Tracks of Thought is an adorable, charming game about being a little bug, looking to have a lovely train ride. Your day was off to a bit of a hard start, as you had nearly missed your train just to find that it was actually delayed. There aren’t very many people on the train, but each of them do have their own stories to tell and interactions to hold.
In Tracks of Thought, your decisions on how you react to people will shape how they act towards you and in turn shape your personality as a little bug creature! In the first scene of the game, you are able to chat to an older couple, a small, bratty child and a ticket inspector who has low self confidence. These characters each have very different stories and all of them have some sort of needs.
You will end up checking out your inventory, gathering items and trading them with various characters to help them out, all while the train gets going and starts moving forward. The train itself is quite interesting, as you don’t really know where the train is going — and neither do other people. Through picking replies, you get different cards that show if you are more direct, more logical, etc, which can then be used in battles.
These narrative battles have you picking a tone, deciding a few responses, then interacting with your enemies in that way. You can also team up with friends in these battles,although there wasn’t any of the battling system in the demo that I got the chance to play. There does seem to be many other places to explore, characters to meet, and cool locations that this train seems to take you through.
Tracks of Thought is a charming, narrative driven game with a really interesting world to dive into and explore. I love the idea of these battles where you gain cards based on how you talk to people, which will really shape how you end up playing!
You can currently play a demo of Tracks of Thought on Steam.
