Catching the Train

released on Apr 18, 2021

There's no time to sit down, you've got a train to catch!... hey wait is that a 50% off sale???? Take a short walk around town, talking to residents, completing useless tasks and maybe doing some shopping! Let's just hope the train doesn't leave without you.


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soo cute, i absolutely adore the art style! not too memorable but still enjoyable (:

Catching the Train is a bite-sized community sim with an abundance of heart and character. It draws a ton of inspiration from Animal Crossing - the character designs, the village, and even the handful of ‘tasks’ share its DNA - yet Catching the Train remains a unique and memorable experience throughout.
One of the biggest reasons for that is, without a doubt, the game’s loving, thorough worldbuilding. The village you explore is made up of many distinctive areas (such as shops, a beach, and a museum), and each area is filled with cute characters for you to talk to. These characters are all genuinely funny and charming, as the dialogue has a great sense of humor. What’s more, you can talk to many of them repeatedly for new strings of dialogue - and some even have events or tasks for you to complete!
As you progress by helping NPCs and exploring, you’ll be rewarded with coins. Coins can be spent in a few different places - mainly, the aforementioned shops - and lead to some cute little interactions of their own. Minor spoiler warning, but it’s so neat that the items you buy customize your ending. That detail alone goes to show the thought put into this game!
Possibly the best thing about Catching the Train as a whole is its presentation. The pixel art is beautiful, and the two-tone (blue and orange) palette compliments the style perfectly. The character designs are particularly wonderful, too, being so endearing and memorable.
The dev is primarily a (VERY talented) artist named cottonsprout - I highly recommend checking them out!
The single gripe I have with Catching the Train is its complete lack of audio. The dev actually addressed this in a comment, explaining that they had issues getting audio to work at all. It’s definitely an understandable exclusion from someone’s first project… still, some nice music would’ve been the cherry on top to a near-perfect little game. I recommend throwing on another game soundtrack while you play (I chose Donut County, but Animal Crossing is the obvious one.)
All in all, I highly recommend Catching the Train. It’s a free 45~ minute investment that’s not only cute and relaxing, but built with love and care. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

Visuals: 5/5
Audio: 0.5/5
Story: 4.5/5
Gameplay: 4/5
Worldbuilding: 5/5
Overall game score: 4/5 [3.8/5]