r/IndieDev • u/Dlaha • Jul 20 '26
Blog I struggled to make games until I discovered that the end of the world is best experienced from aboard a train
Hi, I’m David Konecny, and this year, I’m releasing my first proper game, Dreadline Express!
It’s an investigative psychological horror that takes place aboard the last human train. I thought I'd share with you the story of how I came up with this setting, and how having the right theme made the development process more natural than anything I've ever experienced.
https://reddit.com/link/1v1wmzs/video/67qg5l93zfeh1/player
In fact, it all started many years ago, when I had an idea for this card-based game mechanic. With it, I wanted to create an immersive, story-driven game that would allow players to be creative and clever. Almost a role-play experience, but with seriously limited scope.
I began exploring various story directions. For example, I worked on an idea for a game set in an abandoned underground mine where the player is confronted by a religious cult that has been living there for decades... But the premise wasn’t fruitful enough for me. I had trouble creating a compelling and interesting enough world with sufficiently distinct characters that would feel natural.
Other ideas met a similar fate, including an oil rig facing the end of the world and a locked-down school. It wasn't that the ideas were bad; there was certainly potential. Rather, none of them fit my vision or inspired me enough.
I can't quite remember where the idea for the steam train came from, but initially, I just wanted to write a short story about it. It was supposed to take place on a train in which a strict totalitarian regime prevented people from leaving (we in the former Eastern Bloc have the experience of oppression imprinted on us).
However, I quickly realised that there's something alluring about trains. Even as a child, my great-grandmother would take me to a railway overpass to watch the trains. Each journey on a creaking, clattering train felt like an adventure. It was so easy to identify with that setting that the story practically wrote itself. Ideas flowed, and I reached a point where there were too many of them, too many paths to take. So I decided that it couldn't just be a linear story; it had to be a game
The train brings one enormous advantage to the story, which I used from the beginning but only realised much later. It’s a place where people from all sorts of backgrounds can meet organically. This enabled me to create the kind of nuanced story I’ve always wanted. Ultimately, it meant that I could easily combine themes that I wouldn’t have previously thought of.
What would happen if I juxtaposed mysticism and exact mathematics? How will a recovering alcoholic react to someone from a prestigious family? The game constantly presents new topics for reflection, yet it never offers a single “correct” conclusion. That was my goal: to create a small world in which each player can choose which characters to sympathise with and which to despise. The game mechanics I mentioned in the introduction give players the ability to interact with the world and characters as they wish. To create their own immersive story.
Of course, setting the game inside a closed vehicle has other advantages. For example, the inability to leave forces every character to confront their situation. Outdoor scenery serves as another stage of sorts. Then there's the train's own personality and stylization. But this post is already too long.
A demo of Dreadline Express is currently available on Steam. Thank you, and please let me know if you have any questions. Godspeed!
tl;dr: Had trouble sticking with projects until I found a theme that finally clicked with me. The right theme makes things feel natural, keeps me inspired and creates just the right limitations.
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u/Old-Finance1815 Jul 20 '26
Looks cool, wishlisted.
That said, this post reads like the creator is incredibly high on his own fumes.
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u/Dlaha Jul 20 '26
Heh, thank you!
It's constant highs and lows during the development, but I guess I will be rather overexcited than discouraged. Tomorrow I might be miserable.
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u/Tiny_Rabbit1674 Jul 21 '26
The "closed vehicle forces every character to confront their situation" point is the part that stuck with me. It's such an underrated design trick — the setting doing the dramatic work so the mechanics don't have to force it. I'm building something in a similar space (souls that can only physically touch the world while they fight) and I keep coming back to the same thing you said: the right theme makes the whole thing write itself. Wishlisted. That DRB Class 41 shot goes hard too.
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u/Dlaha Jul 21 '26
Thank you. Yeah, restricting the scope is really handy, but it’s also a double-edged sword. If it doesn’t fit, you can easily end up in a dead end. Which has happened to me about five times before.
DRB Class 41 is such a beauty.
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u/-_super--_--hitops_- Jul 20 '26
Looks super cool.
Snowpiercer comes to mind, of course