Short Trip is one of those niche, unusual interactive experiences that I’m really glad exists. It answers the old question that keeps getting asked “Is gaming art?” with a resounding yes. Short Trip does that by taking an illustration which artist Alexander Perrin had spent five years working on and bringing it to life through simple interaction.
Perrin’s drawings are of a quaint mountain village inhabited by cat people. You play as a tram driver and Short Trip lets you drive the tram back and forth through the village along the line. In its most basic form, it’s a simple drive and stop at the station mechanic that requires two buttons and an optional tram horn honk. As you zoom on by at your own pace you can see the layers of Perrin’s art glide on by. There are paper smudges in the sky and the hand-drawn artwork absolutely shines as you drive by. Distant village ambience hums and the game oozes cosy charm for the short 10-minute experience it provides.
Whilst that is the original mode, those looking for a score attack challenge can take on schedule mode. Here you must reach your next station on the exact second and park up within half a meter of the station sign. Being early, late, or misaligned docks you points. Again, it’s a simple idea but the gamification of something that is extremely relaxed offers a nice alternative and it’s quite enjoyable to aim for a perfect score. Schedule mode helps beef Short Trip out but I’d have ideally liked some more world building from your cat people passengers. They purposefully move about the station and even on the tram as they move seats, but I’d have liked to have interacted with them a bit to extend the overarching game.
This isn’t going to change your life or revolutionise gaming but equally, there is very little out there that resembles this kind of interactive illustration. Short Trip does exactly what it says on the tin but is more than the sum of its parts because of how nostalgic and strangely sentimental the hand-drawn art and relaxed slice-of-life vibe made me feel. It is a game I’ll dip back in and out of over the years to come for a short breezy tram ride and I hope gamers who enjoy the artsier side of the medium will take a look at it too.
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