Analytic Dreamz: Notorious Mass Effect - "CHOO CHOO CHARLES - SALES & REVIEW ROUND-UP"

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

Linktree: ⁠https://linktr.ee/Analytic⁠Join The Normandy For Additional Bonus Audio And Visual Content For All Things Nme+! Join Here: ⁠https://ow.ly/msoH50WCu0K⁠ In this segment of Notorious Mass Effect, Analytic Dreamz dives deep into Choo-Choo Charles, the breakout indie horror hit developed solo by Gavin Eisenbeisz of Two Star Games. Built entirely in Unreal Engine using Blueprints—no C++ required—this open-world survival horror blends absurd satire with genuine tension. Players navigate a foggy island aboard an upgradable train that serves as your mobile safehouse and respawn point, collecting scrap to boost speed, armor, and firepower while evading or confronting the persistent, roaming antagonist: Charles, a grotesque spider-train hybrid monster.The core loop revolves around completing main quests to gather three magical eggs, unlocking the path to summon and battle the final boss in its terrifying "Hell Charles" form. Side content introduces powerful weapons like machine guns, flamethrowers, and rocket launchers, plus traps and collectibles across roughly 20 missions. On-foot exploration emphasizes stealth against cultists, while train sections deliver intense FPS turret combat. The game's short runtime—around 2 hours for the main story and 3-4 hours for completionist play—prioritizes its unique train-as-base mechanic and B-movie horror vibe over sprawling depth.Analytic Dreamz breaks down its viral success: a trailer that amassed millions of views, leading to massive wishlists, peak concurrent players, and lifetime sales in the hundreds of thousands to over a million copies. Praised for its novelty, tension from the unrelenting enemy, and solo dev achievement, it faced criticism for an empty world, repetitive tasks, and launch bugs (especially on consoles). With overwhelmingly positive Steam reviews and meme-worthy glitches turned community highlights, Choo-Choo Charles remains a standout in indie horror.Currently featured in sales like Xbox's promotions at just $1.99, it's an accessible nightmare worth experiencing. Join Analytic Dreamz as he explores how this spider-train terror became a cultural phenomenon in gaming.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey kids, how are you doing today? I just wanted to start off by saying a little thank you to the legendary train kids show. That was titled Thomas the Tank Engine. But then, you know what I'm saying? Because of course, when that show came out in 1984, ladies and gentlemen, it ran to 2021. What should I say? I ain't going to say that, but you know, pun intended. Anyways, when you look at the overall creation based on the Rev W. Audrey books,

kids loved is whimsical kids like you. You guys. Kids loved is whimsical Isle of Sodore, Tales of Helpful Engines, Learning Morals via Mischief Slash Slash Slash. I know that ain't who I think it is. simple stop motion catchy theme and of course can't forget the relatable characters like cheeky thomas fostered imagination and life lessons but then you know what i'm saying and that's it that's for the segment anyways you know what i'm saying shepherd all right my fault just look at the state of you know what is going on ladies gentlemen the whole reason that we hear today is because what

and the actual are y'all out here playing? Shepard. Nah, because y'all are out here playing a very interesting game with a very interesting premise, but guess what? It's only two hours in runtime. You guys, see, that's the problem. Now you're probably thinking to yourself, what in the world are you talking about?

Well, if you're saying that, then guess what? You're not watching Analytic Dreams video on Spotify, because I'm currently showcasing the game that we're about to dive into. as Thomas, the tank engine and friends isn't the only thing that's taking the masses by storm. As if you remember, I believe I even covered the actual trailer. I think I covered a trailer. I do remember watching it.

I don't know if I covered it. Anyways, safe to say a lot of people watch the actual trailer as this is how it blew up in popularity. As when the first trailer came out, I don't know if it was the first one, but one of their viral trailers for this specific game had 20 million plus views and of course that ended up condensing into 230,000 wishless pre-launches to where when a game actually came out there was a steam peak concurrency of 7,000 players now I know what you're saying hold up now that don't seem like a lot compared to all the games we cover on notorious mass effect but guess what this is literally a game about you being a silent protagonist and having to avoid and i kid you not

the whole game is avoiding a demonic train as you go throughout this open world format right which is not it's barely open world because it's not as big basically you're going around getting upgrades In the entire gameplay loop, it's basically you avoiding the actual train that's trying to get you. It's a spider train concept that's basically hawking you around 24-7. And of course, throughout this video, you will see what the train looks like. But guess what? It gets worse. Now, I'm not going to spoil how it gets worse.

But safe to say, this game initially came out on December 9th, 20th. So you probably wondered to yourself for 2026, why are we even talking about this game? Well, ladies and gentlemen, there was a specific sale that happened for Chu Chu Charles and that that's you know the game's name. Basically the game had a 90% off sale on Xbox and that ended up equaling. No, that basically ended up converting into them being the fourth most play game. on Xbox currently. Now I know there's going to be

Nate Sares out there saying that oh if my game was $2, I would top the Xbox charts as well. But first off, that's hating. You guys. See, that's the problem. And second off, you can't blame the developers as

two star games, which is led by Gavin. I'm not going to lie. I don't even know how to say that last name. It's a Ben's. Hold on. I definitely mispronounce that. Hold on. Let's get Jarvis on the job.

What in the world? Gavin Eisenbeiss. Um, Eisenbice. Okay, I definitely would have kept butchering that. So Gavin Eisenbice is the leader of two-star games. It's safe to say, Choo-Chu-Charles, even though they are currently selling the game for around $2.

Essentially speaking, when it came out in 2022, and then you look at it in totality, it's their most popular game of all time, as it grows 14. point four million dollars which is a lot right for especially for indie death when you look at all the other games and they've put out a lot they put out choochoo charles in 2022 they put out my beautiful paper smile in 2020 both of those games that we're talking about is horror they put out cuff bust sound like some anyways

uh they put that out in 2025 which is basically uh a multiplayer prison escape and then they put out a lot of free shorts such as cloud climber night in river rager river river i don't not say that i'm not going to kid you i kid you not all right and then my friend is raven so essentially speaking the only two profitable games is choochoo charles that ended up grossing fourteen point four million dollars and then of course my beautiful paper smile when it came out during covid mind you in 2020 it actually grossed fifty thousand dollars So as an indie dev, I'm giving them a W. And if you don't know where you can find this game,

you can basically play this game on Steam. You can play this on the Switch, yes, Nintendo Carnaceousers. You finally got a game that you can play on your platform. So you can play it on the Switch. You can play it on the PS4, PS5, Xbox Series S and X. And of course, when it comes to future ports, there's nothing announced, but that's pretty much all the platforms you would want to play a game on.

So, you know, sorry for the mobile gamers. out there. Shepherd, just look at the state of gaming. Like, what is going on? So getting into the overall gameplay loop of you avoiding this spider train, you're traveling an island via railways. So you have your own train, right? And it's an upgradable train.

And it acts as a base in the respawn point. And you get to collect scraps from enemies and quests, upgrade your train speed, armor, and weapons, evade or find. the roaming antagonist Charles, which is the spider train. And then when you look at the train mechanics, you have a mobile safe house, customizable appearance and death response you on the train. So safe to say, there's going to be a lot of just maneuvering around the map to get away from the spider train. Because it's going to be, it's a very hilarious, um, plot.

I mean, I'm not saying that hilarious in the personal sense. From the, the masses perspective, it's a. satire take on like a B movie. It's not supposed to be taken seriously. Obviously, if you could tell about the plot. This is the reason why I started off the segment the way that I did. So with that being said, the game's not the longest. It's about two hours, I believe, in runtime. And of course, when you look at the main objectives, you can collect three magical eggs from the main quest. Use eggs to summon the final boss. And then when you look at the side content, it's yellow markers for people who's wanting to dive into the game. And then,

And that's basically a while I'm spoiling too much. Getting into being ambushed by the train, right? The spider train. So basically it roams the world persistently and can ambush randomly. It sounds like when you play the alien game. And basically the aliens acting like they don't know where you are because you know you got to act like the alien can't sense where you are at all time. So the aliens roaming around you're trying to avoid it.

But at some point in time, it's going to come directly. to you and guess what you got a maneuver around it so that's what a lot of people like about this game it's a very b movie horror satire type of tone so it's not taking itself seriously by any stretch of their imagination and a single player only so for people who's wanting to dive into this horror game with a buddy or a couple buddies guess what guess what you got to fight that spider train by your lonesome anyways um when it comes to pc when it comes to consoles uh just you just running smoothly there's no huge issues to note um of course like i said it's a very short game there is side content so you could run through the game even shorter than two hours in my opinion

but with content you may be able to stretch it to three maximum four hours but really i'm telling you it's probably going to take you two hours once you get the gameplay loop down so anyways when you look at the vira the viral litty of this actual trailer and the people who actually played it when it came out. Safe to say it's first month, it had 300,000 copies, $500,000 copies, $5 million in revenue. This is like when it first

came out. And then a lifetime revenue is basically what I was just talking about how it's gross $14.4 million. And that's as of, let me see, what is it as of? I think that's up to date. So anyways, as of right now, that's the all-time

growth. It could be higher, could be lower, but that's the estimate, you know, as far as game sensor, and other type of uh websites out there that basically look at that uh make a living on for selling type of analytics uh so anyways when you look at the lifetime owners you have 500 000 to 1 million so hey i want to i want to tell you out something right now as a game developer just know this spider game you're seeing right now has 500 000 to a million people that own it don't ever say anything is not possible in the gaming industry so that means that's basically all i have to say about

about it so um i wanted to dive into the review roundup of this game because of course this game currently being two dollars these reviews came out when this game was uh initially 20 which a lot of people were saying well one of the main critiques i kept seeing was that if you're going to charge 20 dollars why in the world is only two hours and you know that's a fair critique and then you come to realize it's the indie dev so you try to give them some grace because you if you've never even tried or attempted to develop a game which you know there's no fault if you haven't it's very difficult you know it's very difficult nobody drives in the car and be like man i could probably make a better car than this unless you're like an actual mechanic so

usually uh i mean that's a interesting comparison but the main thing i'm trying to tell you is to make a long game is more difficult than uh a lot of people who never attempted it uh even know so anyways uh getting into the review roundup of this game the main thing you need know is that it has phenomenal scores why not phenomenal it's very mixed it's a mixed bag so let's get into the worst one right just off the bet i g and gave this a 40 out of 100 goodness gracious gave it a 40 out of 100 saying choochoo charles is have haphazily assembled meme come to life that short silly and exceedingly dull you guys that's that's that's harsh man that's disrespectful now i've just played i never played the game so you know hey i don't know if it's

harsh or not game space let's get to somebody who gave it a bigger score um actually let's go with destructory so we're going to work our way up destructory gave it a 65 out of a hundred they basically said choo choo chrars could have been drawn out fluffed up or watered down in so many ways any additional breaststrokes could have detracted from the bigger picture but two-star games didn't do that period instead they focus on delivering and delivered they did. It's small, tight. One, one, that.

All right, my fault. Let me get back to reading them. And its ambition doesn't go beyond a central concept. Thankfully, that central concept is a pretty juicy morsel. Now, I don't know what morsel means, but hey, destructories seemed like they gave it a pretty fair score. So shout out to them. Now, anyways, let me get to one of the higher scores. So GameSpace gave it an 80 out of 100.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, they gave this a B. If it was a test, Choo Choo Chal's would have got a beat out of the whole gaming industry. Think about that. Game Space said, quote, Choo Choo Chal's is a fun and original concept, stressed, stretched,

so thinly that it caught our attention. We deserve to be underwhelmed by it. And this creator still deserves credit for a great little game. I think a lot for that. That's exactly what I just said. Like as an indie dev, you can't get mad at somebody who experiments and finds a very fire concept, but maybe he just didn't execute it in the way that it could have been.

It's kind of like a Jordan Piel movie. Sometimes you have the most fire concept of all time, but the execution just isn't there. So as far as this indie developer, I'm glad that he thought outside of the box. He didn't just make a Doom clone. He didn't just make a battle real or a extraction shooter. he basically tries something very niche similar to the zucosis game i think that's what it's called the zucosus uh the zoo horror type game this is a very interesting tape because when if ever have you ever seen a horror movie completely surrounding avoiding a spider light train you've never seen it

well i'm not going to say you've never seen it because you know some random games going to pop out of nowhere from 1980s but anyways you get the point like as far as in the past decade plus this is a very unique concept and it's coming from an indie death and the execution i believe may not be top tier you know going off of the masses perception but i think the attempt on experimenting and shaking up the gaming industry i think that needs to be applauded but of course you still have to be you know pretty stricter with the critique like it better you know what i'm saying like chute you truce you Charles too better knock it out of the park you know what I'm saying so anyways um that's all I have to say about this game safe to say when it comes in covering the entire industry your boy

shepherd's back at it again so with that being said I cook my link to my bio let me know one of my social media is what do you think about chew chew charles and what is your favorite niche horror game similar to a zucosis similar to a chew chew charles what is your favorite niche horror game in the past 10 to 20 years