One of the first times I spent money on a mobile game was Nintendo’s Miitomo, a game I remember nothing about except that it took over my high school friend group’s life for several weeks in Spring 2016. While concrete details have been lost to time, I know less than $10 had been spent on an outfit that I would not be unlocking anytime soon otherwise. I also know that I regretted it pretty soon after realizing Miitomo was already losing me despite the best efforts of its notifications and daily incentives.
This brief experience confirmed a bias that I held onto for years since: I don’t like playing games on my phone. Despite all the times I’ve opened up a newspaper’s website for its daily puzzles, or briefly downloaded the hottest app around, like Flappy Bird or Pokémon Go, I lose steam fast with any game played on my phone. Even the lovely Reunion, which I am a fan of for objective and personal reasons, and usually engage with on my phone, has begun losing my attention. Knowing this about myself has generally led me to tapping out of any mobile-exclusive game, as well as ignoring statements like “This game is perfect for mobile.” I’d been happy to miss out on what any app store has to offer for almost a decade—until I started playing Spooky Express.
In Spooky Express players navigate a train to pick up passengers, get them to their respective destinations, and do so while not crossing the train’s own tracks. While bringing a vampire to its coffin or zombie to its grave starts off easily enough, the game wastes little time in introducing new snags, like adding humans who can get scared off the train by monsters but must be picked up later. Spooky Express’ puzzles quickly turn into my favorite head scratchers of the day. And it’s all bolstered by spooky sound design that offers both a pleasant soundtrack and fitting noises like vampire snarls and children yelps.
Spooky Express has been enough fun that I actually dropped the coin to purchase the full game. It wasn’t breaking my bank at only $6, but I cannot overstate how monumental this felt considering I haven’t spent money on a mobile game in years. However, even with this out-of-character choice, I sense that I’m not enjoying it as much as I could be. And the game is solid to a point that I realize it’s not Spooky Express’ fault—in this case, it’s mine. The last couple of days spent building train tracks in haunted forests is forcing me to reckon with a slightly uncomfortable truth: it’s not really mobile games’ fault that I write them off so often. In my heart, I already knew this, but was admittedly willing to dismiss it because there was no incentive to address these feelings. But alas, I’d like to enjoy putting vampires into coffins while hearing train sounds more than I previously did, so the time has come.
Looking inwards, part of my apprehension with mobile games comes with the most important element of them: phones. I don’t like my phone, not because it’s old or ineffective, but because it’s an attention vampire that leaves me feeling drained instead of rejuvenated. Countless apps and sites are competing for my attention, and although I can turn the notifications off for some of them, my own brain is constantly bombarding me with all the things I can, and maybe even should, be doing on the computer in my pocket. Then, once I’m actually using it, my phone becomes the least fun mirror in the world, as I stare at my own face while doing one thing before reflexively switching apps to return to the other thing I had abandoned a few minutes ago, all while dozens of other activities are in limbo. And that’s not getting into the number of apps and tabs on my phone that are part of my daily routine not for being used, but for telling myself I’ll use them eventually.
As a result, adding games to this list, although no fault of their own, feels like just another task to be overwhelmed by. Another app making me feel guilty for not using it. Games are already competing for attention with everything else on and off a smartphone, and truthfully were even before phones were smart, considering a phone’s chief purpose is to interrupt whatever you’re doing the moment a call comes in. Phones are inherently disruptive and at odds with anything that requires concentration, like games.
However, I must relent and hand it to Spooky Express: it’s been a good reason to pick up my phone lately. In fact, this is what made me realize the game might even be great—I was picking up my phone to play it rather than being badgered by notifications to do so. To put it another way, my engagement with this game better reflected an overlooked but significant element of how I usually play games, which is that I go to them rather than they come to me, than previous mobile games I’ve played. There are no dailies or time-sensitive events for the puzzler, which has not only allowed me to enjoy at my own pace but also given me the space to consider how much I like the game. It’s better than unintrusive: it’s wanted.
Another nice thing about this desire is that it has an end point. In a sea of media manufactured to be enjoyed endlessly and always promising more, not just in the shape of games but also social media and streaming services generally, I especially appreciate anything that lets me know there can be a day I have done everything. That promise of an end has been as much of an incentive to continue playing Spooky Express as the game’s actual quality, for if nothing else, even a bad game can feel good once I’ve finished it. The feeling only gets better with a good one.
But really, the best part of playing Spooky Express has been realizing that it really is best as a mobile game. While I can imagine the controls of a PC or console version that would let me quickly put down train tracks, restart a puzzle, or navigate the map, the sensation of guiding a train with my finger offers a tactile feedback that’s deeply gratifying in comparison to a thumbstick or keyboard. There’s also short, charming comics in between areas that are designed explicitly with mobile in mind, a welcomed bonus given a majority of my manga and comic reading over the past decade has been on my phone.
To put it plainly, I’ve found a mobile game so good that not changing my language and habits around mobile games would feel wrong. If Spooky Express has shown me anything—outside of how to run a train for monsters and humans—it’s that I should be more amenable to checking out mobile games. I don’t need to love them, but it won’t hurt me to play a few more throughout the year like any other game.
Spooky Express was developed and published by Draknek & Friends. Our review is based on the Apple version. It is also available on PC and Android.
