Game: Loco-Sort
Genre: Sorting Puzzle, Indie
System: Steam (Windows)
Developers | Publishers: Martins 14 Games
Controller Support: None
Price: US $11.99 | UK £9.99 | EU € 11,79
Release Date: Nov 14th, 2023
A review code was used, and many thanks to Martins 14 Games.
Loco-Sort is a train car sorting game about controlling trains, moving items from one location to another, and figuring out the fastest way to move stuff to get the best time. You play in a cute diorama-type world of toy trains in big, delightful backgrounds.
A Big Train Game
Every year during December, one of my good buddies and I always go to the local botanical gardens to check out the light displays for the holidays. One of the indoor displays is always a bunch of steam-powered toy trains set up with a new and interesting diorama display filled up with things like farms, ice-skating rinks, and little buildings. It’s one of my favorite displays; you can always tell the people that set it up really like collecting and doing the displays. It reminds me of my childhood, looking around my grandfather’s giant toy train display that took up a whole room in his basement that was the size of my bedroom.
Loco-Sort is the video game version of this kind of toy train nostalgia. It all feels like a big bunch of toy trains with which you get to solve puzzles. It’s got this fun, old-timey vibe that really brings the little train world to life. Everything from the outfits to the layouts all feel like they were designed to evoke it. The music and sound design are kind of old-Western, one-horse-town kind of sound if you know what I mean (though it is a little loud; I suggest turning the music down before starting the game). It’s so thematic, and it feels lovingly created.
Whether you love trains or not, Loco-Sort is a kind of childhood-dream kind of game that would probably appeal to anyone who has good memories of toy trains or even full-sized trains. It reminds me of the kind of loving train re-creation in Station to Station, another train-themed game I had the honor to play for LadiesGamers.
How Loco-Sort Plays
Loco-Sort is a train car sorting game. You have a limited amount of time to take the old cars off of the train and then put the new cars onto the train engine in order. Sometimes, you even have to fill up train cars with items to transport or empty items into factory-like buildings. As you upgrade your train engines, you can do the levels faster and faster, earning more money and more stars to upgrade your engines further or buy new ones.
Each level is timed, and based on the time you take to move everything around, you’ll get a score in stars and a predetermined amount of money per car attached to the engine. You can pay money out of your earnings to get more time if you’re behind. There is a timer on the left of your screen to keep track that has a green line for five-star timing and a red line for if you have run out of time and have to buy more. The UI is really intuitive and busy in a pleasing way.
A Great Tutorial
One thing that Loco-Sort did really well was the tutorial. There is a three-part tutorial that really digs into the weeds of how to play the game; you get to play as you learn, which helps to enforce everything you will be doing. The tutorials aren’t timed either, so you can really take them at your own pace. It’s a little long and a little hand-holdy, but it’s worth playing through it.
After I completed it, I felt like I was fully ready to dive into the game, and I had no questions about any of the controls. It was really well done, and you should definitely play it all the way through if you decide to pick up this fun puzzle game.
The Puzzles and Trains
As you go through the 30-ish levels in Loco-Sort, they will get progressively more challenging and require better and better trains. While none of the puzzles are really difficult, they require more and more investment into your engines, a lot of thought about the order of how to grab and move cars, and strategize better to get faster as you learn the layout of the levels and replay them.
I found that playing levels, upgrading my trains, and then replaying the levels to get faster were incredibly satisfying. I played several of the levels a bunch of times to try and do it faster and make more money. This is good news for replayability; I think you will really get your money’s worth with Loco-Sort.
Some Issues with Loco-Sort
I had a couple of issues with Loco-Sort. While I don’t mind seeing the cutscenes once, the fact that none of the cutscenes are skippable is a little annoying. The opening cutscenes for levels are great because you get a good lay of the land before starting, but the opening cutscene of the game is unskippable every time.
It seems like Loco-Sort is meant to be kind of slow, with long level scenes and slow menuing, but it did get a little old after a while. I’m not one to power through most games as fast as I can go, but also, why can’t I select a level from a menu instead of having to scroll through them one at a time while watching the spinning graphic of the menu over and over again?
I think a lot could be done to speed up menuing in Loco-Sort, which would really enhance the feel and speed of getting to the next level. For example, a menu of all 30 levels that you can choose from. Also, a menu between levels that allows you to either go right into the upgrades menu for your train or go to the next level would also be a welcome change; as of now, you have to back out of the levels menu, then go into the upgrades menu, and it takes a lot of menuing and a lot of time.
One of the main things I love about Loco-Sort is the ability to replay levels, but I’m not sure what the point of not allowing you to change the train engine you are using, once you have completed a level with it. Like, if you complete level 1, you obviously have to use the base engine that you start the game with. But you can’t buy a new engine, upgrade it, then use it for the first level to try and get a better score. This meant that if I wanted to get a better score in that level, I would have to waste stars upgrading the old train engine.
I’ve already beaten the level, so I’m not sure why I’m being limited with the engines I can use in it. That’s the whole point of upgrading; making the earlier levels easier, right? I mean, maybe not letting me use the very best engines on the earliest levels I get, but not being able to change it at all, feels really limiting without purpose.
Conclusion
Loco-Sort is a very fun, train-themed puzzle game with a lot of heart. It had no bugs that I found, it’s eye-pleasing, and it’s just a lot of good, clean fun. It’s wholesome, nostalgic, and adorable. I can’t tell you how much I love this game. It has a few small issues that make it a little less than perfect, but they are nothing in comparison to how fun the game is to play.
The levels are challenging, the music and looks are thematic and aesthetic, and the little scenes are really beautiful. I enjoyed my time with Loco-Sort, and I look forward to completing the final few levels in the very near future. I can’t recommend this one enough; even if you don’t like toy trains, you will probably still dig this sweet and lovingly crafted puzzle game!
Final Verdict: Two Thumbs Up
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(Comment by the developer of Loco-Sort:)
Hi,
Thank you so much for such a great review! I am glad that you have enjoyed my video game. You really hit the nail on the head when you wrote “childhood-dream kind of game”, because I was just 6 years old when I had the original idea for Loco-Sort (in a very basic form).
In relation to the issues you have identified, I will address them in future major updates of my video game. I am a one-person team, so I am proud to say that I do need the help of people that play my game to make it better.
Finally, my intention with the outhouse in the exit screen was just a reference to a “bathroom break” that the player needed to do in order to stop playing my game. I didn’t mean anything else by that, it was just a joke.
All the best to you and your website,
Fernando Martins