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[burningpet]

After reading on RPS about the 3D Realms crowd sourcing project over at gambitions (horrible name), a sort of kickstarter for us Europeans, i went to have a look at that website, because it's clearly more interesting than a 3D realms funding project, and quickly came across this:

"It’s the year 1850, and there are great times ahead! Establish a transport company and be its manager. Build infrastructure such as railways and stations, purchase transportation vehicles and manage lines. Fulfill the people’s needs and watch cities evolve dynamically."



Which was almost ruined by this:

"Classical role-playing elements let you identify with your game character. Earn achievements and collect bonus points, then use them to train your skills. The four basic skills directly affect game-deciding parameters such as access to infrastructure and vehicle market, maintenance rates, access to statistics and intelligent organization, and much more. Devise your own strategy!"

That, until i saw this:

"As opposed to the majority of other titles, buildings are not premodeled and instanced. In our game world, you will never see the same building twice. There is always something never-seen-before to explore!
An advanced land use simulation decides whether to build residential, industrial or commercial buildings. For instance, residential areas don’t like industry air pollution, but they want to quickly reach lots of workplaces."

So their trailer is showing off that "city generation" and it look impressive! so far i haven't seen any boats or air vehicles, but i sure do hope they will bring those in.

Now, I love OTTD, I love Simutrans but i really wanna see a modern take on the genre, and sadly, Cities in Motion, while was a short fun, was not enough for me with its limitation to one prebuilt city, urban transportation and a skew of many other stuff that did more to irritate than improve.

Link to the trailer:
http://www.train-fever.com/media/trailer/

Homepage:
http://www.train-fever.com/

Gambitions link:
http://gambitious.com/ideas/2496-train-fever-pc-mac

[Girlinhat]

I'm always amazed by what's "new" these days...  Residential sectors don't like smog?  Sim City had that feature decades ago!  This is hardly advanced.  This is what we should be expecting de facto. (u see wut i did thar?)

That said, I'd greatly welcome a new transportation sim!  The sound of "use your character to gain advantages that make no real sense" sounds ick, I can see that quickly snowballing into "you know how to make trains run 5% faster!" but if it's limited to somewhat simple things, like "your charisma gives you a small discount when purchasing land inside city limits" or somesuch, then maybe...

[Jopax]

Yeah, small traits like that would make sense and be welcome to mix up the sometimes boring and unchanging formula (something I liked about Railroad Pioneer, quite a bit), heck, most of it can be easily explained in charachter.

"You being a gearhead and always tinkering with mechanics has caused you to find a better "technobabble" that makes your trains better uphill or more reliable. Or you've found a new way of ordering things and documents causing you to save some time (and we all know time is money) therefore decreasing the time a train takes to get out of a station.

And this stuff can easily go on, add flavour to the world itself, historical references, easter eggs, the possibilities are numerous. Say you funded some loony guy called Babbage and now you have a mechanical calculator, making some of your acountants obsolete and therefore reducing operating costs in certain places.

[Girlinhat]

Well, you have to be careful about the skills you allow.  Any skill that increases train speed, or maximum cargo, will be unbalanced.  Ones that give you better prices, are more reliable.

Unless that's a game mechanic.  If your train has a crew, and your crew has a rating for "how effectively they stack crates" then you might only get 75% freight loaded with a noob crew.  A veteran crew might know how to pack items in better and get 100% freight load.  If THAT is a game mechanic, THEN you could have a personal skill "all crews get +10% freight load, up to 100%."

I've witnessed games like this before, and it always makes me wonder, "Wait, how in the world did I just fit 120 cubic meters into 100 cubic meter box?"  Some buffs are ok, some defy physics.

[beorn080]

I've witnessed games like this before, and it always makes me wonder, "Wait, how in the world did I just fit 120 cubic meters into 100 cubic meter box?"  Some buffs are ok, some defy physics.

Clearly you stole the TARDIS and strapped it to your train.

[burningpet]

I'm always amazed by what's "new" these days...  Residential sectors don't like smog?  Sim City had that feature decades ago!  This is hardly advanced.  This is what we should be expecting de facto. (u see wut i did thar?)

That said, I'd greatly welcome a new transportation sim!  The sound of "use your character to gain advantages that make no real sense" sounds ick, I can see that quickly snowballing into "you know how to make trains run 5% faster!" but if it's limited to somewhat simple things, like "your charisma gives you a small discount when purchasing land inside city limits" or somesuch, then maybe...

But its another thing altogether when the game generate cities that abide by those rules as they expand rather than having it as a mechanic in a city building game.

I see those characters skills as fluff mechanics. they are there to maybe give something different, but at the end, if they doesn't really improve, no reason to have them.

[Grakelin]

Had to stop at "you'll never see two of the same building!" because there was a picture of two identical buildings next to eachother above the text.

[Neonivek]

Had to stop at "you'll never see two of the same building!" because there was a picture of two identical buildings next to eachother above the text.

Clearly the game isn't being marketed towards the observant.

[sluissa]

I think you'll have to point them out to me... I've noticed similar buildings, but none that are exactly the same.

[Jopax]

Also the buildings look too modern to be 1850 I think, too big, too clean, too much glass windows, not enough smoke stacks.

Also, stuff like that could be done, but you'd have to have tradeoffs, say, it's explained as your workers strapping stuff to the roof of the wagon with some safety ropes and planks, it increases the capacity slightly over it's maximum possible but it takes a bit more time to load, since wagons and crewmen aren't used to this sort of thing.

And it can be done like this for almost anything, want more power? That makes the boiler weaker as it works with higher pressures, making repairs more costly and last longer.

Just gotta be a little creative with the downsides and balancing.

[Thendash]

You can now help fund this game: http://gambitious.com/ideas/2496-train-fever-pc-mac
Judging by the videos on their website it looks to be pretty far along already, I hope they release it in some form even if they don't get funding.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

PTW, this looks awesome.

[burningpet]

So, apparently the game just sneaked into steam and is already on the top sellers list.

The reviews seems pretty good, although, if you look at the RPS article of the game, the comments there says that its not perfect.

Anyone tried it yet?

http://store.steampowered.com/app/304730
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/09/04/what-a-lovely-way-to-burn-train-fever/

[Shooer]

The fact the last video for the game on their site was from the end of august that was pointing out missing features does not fill me with enough confidence for a purchase.

[BigD145]

I watched a couple hours of a stream and talked to the guy who has played most every train game like this in the past 20 years. It still needs immense amounts of work. It has trains that magically turn around in the station and passengers that leave the train while between stations, en-route. It seems better than Railroads, but that's an easy task. Anything is better than Railroads.