Indie Light

Okay before I tell you about Steam Train, I need to tell you a little about the Game Grumps, which is of course the parent channel to Steam Train. Game Grumps is a Let’s Play channel established in July 2012 by co-hosts Arin Hanson (also known as Egoraptor) and Jon Jafari (also known as Jontron) who played the roles of ‘Grump’ and ‘Not So Grump’ respectively.

Arin and Jon ran the Game Grumps channel together, with their editor Barry Kramer (also known as razzadoop) until Jon left in June 2013 to focus on his own channel. Following Jon’s departure from the channel Dan Avidan (also known as Danny Sexbang) replaced him, taking over the role of ‘Not So Grump’.

Danny was initially intended to be just the co-host on Steam Train, working alongside Ross O’Donovan (also known as RubberRoss, RubberNinja or CondomRoss) however because of Jon’s sudden departure from Game Grumps and because Arin had said “Danny would have always been his second choice to co-host Game Grumps if Jon were unavailable” he ended up taking over the role and has been the co-host on both shows ever since.

Interesting little side note, his first appearance on Game Grumps, in the videos ‘Ode to Jon/Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!: Around the World – PART 1 went up on the channel on the same day as his first appearance on Steam Train in the video Hotline Miami: Who’s Calling? – PART 1 (which was actually recorded several months previously) and that day was 25th June 2013.

Steam Train was conceived of by Ross more or less as an excuse to play the massive amount of games he had accumulated on the gaming platform, Steam (hence the name Steam Train) which at the point of starting the show was roughly 300 or so titles, and since December 2019 has expanded to approximately 1176 titles (and probably even more now if you’re reading this in the future). While the show’s title and initial concept were inspired by Steam, and a desire to play the games he owned on the platform, Ross does not limit the show to just playing steam games, in fact he and Danny play DOS and indie computer games as well.

Apparently Steam Train was going to be its own channel, however Arin invited Ross to host it on Game Grumps, to expand the options for the audience, giving them something different from the content produced by the core Game Grumps brand. The show was initially met with a lukewarm reception, owning largely to the first episode airing on the same day as Jon’s departure from Game Grumps, as well as the other larger changes happening on the channel at the same time. However fans eventually accepted and came to greatly love the show.

As I mentioned above, the show was hosted by Dan Avidan and Ross O’Donovan however over the course of several years the show expanded the cast of available hosts, which was especially important as between co-hosting Game Grumps and being an active member of both Ninja Sex Party and Starbomb Dan would have likely been overstretched if he’d continued to be a full time host on Steam Train as well. Other potential conductors on the Steam Train include but are not limited to Arin Hanson, Barry Kramer, Suzy Berhow, Brian Wecht and occasional guests such as Alexander Louis (also known as Octopimp) and Christopher “Chris” O’Neill (also known as Oney).

As I mentioned above, Steam Train debuted on June 25th 2013, and ran until mid 2017 when the show went into an extended hiatus, with no new content being posted since, with the exception of Stout Train (which aired on March 17th 2017) and  ‘OrbusVR’ (which aired on 5th January 2018). The stated reason behind the hiatus, was that Ross wanted to focus more on his animation career, and with Game Grumps (the parent channel) also covering Steam games, it rendered Steam Train more or less redundant.

One last thing before we move onto the actual list, if you’re a fan of Game Grumps then click here and here for similar Top 10’s covering their content. For fans of Suzy Berhow (also known as Mortem3r) a frequent guest on the channel, then check out Top 10’s for her Let’s Play channel KittyKatGaming by clicking here and here. Of course you can also read the companion piece to this Top 10 by clicking here.

1. Amazing World
This is one of the longest episodes on the channel, other than streams, and also happens to be the first Steam Train episode I ever watched, up to that point despite watching Game Grumps pretty consistently I hadn’t seen any Steam Train, their videos didn’t even feature in the related videos feed on YouTube, and frankly I think this is a good video to start on, easily good enough to earn the top spot on this list. One of the highlights of this episode is Ross putting his father’s real email in when prompted, only to have to ring him in Australia to have him authorise the account so Ross and Arin could play. Ross also spends $99 of real money on this game, which Arin was less than pleased about, perhaps my favourite part though was Arin and Ross just lying to another player about being from space, and presumably since this game is targeted at children, these two adults had a good laugh, lying to a child.

2. Presentable Liberty
This episode really introduced me to Suzy, beforehand I’d only seen her in a handful of things and while some fans have/had been rather negative towards her, I didn’t have much of an impression other than that she seemed nice, but watching this not only did I love the chemistry between her and Arin but also it led to me discovering more about her and becoming a fan of her gaming channel KittyKatGaming. Despite them not really seeing the point of the game, watching their playthrough together was enjoyable, especially all their interactions with Otis, a small bug they adopt and dote on throughout the episode.

3. Papers, Please
This is one of my favourite PC games of all time, easily right up there with This War of Mine and The Stanley Parable, so I was excited to watch them have fun with this on Steam Train, because it’s a deceptively complex game, on the face of it, you think it’s simple, just welcome or rejecting people from entry to you country, but it gets more difficult on your end, and you are presented by all sorts of challenges. Something I liked about this playthrough though is that it’s Barry and Brian (Ninja Brian) which is a Game Grumps pairing we don’t get to see a whole lot, and which works surprisingly well. Much like they did on Steam Train, I’m also going to urge you to try this game if you haven’t already.

4. Sonic Fan Game (AKA Green Hill Paradise – Act 2)
This made the list, not only because it’s a really fun episode, and Arin and Ross work well together but also because Arin is well known for his reactions to and opinions of Sonic games so it was interesting to see what he thought. This as the title suggests is a fan made game by Daniel Coyle (also known as SuperSonic68) alongside other collaborators using the 3D Sonic Games Development Kit. In fact Sega even responded positively to the fan build, and you can check out that interaction here. Also one last thing about the game, you can actually download it for yourself by following this link here.

5. The Stanley Parable
God this is such a super fun game, and the perfect type of game for players like Dan and Ross to play, because it presents so many potential opportunities and variables for them to encounter. As much as it was cool, and I’m sure they were honoured to be involved in some fashion, this wasn’t a full version of the game, it was a modified demo made specifically for them to play on Steam Train, but saying that it still had a lot to do, and a lot to enjoy, and displayed the same level of randomness, acerbic wit and openness that the full game possesses. Apparently Ross and Dan went into this one blind, and Barry actually set everything up for them. Also in a very meta fashion they even managed to slip in a “God dammit Ross” into the actual game.

6. Who’s Your Daddy
This game looks interesting, and basically involves two players, one playing the ‘Daddy’ the other playing a baby, and the baby is trying to kill itself, while the Daddy is trying to stop them. A lot of the humour in this game comes from them doing baby voices, although we also get to hear Brian talk about being a parent, all around it’s a fun and surprisingly memorable episode.

7. Little Inferno
This is another of my personal favourite games, I first played this back in 2012 the day before my interview for college, and I couldn’t sleep so I stayed up playing this all night, such good memories, and such a fun little experience this game is. This was good, partly just because I was eager to have them play a game that I personally really enjoy, but also because it’s genuinely a strong episode.

8. Default Dan
Having Dan play this game, is a prime example of the ‘sadistic’ side of Ross that is often mentioned on Game Grumps, because the game relies on a reverse mechanic, where things which are good in conventional platformers such as coins are bad, and vice versa. This one is also modded to have Dan’s head over the character sprite.

9. Shrek Forever After
As much as this game looks quite poor and it was apparently not well received because it was taken down for the Steam store before this episode actually went up on the channel, but despite that I enjoyed their playthrough. Also for Game Grumps historians, this is the first time the ‘Wolf Job’ meme is mentioned, Dan mentions it at 12:50, and started a long running inside joke/reference.

10. Plague Inc.
I’ve only played this on my phone, but it’s a decent enough game, certainly good enough that after watching them play it on Steam Train I was encouraged to redownload it and play it again. I think the best part of this was just watching them decide what you do. It also reminded me of the time they played Civilization V: Brave New World.

Honourable mentions go to Barbie Dreamhouse Party, Sonic Dreams Collection and Bratz: Forever Diamondz which I also really enjoyed but didn’t quite make the top 10 list.