Jordan Mechner's The Last Express is now on GOG

Jordan Mechner's 1997 adventure game The Last Express is now available on GOG in a restored Gold Edition. The release brings the real-time murder mystery to the DRM-free storefront with its original rotoscoped animation and 1914 Orient Express setting intact.

The game's visual style set it apart in the late 1990s. The opening moments establish the tone immediately. Protagonist Robert Cath stands over a bloodied body in a train compartment and realizes he has to hide the corpse before the conductor arrives.

If you spent the 1980s and 1990s playing computer games, you probably know Mechner's work. I played his 1984 martial arts game Karateka on my Apple IIGS until the floppy drive sounded like it was grinding coffee. I still cannot properly get the timing of hitting that bird. Mechner followed that up in 1989 with Prince of Persia. That game used film footage of his brother running and jumping to create some of the smoothest platforming animation of the era.

A train ride in real time

After Prince of Persia, Mechner took a break from game development and moved to Paris. He eventually returned to the United States and founded Smoking Car Productions in San Francisco to build The Last Express. The project took about five years and cost roughly $5 million to produce.

The game takes place over three days in July 1914, right before the outbreak of World War I. You play as an American doctor who boards the Orient Express and immediately finds his friend dead. You have to assume your friend's identity and figure out what happened.

Unlike most point-and-click adventure games of the 1990s, The Last Express runs on a continuous clock. The train's passengers move around the cars, have conversations, and stick to their own schedules whether you are there to see them or not. You have to eavesdrop on the right people at the right time to piece the mystery together. If you mess up and get arrested or killed, you can rewind time to try a different approach.

The rotoscoping process

To create the game's distinct Art Nouveau visual style, Smoking Car Productions filmed a live-action shoot with actors against a blue screen. The team then used a patented digital rotoscoping process to turn that 16mm film footage into hand-drawn animation frames.

The original 1997 release for Windows, Mac, and MS-DOS was a commercial failure. Broderbund published the game right as its entire marketing team quit. The three-disc CD-ROM package quietly disappeared from store shelves after only a few months. It eventually went out of print entirely when Interplay bought the rights and subsequently went bankrupt.

Publisher Dotemu partnered with Mechner to bring the game back. This Gold Edition originally launched for iOS, Android, and Steam in 2013. It includes an updated user interface, an advanced hint system, and unlockable biographies for the cast of passengers.

The game is a complete departure from the platforming action of Prince of Persia. It trades spike pits for dialogue trees and sword fights for quiet snooping. The project consumed four years of Mechner's life and left his studio bankrupt shortly after release. The real-time mechanics take some getting used to, but the rotoscoped art alone makes it worth the download.