Hello Conductors!

Spencer and I have been playing with conceptual design on what makes Train Game unique. (Train Game is just our code name, we’ll reveal the real title when we launch our steam page!) It is time to talk about what will make our game special.

We have 4 main “Design Pillars”:

1. Driving a tippy little train
2. Planning your day and making deliveries
3. Modern pixel art that feels nostalgic
4. Connecting with delightful characters

Today, let's start by talking about driving.

Pillar #1 - Driving a tippy little train

Driving is something that was established very early on. I was inspired by a variety of things. Actual toy trains, sim racing, honestly mostly sim racing because I was doing a bunch of that at the time. I wanted to capture the feeling of getting to know a track, learning the braking points, knowing how hard you can push the limits of each turn. Since players will be driving the same routes a lot in this game, driving needs to have depth beyond “push forward to follow a track”. In our game, driving the train is very hands-on. Every corner you get to manage your speed, and if you’re not tipping a little bit, you could be going faster. Go too fast however, and you’ll crash!

The first version of the driving was very different from what we have right now. I did a whole prototype test with some friends early in development before Spencer and I teamed up. (Shoutout to Matt, Daniel, and Joe. These guys sent me full video playthroughs of the game at the time.) The train back then was pretty chunky. I really leaned into the “heavy train that could haul a lot of cargo” feeling. And it did feel heavy. It had the “push forward to follow a track” feeling which I didn’t want. I needed to make driving more fun and more interactive.

Finding the fun

I decided to try boosting the speed. Sid Meier once said “double it, or cut it in half. Don't waste your time adjusting something by 5 percent, then another 5 percent, then another... just double it, and see if it even had the effect you thought it was going to have at all.” So I doubled the acceleration. And it was better, but still slow. So I doubled it two more times! 8x more steam was finally FUN. This is not a chonky heavy duty train anymore. Now it’s a chipper tippy toy train.

With the new version, instead of managing your speed for a whole sequence of turns, you are managing acceleration and brake between each one. That’s got the racing feel I was going for and puts you right on the limit of tipping the train for each corner if you’re pushing it.

But it's cozy!

Our game is not designed to be punishing though, it’s a cozy game. In previous iterations, crashing would result in you being teleported to the previous train stop, but that is not fun, and makes crashing late on a route extremely frustrating. So our current plan (subject to change just like literally everything we’re telling you about) is that when the train crashes, you’ll be able to pick it up, put it back on the track, and keep going. It’s slower to crash, but it won’t set you back minutes forcing you to re-run the track.

Adding depth to keep things interesting

To add some depth of progression throughout the game, the engine, number of wagons, and how full those wagons are impact the acceleration and braking of your train. Different routes feel very different when you have a small empty train vs a long full train. A long train means you need to brake earlier to slow down in time, and you need to clear the corner before speeding up so the tail of your train doesn’t tip causing you to crash. When your train is light, it is more nimble, but you need to be careful because some sections that you used to be able to hold the throttle down for are now too dangerous to take at full speed, since full speed is much faster!

One thing that feels really good is keeping the tippiness the same regardless of the power of your train. So a train that is very fast, with lots of upgrades, still has to slow down to the same speed for tight corners. What makes the train fast is that it can speed up and slow down more efficiently, not that it can rip around corners faster. This keeps the game physicsy and playful even in the end game when your train is maxed out.

We're not done

There’s more we want to add to make each route feel different to drive. Things like banking, bumps, obstacles, and weather. We probably won’t get to it all, but we’ll get a bunch of it. And we’ll bring you along for the ride 🙂

Before I go, let me grab a gif of some driving. I hear people like gifs!

We’re having so much fun putting this game together. It’s been extremely refreshing to move so fast and trust our instincts. And with the driving, I hope you will have a blast moving fast and trusting your instincts as you get to know this tippy little train.

See you in the next one.

Toot toot! 🚂

Cameron

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