If you peered into Edwin’s maw this morning, you might have seen that Trainatic’s out today, September 8th. Well, having now given its demo a go, I can waft away a bit more of the billowing steam of mystery for those standing on the platform who’re considering boarding.
There’s a thing you’ll say very quickly once you fire up either the demo or full version of this train-builder from developer Ryan Forrester, whose previous works include idle frog collector Croakoloco and cleaning sim Mess Quest. It’s the following: ‘Oh crikey, my train’s stopped already.’
You see, while the aim of the game is to build a train that can chug along for ages, the loco you start with runs out of fuel when it’s barely left the station. That’s ok, though. You’ve got a machine gun perched on the single car behind your engine, and you can use it to shoot some trees during your next trip. This, as well as just running over trees which are perched too close to the tracks (though that understandably damages your loco), is how you gather resources to upgrade the train.
With fuel being the limiting factor on journey length early doors, I invested in improvements to both capacity and efficiency for that off the bat. Soon, with help from an upgrade that let me add an extra car to my train, beginning the process of enlengthening, I had a fuel support carriage which would replenish a bit of fuel whenever I shot a tree with my gun.
Image credit: Ryan Forrester
From there, I began to upgrade the likes of my loco’s speed, its firepower, and its storage capacity. Some of the numbers assigned to these upgrades seemed a bit nebulous in terms of how exactly they corresponded to my loco’s performance on the tracks, but I didn’t much mind that given Trainatic’s relatively chill approach to things. As a result of what’s a bit of a grindy start, though everything’s simple and quick enough that it doesn’t drag, I started going on journeys that felt a bit less like brief jaunts down the road. That’s when I saw it.
A pinkish purple orb, spinning its way across the dark and earthy terrain of the woodland surrounding the tracks. Back at the station, a line from my faceless trainmaster, speculating about some strange power that could be linked to the neon interloper. Hmmm.
While I’ve unlocked automatic acceleration to go alongside the automatic trigger finger Trainatic offers, it’s not enough of an idler that I’ll be able to pursue this orbnigma while doing something far less important in another tab. So, my full attention will have to be on the train building, the task of taping together a Thomas the tank teeming with tech to ponder those damn orbs.
So far, the game’s steadily constructing what almost feels like a stripped-back rail roguelike, and one that’s worth at least hopping on for a free test ride. If you fancy doing so, you can find both the demo and full version of Trainatic on Steam, with the latter costing £3.99/$4.79/€4.71 as of writing, thanks to an offer running until September 22nd.