River and the Nightjar: a midnight train adventure
I gave Claude a long brief this time. A boy named River. A mysterious train that turns up late on a snowy night. Nine chapters, plus an opening and a ride home. And one firm rule: it had to be its own story, with no titles, characters, songs or scenes borrowed from any movie or book.
The story
It is the longest night of the year and River can't sleep. He has started asking hard questions about the stories people tell in winter. Then a hum shakes his window, and there is a train standing on our street, on rails made of light.
The train is the Nightjar. She lays her own rails as she goes, and they melt behind her by morning. On board are a Wayfinder named Ibby and five other kids: an inventor, a girl who counts everything, a quiet one with a notebook, a little one with a stuffed walrus called Admiral, and an older boy who is sure the whole thing is a trick.
There are eleven chapters.
- The Hum in the Dark
- The Impossible Train
- The Waymark
- The Rolling Kettle
- Thimble Pass
- Car Nought
- The Lost Way
- Kindlewick
- The Runaway Gift Convoy
- The Great Winter Gathering
- The Journey Home
What you do
Mostly you walk around, talk to everyone and look at anything that glows. In between, the game changes shape.
- Chase a glass waymark along the roof of the train, jumping the gaps and ducking the icicles.
- Catch falling cloudbuns on a tray in the Kettle Car while wind-up serving carts race past your ankles.
- Chip the ice off a frozen governor, help pull the brake, then steer the train across a frozen lake.
- Go back alone to the oldest carriage, and meet somebody there who will not say what he is.
- Fit gears, tiptoe past a very large cat and mend a spool of light under the train.
- Ride a parcel cart through the tunnels under a city of four thousand lanterns.
Small choices change what your friends say to you later. None of them can lose you the game. Nothing can. If something goes wrong, the Nightjar gives you another go.
Two keepsakes hide in every chapter, 22 in all. Together they tell the history of the railway.
Built for reading together
The whole story is read out loud, so a kid who is still learning to read can follow it. It works with a keyboard, an Xbox controller or a touch screen. Every chapter is open from the start, and it remembers the keepsakes you have found.
Our dog is in it. Justice sleeps in the upstairs hall in the first chapter, and she gets the last scene.
Where it falls short
- The people are simple shapes, like wooden toys. There are no artist-made models.
- The reading voice is whichever one your browser has. Some are better than others. You can turn it off in the menu.
- The music is made by code while you play. It is original, and it is plain.
- It is a 3D game in a web page. An older phone or tablet will struggle. There is a "Glow and sparkle" switch in the menu that helps.
- Claude played the whole game through with an automatic tester and looked at pictures of every chapter. It could not listen to the music, hear the reading voice or hold a controller. Those are mine to check, and I will fix what I find.
It runs best in Chrome or Edge on a computer.