Have you ever wanted to become a train conductor? Well, the wait is over (if you own a Nintendo Switch), since you can become your own Spirit Tracks conductor in Conduct Together!
I really liked The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks, since it had a train as a vehicle and main part of the movement in the game. In general, we don’t see many train games, apart from the Train Simulator series and the train ride I always build in RollerCoaster Tycoon. Are trains too much of a niche? Or are they associated with people, building complete cities in the attics of their parent’s houses? Well, let’s Conduct Together makes mincemeat of those prejudices and delivers a solid party game (or solo attic-experience). Let’s choo-choo right into the gameplay!
Choo-Play:
Conduct Together is an addictive game of explosive railway action that will challenge your inner conductor. The game was developed by Northplay, a company from one of my favorite countries, Denmark. They have a polar bear as a logo, one of my favorite animals – disclaimer, polar bears don’t live in Denmark; they are found on Greenland, which is part of Denmark. Northplay describes itself as ‘a small passionate team of highly specialized individuals making unique digital products that entertain’, and boy did they deliver. They develop anything from apps, to design works and games and are currently looking for any cool stuff to do, so hit them up.
In Conduct Together you control trains and the train switches. This is easily done by pressing the corresponding buttons of the Nintendo Switch: A, B, X, Y for the trains, the D-pad (numbered in the game) for the switches. This makes the game easy to learn, but hard to master. If you crash a little too many times, the game even acknowledges this fact but gives you user-friendly tips on how to achieve the level.
“Some levels were borderline unfair and felt like they were straight from hell.”
One of these features is handing a Joy-Con to a friend for a hectic teamwork of commanding trains, switching tracks and avoiding collisions. You can play with up to four friends, and I can see this game work really well on kids-, teen- and adult-birthday parties since Conduct Together is really first-time user-friendly. If you play the game solo and in handheld-mode, you can also opt for using the touchscreen controls and control the game by touching the trains and switches. This makes the game harder in my opinion since the levels get hard really fast and the buttons give you a faster reaction time then pressing the screen. But you’ll have to try that one for yourself.
Choo-Art:
Conduct Together is great for small periods of time, like when you’re commuting or taking a small break from studying. When played for longer periods the game really tired me out, mentally. It demands a lot of multitasking and high-speed thinking. Some of the levels I played took me over half-an-hour to complete, and since most of the levels must be completed within 50 seconds. Well, you can see where this is going. The difficulty is probably the only thing I didn’t like about the game. Some levels were borderline unfair and felt like they were straight from hell. Luckily you can always use the slow-motion option to buy you some extra thinking time.
Art wise the game looks nice and colorful. I really like the polygon style they used to create the trains and setting. Each ‘island’ (with a total of twenty) has a different style and background music. The background music is upbeat and lively and never really gets annoying. It’s the game-equivalent of good elevator music. It’s notable that the music also changes to fit the world you’re in, which is a nice touch. Before you know it, you will be dancing to some tropical beats in a pirate themed level.
Choo-Clusion:
Pricewise the game is a little high, sitting around the 20€/20$ mark. I would have easily forked over 10 euros for this game and would recommend you only pick this up at the current price point when you are deeply into high-paced puzzle games. Otherwise, pick it up once the price drops a little and you’ll have a really good puzzle-party game for you ever-growing Nintendo Switch library! Choo-Choo! (And you can always pick up the mobile version of the game to test the gameplay)
