Short Trip is one of the most serene indie games I’ve ever played. You’re a tram driver, and your job is to take passengers to their destinations. There’s no jeopardy, and no chance of getting things wrong. If you stop at every station on this picturesque train line, the passengers will get on and off of their own accord. If you miss a stop, there are no repercussions. Short Trip is as much interactive illustration as it is fully fledged game.
I will reiterate this. Short Trip is only about ten minutes long. It uses just three buttons, and one of them is completely optional – although who doesn’t want to ring the bell. The soundtrack is birdsong and wind. But rolling through the graphite-drawn mountains to the gentle chug of wheels is nothing short of restorative.
My first run went smoothly. I picked everyone up, made it to the summit, and then did the same again on my way down. It felt good. I felt more relaxed having played it, as if I had actually been outside to stand under trees or hike up a mountain. This game is idyllic.
Then I tried a chaos run. I missed a few stops to see what would happen. Nothing. I went all the way to the summit without collecting a single passenger. Again, nothing happened, except my little cat-person tram driver got a nice trip. I went home again. Nothing happened. This game isn’t about the destination, it’s about the journey, and I still felt good. Then I tried Scheduled Mode.
Schedules Make The Serene Stressful
Scheduled Mode does what it says on the tin: gives you a schedule. You need to get to the next station as close to on time as possible (that doesn’t mean early, nor late, bang on time, please), and park up alongside the platform as closely as possible. You don’t understand the stress this can cause.
The timing is pretty forgiving. Pulling up anywhere within a second of the scheduled arrival pretty much guarantees you a perfect score. However, aligning perfectly with the platform is more difficult than you might think.
I finished with high marks, although the run wasn’t perfect. But it wasn’t the score I was worried about. It was the little cat-people. What if I slowed a little too much on the approach to the station and arrived a second late? Would they be late for their little cat-jobs? What if the tram was misaligned with where it should usually park? Would their little cat-faces be annoyed with my innocent cat-driver? One wrong move could turn this relaxing jaunt into an utter cat-astrophe.
Cats On The Line
I didn’t want to disappoint, so I tried my utmost to perfect the run. This was especially difficult, as there was a pre-release bug on one station that made it “almost impossible” in the words of the PR company representing the game. Almost impossible isn’t impossible, though.
I don’t expect that many people will play multiple runs of Short Trip. This isn’t a racer where you’ll compare with others on a leaderboard. There aren’t upgrades or metas or strategies. You just don’t want to disappoint the cat-people, and that’s enough to send me spiralling into a panic about ruining their cat-lives.
Short Trip is beautiful, charming, picturesque, and relaxing. It’s rustic and a little melancholic. But the simplicity is wonderful. The simplicity is the point. The scheduled mode makes this game more gamey, but it’s not for me. I don’t need the pressure of a schedule, the pressure of these cat-people’s livelihoods in my hands. I’ll stick to classic mode, thank you very much.
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