How I Became a Character in Station Stop

By John McNamara

At PAX Australia , CoopFly and Quest’s End Games created a competition for their new mobile game, Station Stop. People who achieved high scores across the weekend would have their likenesses recreated within the game.

I was one of the winners, and this is what happened…

Station Stop is an endless, one touch iOS train simulator. You select a train and then travel from stop to stop collecting characters (known as buds) by pressing your finger on the screen. Each time you stop, you’ll get a rating depending on how close you were able to get to a yellow line without going over. Your score is derived from the number of buds that get off the train, and the number that get off is determined by how well you stop.

There are extra challenges which can manipulate your train. Completing them will unlock various bonuses like trains or more carriages. Try to collect them all! There are 7 different types of trains and 27 categories of buds (so there is a total of 265 different buds to collect).

As many of you would know, PAX is a busy place. If you see anything, it will be queues. They are boring and tedious to be in, so we tried to flip it around. We wanted the waiting to become an experience in itself.

Earlier in the day we saw the stall that was set up for Station Stop. We noticed that they had a competition challenging people to get the best scores each day, as well as across the weekend as a whole. This competition gave me and my friends the opportunity to turn the boring queues into something far more interesting. We played while we were queued everywhere with the aim of not just beating each other, but to beat everyone else at the event. As it happened, this was our way into the high scoreboards.

We all downloaded the game to our phones and chose our trains, mine being the Super Chief train, and began collecting passengers. As the day went on and we topped our high scores time and time again. Each time we improved our best we went back to the Station Stop booth and showed the team our new scores. Eventually we had beaten the scores for the day, our names where placed on the board, our photos were taken and shared on Twitter along with the other champions.

It was not just this leaderboard that kept us coming back multiple time each day for three days. Pins are a huge thing at PAX, and each time you entered another high score bracket you were given a new pin. As is known, pins are a form of alternative currency and we had to have more.

It felt like a long wait, but once PAX was over I was notified that I had beaten everyone’s high score on our chosen levels! There were a few bonuses of getting the high score: First, we received one of each of their bud pins, then we were to be placed into the game itself! They already had our photos, so all we needed to do was to wait for the next update.

Some of you out there may be thinking: “I am sure that it was an easy score to beat…”. Well… the score you have to beat is 678 on the Super Chief train. Go on, take your best shot!

It may have taken a little time, but shortly after PAX, a new update came out. Among the changes in the latest patch were me and my friends. I was there, in the game!

“How do I find you?” I hear you ask?

So… this is me. I am a Champion Conductor. How do you collect me? Well, you must beat my high score then pick me up from a station. As my score is humongous, I suspect that I will be waiting for a long time before I get to be picked up… Remember, 678 is the score you will be unable to beat.

I enjoyed this game a great deal, and not just because I am starring in it. Station Stop is completely free, easy to learn and highly challenging. It proved to be an awesome way to pass the time and really made waiting in lines much more relaxing. You will be heart broken when you get close to a high score and miss a stop, and this does happen often.

See you at the top of the leaderboards, my new high score is 1327. Good luck beating that! (But if you happen to find me, make sure you let us know!)