Express 404

The premise of the game is that you are a train conductor tasked with finding an imposter hidden among the passengers. The imposter, or mimic, reveals its presence during flashes of lightning, usually through glowing red eyes or by taking on the appearance of another passenger. Your job is to carefully observe everyone on the train and throw the mimic off before reaching the next station. If you fail to do so, the mimic will begin killing passengers one by one with each lightning strike. You can throw out as many passengers as you want, or even end up alone on the train with the mimic, but there is a money quota you need to meet when reaching each station. You earn money at a station for catching the mimic and for both living and dead passengers, although living passengers are worth considerably more. If you fail to meet the quota, your run ends. You cannot keep your eyes on the passengers at all times because you also need to hold down the throttle lever to keep the train moving. If you remain stationary for too long, the train will be consumed by darkness. There is a small mirror at the front of the train that can help you spot the mimic's red eyes, but it quickly becomes foggy…

After getting the train to Mach 13 (13,000 MPH) the Quota just got too much, It was fun to try and amusing to see how the game starts to cry when your going so fast.

**One of those tiny indie games that takes one weird idea and somehow turns it into an entire system.** Express 404 is difficult to describe without making it sound much simpler than it actually is. On paper, you're driving a train through a storm. You need to manage your speed, reach the station, keep up with increasingly demanding quotas and make money from your passengers. Except one of those passengers isn't human. And that's where the game gets interesting. The mimic can reveal itself during lightning flashes, so every flash suddenly becomes both information and danger. You're trying to pay attention to the train, the passengers, the timing, the economy and whatever tiny detail might tell you which person shouldn't be there. Kick out an innocent passenger and you've just thrown away profit. Ignore the mimic and people start disappearing. And the beautiful part is that the game doesn't stop there. Eventually you realize that Express 404 isn't really just about *surviving* the monster. It's about **exploiting the entire situation.** The upgrade system lets you push the rules in increasingly stupid, dangerous and profitable directions. You can bui…