn’t bring as much energy to the game as it deserved. However, my impression was that Spirit Train offered somewhat fewer opportunities for left-field zaniness and creative solutions from the players, in favour of greater richness of story and atmosphere; and although that’s highly successful on its own terms, it also means a quieter, less energetic experience.
So for me it was enjoyable and impressive without ever quite connecting in a visceral level. But for the right group this could be an absolute slam-dunk of a game, an original and magical journey to a whimsical other world. More than puzzle solving, this is about letting a storyteller weave a world around you with their words, and if that appeals, and you like the game’s aesthetic, you should definitely consider playing this one. 