Loco
Motive

Loco Motive (2024) is a point-and-click puzzle game where you play three amateur detectives entangled in a murder aboard a luxury steam train. Play is about reading between the lines of fellow passengers' stories and closely analysing your surroundings to use the items you find to advance your investigation. It stands out for its story through three unique perspectives, each revealing new insights that untangle the Agatha Christie-style mystery.

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You play a lawyer, undercover spy, and novelist, as you investigate the murder of a wealthy heiress just as she's about to read her will on board a luxurious steam train in the 1930s. You first play through events as one character, who moves about the carriages and talks to the passengers in a search for clues. You find items and figure out how to use them to aid your investigation, combining them to create wacky gadgets or to prompt a character to reveal more details about themselves. If you get stuck, you can dial a helpline (in the game) to give you hints on how to solve each puzzle.

As you progress, you switch to play as each of the other two amateur detectives, which gives you access to more of the train and offers fresh angles on the investigation. In this way, you gradually learn more about each of the suitably eccentric characters on board and their potential murderous motivations. Eventually, all three regroup, and you use what you've learned from each to piece together whodunnit.

The result is a game that pays homage to classic murder mysteries through its setting and characters while adding a zany sense of humour to each encounter. Gradually figuring things out, piecing things together by investigating from three different perspectives, makes for an engaging and comedic puzzle adventure.

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Our examiner, Ben Kendall, first checked Loco Motive 4 weeks ago. It was re-examined by Thom Robertson and updated 3 weeks ago.