Choo Choo Charles is a game on Steam, in which players are hunted by a giant spider train. The trailer for this crazy horror game went viral in 2021, but what many didn’t know: Behind the hype was a young solo developer.
On December 9, 2022, the horror game Choo Choo Charles was released on Steam. The open-world game lets players explore a remote island while being chased by a creepy train with spider legs.
Behind the game is the young solo developer Gavin Eisenbeisz, who started developing his own games at the age of 13. As it turns out, the viral success of Choo Choo Charles was anything but random; it was precisely planned by Eisenbeisz.
How to develop games with limited screen time
So it all began: As a teenager, Eisenbeisz started developing his own games on the family computer. Instead of learning a programming language, he used blueprints to create games with the Unreal Engine.
In 2017, Eisenbeisz published his first computer game on Steam: Behind These Eyes, which he retrospectively calls “a terrible game” in an interview with the YouTube channel Noclip, but it earned him “a few hundred dollars”.
The young developer released more shorter titles that are mainly categorized under the horror genre and are available for free on Steam.
His parents supported his passion, but there were limitations: As Eisenbeisz reports to Noclip, they limited his screen time as well as his “developer time.” However, he regularly exceeded these times to test and play his games, his father reveals.
How did a hobby turn into a career? At the age of 16, Eisenbeisz began work on his first “real” commercial game, My Beautiful Paper Smile. The horror game is about children who must always smile and be “perfect” and comes in a unique, hand-drawn style.
However, the young developer had a problem: His parents wanted him to secure himself with a proper education before fully diving into game development. Eisenbeisz was supposed to go to university and study first.
To circumvent this requirement, he signed a publishing contract for My Beautiful Paper Smile – therefore he was contractually obligated to finish the game and had no time for studying.
But what Eisenbeisz needed was a hit to convince his parents that he could achieve commercial success with his games. When My Beautiful Paper Smile was released on October 14, 2021, the now 20-year-old had already begun work on his next project.
How to create a viral hit
This is how he built hype for his game: The young developer consciously started work on Choo Choo Charles with the goal of going viral. This started with the design of the titular antagonist of the game.
Eisenbeisz explains the well-known horror formula of taking something sweet and innocent and making it creepy. However, he noticed that not many games in the genre were inspired by children’s shows – yet everyone had seen them as a child.
He opted for “Thomas the Tank Engine,” which he claims was his favorite show as a child. The talking train with the friendly face was already the subject of numerous memes, some of which alluded to a certain creepiness of the locomotive.
Eisenbeisz was also inspired by the videos of animator Tom Coben, who gave the little locomotive long spider legs and turned it into a monster dubbed “Thomas the Nightmare Engine.”
The young developer had a fundamental game idea and a villain with high recognition value and meme potential. Within a month, he put together a trailer that showcased the game’s world, some gameplay mechanics, and of course, the creepy antagonist.
Did his plan work? His considerations paid off when Eisenbeisz released the trailer on October 1, 2021, and it instantly received thousands of views. At that time, he didn’t have a game yet, just a Steam page and a video that was about to go viral.
The day after the release, the trailer achieved one million views on Twitter, and Choo Choo Charles landed on the wish lists of thousands of Steam users. Now, Eisenbeisz faced the difficult task of developing a game that could live up to the hype.
How to develop a game in a year
How did the development of Choo Choo Charles go? To finish his game in time, the solo developer had to make some decisions and compromises. Eisenbeisz explains that many developers consider features essential that are actually not that important.
He always asked himself the question: “Will people write a negative review if I leave out this feature? Or will they write a positive review if I add it?” Moreover, he didn’t embed too many extras.
His goal was to meet expectations and slightly exceed them, he explains to Noclip.
So, Eisenbeisz invested a lot of work in the AI of the horror train but kept the actual gameplay loop quite simple and engaging. He also had to make compromises on aspects such as the facial animations of his NPCs.
What problems were there? Eisenbeisz reports several issues during the development process. For example, Choo Choo Charles, due to its size and uneven terrain, was prone to getting stuck constantly.
Moreover, the developer had to ensure that the player could encounter the antagonist on the large open island.
During development, there were also moments when Eisenbeisz found his own game to be bad. Concepts were changed or discarded, and new ones were introduced.
In the final weeks before release, the developer then dedicated himself to marketing. He contacted content creators, produced videos for his channels on YouTube and TikTok, and prepared for the big moment.
How to release your game
This is how the release went: On December 9, 2022, it finally happened: Eisenbeisz started a stream in which he shared the live release of Choo Choo Charles on Steam.
Contrary to his fears, there were no major bugs at release (besides the giant spider train itself), allowing the developer to sit back and watch how his game was received. He spent the release weekend watching playthroughs and reading reviews.
How was the game received? The enthusiasm from critics was limited. On Metacritic, Choo Choo Charles received a score of 56, and IGN only gave the game 4 out of 10 points. But that was never the target audience Eisenbeisz had in mind.
The developer describes his work as “half meme, half serious.” It was aimed at an audience that could appreciate this mixture. And that’s exactly how Choo Choo Charles resonated with these people.
Content creators like Markiplier or the German YouTuber HandOfBlood showcased the game, the latter naturally in conductor’s uniform. And the game was well received by players as well. On Steam, it holds a 92% positive recommendation rate.
Eisenbeisz explains: The people who should like the game did, indeed, like it. He describes the reactions from his fans as “phenomenal.” On YouTube, there are numerous comments from his subscribers praising him and the game.
He felt like a bomb had gone off, the developer said in a video six months after release. Fans created mods, songs, their own animations, and even recreated the horror train in real life. Most of it was pretty cool, according to Eisenbeisz. However, some fan works were described as “questionable,” as he says. Apparently, no one is spared from Rule 34, not even a spider train.
The solo developer was able to prove that he is capable of creating a viral hit and hopefully also soothe his parents’ concerns a bit. However, it remains to be seen whether he can generate hype for his next game in the same way as he did for Choo Choo Charles.
What’s next for Choo Choo Charles? For the time being, Eisenbeisz is still busy with Choo Choo Charles: After some minor bug fixes kept him busy at the beginning of 2023, the developer intended to focus on a console port and a content update throughout the year.
In a stream from mid-July 2023, he explained that he is currently working on bringing the spider train to PS4/5 and Xbox Series X|S. Eisenbeisz has not yet committed to a timeframe, but he cautiously aims for the end of the year for the console port.
It will still take a while until his next game, the developer states. He doesn’t rule out a sequel to Choo Choo Charles, but fans will probably have to wait a while for that.
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