Station to Station

I really wanted to sink into this game and relax, but by the later levels the flaws become severely apparent: The checkpoint system makes sense until it doesn't. I understand they want you to use cards to stack rewards... But it's discouraging when you have to restart or revert because of ONE WRONG LINE out of place. It's just rude to the player. Then you have the obscenely stupid mechanic of not all the structures being present at the beginning of a level, which further rubs poodoo in your face for not having expected it, and being unable to redo ANYTHING once a rail is connected between stations. It completely destroys the planning element of the game, because you have to waste time reverting, hoping you got it right, then being slammed with several more structures to connect. The game really wants to be amazing! Music is lovely, it looks stunning... But it sucks because the devs clearly didn't understand proper game design theory when they made this game. I truly hope their other games are better, and that they fix this honestly obnoxious set of problems. I bought this game to relax, not get disrespected by artificial difficulty where it just doesn't fit- it's intrusive as finding a turd in your cheerios. Also, no mods if you are using a controller? Excuse me? Please assess your approach to design, it's severely grating.

Open-build puzzle game, with multiple ways to approach the puzzle, and the pieces unfold in stages. But please, invent the undo button (control Z).

I would love it, if it wasnt this unforgiving.. One small misplacement and you run out of money and have to revert. Placed a station a bit too far and didnt notice? welp, after you finished and started the next move, you cant revert easily. Whyy? This is a puzzle, nothing more. Charming, but not too friendly.

generally i'm no fan of the pixel / voxel look in most games but luckily here you barely notice since you are zoomed out to the max most of the time to get the best overview of the map. it's a puzzle game, not a management game. in fact you don't get to manage much of anything. there are no switches, no signals, no schedules, no nothing. train length and delays don't matter, trains turn around on the spot and once placed you can't (!) change or remove anything. but if needed you can undo multiple steps so that's a plus. it's easy and relaxing. all you need on a sunday. at least at first it is. it may look like a game for kids but it offers more than the easiest solutions and tinkering is surprisingly rewarding. finishing the game took 20 hours plus 1 hour extra for 100% achievements. worth it!

As a certified penguin, train goes choo choo

An enjoyable train track network design game. Cute graphics. Basic but makes you sit and think. It sets out to do a few things and it does them very well.

The art style is really pretty. I was disappointed when I saw that this is yet another train-themed puzzler rather than a management sim or tycoon game but I tried it anyway and tried to like it. I've played through the first world and a half so far, and I'm not impressed. Mistakes are bound to happen, whether you accidentally block one of your terminals, use the [i]wrong[/i] terminal, or just fail to leave yourself enough space. If you make even a minor mistake you have to sit through a loading screen. If your mistake was several steps earlier in the level, you have to either restart completely or pick through a bunch of autosaves with nondescript names. Each level has an additional budget challenge (complete as cheaply as possible / make as much money as possible) and an optional challenge, like building without bridges. With the annoyance of fixing mistakes mentioned above, the budget challenges just aren't fun to try to optimize your layout.

It's a pleasant enough puzzle game, I guess. But not really a train and industry building sim like I thought it would be.