Introduction
The game world, where nightmares fuel the engine, terror rides on tracks, and survival is the ultimate victory. Welcome to our journey into the chilling, thrilling rise of this unprecedented gaming sensation. The game was made by only one man, but it became one of the most played games at launch. In today’s blog, I will tell you the reasons why Choo Choo Charles became so popular and its untold story.
Backstory – About the Developer
First of all, let’s understand its beginning and how the game was made. As I told you, it was developed by only one person named Gavin Eisenbind. He is a game developer aged around 22 with 10 years of experience creating games. He has great experience in game development and even selling games because he has also made other successful games in the past. He has his own indie development studio named Two Star Games, and before 2-2 Child, he produced the game “My Beautiful Paper Smile” commercially. The game had good reviews and decent sales. After this, he started working on 2-2 Child. But the question arises, how did he come up with the game’s idea? I mean, it is quite a unique game, and I am sure you have not played any horror game wherein a spidery monster train chases you.
Idea of Game
The developer once said that indie games based on children’s comic book characters have become quite popular. For example, Tattletale or Five Nights at Freddy’s. Everyone has known these characters since childhood, but now the same characters are coming in a creepy form, which makes people want to play the game. And like this, you might have understood that Choo Choo Charles is inspired by Thomas. Thomas and Friends is that TV show we have all seen in our childhood, or some might be watching it even today. The developer also loved the show and thought that many horror games are based on children’s characters but not TV shows. So, he started his work, holding this as his inspiration. Now, the question was, how could they make that train as scary as possible? Some people believe that he might have taken inspiration from Thomas’s mods for the Resident Evil 2 remake or Skyrim, but he clarified that was not the case. He said that he got the idea for the horror train from The Dark Tower series, which is a children’s book written by Stephen King. Its name is Charlie the Chuchu. And now you know where the inspiration for the name came from. For more clarification, he also tweeted that Charles was inspired by Kirst Thomas, Pennywise’s picture mouth, and the fish from Finding Nemo. But we don’t know if it’s true or if it is just sarcasm.
Announcement
So, the game was announced in September 2021 on his Twitter handle. At that time, he was not that well known, but he had been posting game development content on YouTube for a long time. Due to this, he had gained some traction. After some time, the Steam page also went live and started getting decent traction. Almost a month later, the trailer was posted on YouTube, which changed the whole game. The trailer went viral, and the tweet also went viral. Game media channels like IGN and Gamespot uploaded the trailer to their channels. It had 20 million total views and 14,000 wishlists on Steam before he could upload his trailer on TikTok. The people put it there first, and when he put it there, it had 1.5 million views, and the number of wishlists on Steam was also increasing like crazy. At the time, 20-year-old Gavin surely wouldn’t have thought that his game would get so many eyeballs. The press came to interview him, and he expressed that he was both excited and stressed because so many people were waiting anxiously for the game. So, he decided to work much harder to complete the game. It took him 1.5 years to complete it.
Release
He targeted an early 2022 release, but it took more time. Now, the game was released in December 2022. Though it was not well received by the reviewers because almost every game journalist gave it an average rating of 5 out of 10. The reasons they gave were that the game was not scary and was too short. Some even said that the stealth missions were not that exciting. But the reaction of the audience was slightly different, and the game was an instant hit. After release, many YouTubers and Twitch streamers started playing this game, and their videos were getting millions of views. The best part is that the audience also loved it. So, let’s discuss some reasons why this game became so popular.
Cursed Thomas
The first one is Cursed Thomas, which has become quite popular on social media. Basically, the same Thomas from Thomas and Friends, just presented scarily, and its mods and animations were very popular. People used to play Resident Evil 2, GTA 5, and Skyrim games with Cursed Thomas mods, and even real-life animations were created based on this, where it is chasing people and eating them with its mouth out. So, Tutu Charles took advantage of this popularity, as you fight with the same monster. Yes, the developer said that he wasn’t inspired by the Cursed Thomas. He might have watched a video of that, but while making the game, he didn’t even remember that. Still, Cursed Thomas had a separate fan base for which, by chance, Gavin made the game.
Social Media Phenomenon
And then this game also became a social media trend. Basically, what happens in the world of social media is that any content creator will try the game on their channel, and if he gets a good amount of views for that video, he will create more videos about the same game. Then the other content creators will also make videos for the same game, and this leads to a snowball effect where they make content about the same topic because this is giving them growth, and viewers are also liking the videos. Though these trends don’t last long, eventually, the audience also gets bored, and the creators also get bored, so they move on to another game.
People Love Horror Games
This is also an important point because people love seeing horror movies. Maybe they will not play the game, but they will watch the video for sure because while playing a horror game, the streamer gives very interesting reactions. Viewers like the jump scares and the streamer’s fear. Reviewers highlighted that missions are a bit boring, and stealth isn’t all that interesting, but that doesn’t matter because the creator will make it interesting through editing and commentary.
Luck
And then, for this game to become popular, luck was also an important factor because it was luck that as soon as he posted the trailer, it became so viral that it came into everyone’s eyes, and he started being interviewed. But it is said that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. So, he prepared a lot. I mean, he had been making games since he was 12 years old. Before that, he released multiple games and also sold them. And the YouTube channel on which he had 8,000 subscribers also helped in the initial boost. Though it is worth mentioning that he had around 500,000 subscribers on his channel now.
Pop Culture
The reason for its popularity: This has now become a part of our culture. I mean, people have made countless mods for other games like GTA 5 and Minecraft.Despite being a short game, people who tried speedrunning it. People made various fan art songs and soft toys based on the game. Rest animations were made where people made fictional stories out of memes. Even in real life, people have started making Charles models, and the craziest part is that clones of the game have already started to appear in different stalls. Other developers are also trying to make games like this, whether they are for mobile or PC. And we know that the game being cloned is a good sign of its immense success.
The Future of Choo-Choo Charles
So now, the question arises, what is the future of Choo Choo Charles? The developer said in a video that he would invest his time in fixing the bugs first and a lot of patch updates. After that, he will work on porting the game to PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and other Xbox series consoles. And rest assured, he will also think about whether he can bring the game to other consoles too or not. I think he was probably hinting about the Nintendo Switch, but that is not confirmed, and he also didn’t say anything about the mobile port. But yes, the console launch can happen in the middle of 2023, and a new update might also come in which new locations and side missions will be added to explore.
Choo-Choo Charles 2
But the million-dollar question is, will Choo Choo Charles 2 come or whatever its next sequel’s name may be? So about this, he neither confirmed it nor denied it. As six months would go by just for porting the game, after that, he will think about making a sequel. According to me, he might make the next part because this IP has gained so much popularity. So why not use the capital and make more great content for people? Spoiler alerts: You might have seen the post-credits scene that there are many eggs hidden in the cabin, which means Charles might come back.
