A cute on-rails puzzle game about a tram driver who wants to solve the problems of his passengers. Its objective is hard to find at first, but enjoyable once you figure it out; and the artistic elements help cement its status as a pleasant, relaxing experience. It's only about 20-30 minutes long and free to play, so what are you waiting for?

In The Tram of Wishes, you play as an ordinary tram driver, shuttling people up and down a little city just like any other ordinary tram driver would do. He loves his job and loves the people he meets, but he realizes that some of his regular passengers are not quite as happy with their lives as he is, and so he takes it upon himself to use his tram to try and help these people with the problems they're facing. A short and sweet story, and the same could be said about the rest of the game.

The gameplay is pretty simple: you travel along a linear tramway, stop at the handful of tram stops along your route, open the doors to let people on and off, and maybe ring a bell just for fun. This is all fine and good--I'd even go so far as to say that it's relaxing--but there's a bit more to it than that. Along with a bunch of uncolored silhouettes of people found on your route, there are five fully-colored passengers that will show up every in-game day--five unique characters with individual problems that you can solve just by shuttling them around the city. As the driver, you have the liberty to stop the tram anywhere along the track you want, not just designated tram stops. Several points of interest can be found between stops, such as labelled storefronts; and taking those unique passengers to these locations is the key to solving their problems. Each one will display little thought bubbles over their head that give you hints regarding the problem they're having and where you could take them to solve it, though it's not always as simple as "drop X person off at Y location". If you manage to solve the puzzle associated with each one, a star will appear over their head for the rest of the game (until you restart the program); and your objective is to earn a star for all five passengers.

Actually finding the game's objective was confusing at first, for several reasons: the dialogue never explicitly tells you what you can or should do beyond the basic controls, so you don't realize there are other places to stop besides the designated tram stops; English is not the developers' first language, so the translations are a little clunky and/or vague even in the Steam store page; and one of the five stars can be earned accidentally, giving you (or maybe just me) the wrong impression of what you should be doing. Once you do figure it out, though, it's pretty fun trying to solve these little puzzles. One star is rather straightforward, and another is so easy that you can get it without trying; but the others require some creativity or come with unmentioned conditions that can lead to accidental failure. Not to worry, though, as there is no limit to how many in-game days you can spend trying, no required order to getting stars, and any stars you do earn will persist until you shut down the game.

I wanna quickly talk about the presentation, because the visuals and sound do a lot to help carry the experience. The whole game is painted in a handmade watercolor art style, and everything about it is just plain gorgeous--though I'm sure you didn't need me to tell you that. The "soundtrack" consists of only one song that loops for the entire game; but it's a pleasant song to its credit, and one that I can't say I had a problem hearing over and over again. As someone who's never lived around trams/streetcars/trolleys, it was oddly soothing listening to the sounds of the tram as it rhythmically chugged its way across the idyllic little city--at least until I put on the uncomfortably accurate screeching brakes, which is when I proceeded to kick the sound effects volume down a notch so it wouldn't drown out the music quite as much.

It takes maybe 20-30 minutes to finish, though I spent more time on it after my first run so I could put together a walkthrough. I can't even remember how I managed to stumble onto this one, but needless to say that I'm glad I did, because it made for a real nice time. The Tram of Wishes is a lovely little game, and with such a short run time and the low price of "free", it's well worth playing if you have some spare time and want something to help you unwind.

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[h3][b][u]Short Answer:[/u][/b][/h3] A cute on-rails puzzle game about a tram driver who wants to solve the problems of his passengers. Its objective is hard to find at first, but enjoyable once you figure it out; and the artistic elements help cement its status as a pleasant, relaxing experience. It's only about 20-30 minutes long and free to play, so what are you waiting for? [h3][b][u]Long Answer:[/u][/b][/h3] In [i]The Tram of Wishes[/i], you play as an ordinary tram driver, shuttling people up and down a little city just like any other ordinary tram driver would do. He loves his job and loves the people he meets, but he realizes that some of his regular passengers are not quite as happy with their lives as he is, and so he takes it upon himself to use his tram to try and help these people with the problems they're facing. A short and sweet story, and the same could be said about the rest of the game. The gameplay is pretty simple: you travel along a linear tramway, stop at the handful of tram stops along your route, open the doors to let people on and off, and maybe ring a bell just for fun. This is all fine and good--I'd even go so far as to say that it's relaxing--but there's a bit more to it than that. Along with a bunch of uncolored silhouettes of people found on your route, there are five fully-colored passengers that will show up every in-game day--five unique characters with individual problems that you can solve just by shuttling them around the city. As the driver, you have the liberty to stop the tram anywhere along the track you want, not just designated tram stops. Several points of interest can be found between stops, such as labelled storefronts; and taking those unique passengers to these locations is the key to solving their problems. Each one will display little thought bubbles over their head that give you hints regarding the problem they're having and where you could take them to solve it, though it's not always as simple as "drop X person off at Y location". If you manage to solve the puzzle associated with each one, a star will appear over their head for the rest of the game (until you restart the program); and your objective is to earn a star for all five passengers. [b]Actually finding the game's objective was confusing at first[/b], for several reasons: the dialogue never explicitly tells you what you can or should do beyond the basic controls, so you don't realize there are other places to stop besides the designated tram stops; English is not the developers' first language, so the translations are a little clunky and/or vague even in the Steam store page; and one of the five stars can be earned accidentally, giving you (or maybe just me) the wrong impression of what you should be doing. [b]Once you do figure it out, though, it's pretty fun trying to solve these little puzzles[/b]. One star is rather straightforward, and another is so easy that you can get it without trying; but the others require some creativity or come with unmentioned conditions that can lead to accidental failure. Not to worry, though, as there is no limit to how many in-game days you can spend trying, no required order to getting stars, and any stars you do earn will persist until you shut down the game. I wanna quickly talk about the presentation, because [b]the visuals and sound do a lot to help carry the experience[/b]. The whole game is painted in a handmade watercolor art style, and everything about it is just plain gorgeous--though I'm sure you didn't need me to tell you that. The "soundtrack" consists of only one song that loops for the entire game; but it's a pleasant song to its credit, and one that I can't say I had a problem hearing over and over again. As someone who's never lived around trams/streetcars/trolleys, it was oddly soothing listening to the sounds of the tram as it rhythmically chugged its way across the idyllic little city--at least until I put on the uncomfortably accurate screeching brakes, which is when I proceeded to kick the sound effects volume down a notch so it wouldn't drown out the music quite as much. [b]It takes maybe 20-30 minutes to finish[/b], though I spent more time on it after my first run so I could put together a [url=https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2855044658]walkthrough[/url]. I can't even remember how I managed to stumble onto this one, but needless to say that I'm glad I did, because it made for a real nice time. [b][u][i]The Tram of Wishes[/i] is a lovely little game, and with such a short run time and the low price of "free", it's well worth playing if you have some spare time and want something to help you unwind.[/u][/b] [quote]For more game reviews, check out my [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/42524563/]Curator page[/url]![/quote]