[DEMO free to play] Rail Route - a rail network simulation indie game

[mithril]

Long time ago I discovered a Czech hobby rail network simulator called simply Brno (http://brnosim.wz.cz/) – no surprise, it models railways around Moravian city of Brno. It is very different to other simulation games like Transport Tycoon because it is very realistic – according to pictures and manual, it has almost the same interface as real dispatchers use for traffic control.

It cost me many sleepless nights and gave me many early mornings when I was still playing when the sun rose. But now it is more than 10 years old and it is not a real game – it is just a simulator. You do not get any reward for playing (score or at least some delay statistics), if you want some "evolution" / "campaign", you just start at Sunday night (light traffic) and try to manage Monday morning (heavy trafic); and it tends to be quite repetitive – you just route the trains. And it is in Czech only, including manual counting 55 pages of essential instructions how to use the simulator (without them, you are screwed).

So I persuaded one of my friends to create a real game – Rail Route – a rail network management and operations simulator. In our game (once finished), you negotiate contracts, build railroads, set up routes for trains and control the traffic. You unlock features to your dispatcher interface, upgrade railway network elements and research new technologies that allow you to automate the operations.

Planned features:

• rail network building
• dynamic traffic contracts
• research system
  • improve your dispatcher interface
  • research new rail network elements
  • upgrade existing elements
  • unlock automation of the tasks
• multiple game modes
  • career mode
  • challenge mode
  • puzzle mode
• in-game editor to create community based levels and scenarios, so that you can model your local / favourite railway.

Currently, we are in a prototyping phase and we will post updates about the progress of the game development. We would like to hear early feedback from the community so we will release playable prototypes regularly. Stay tuned!

Follow us: @RailRouteGame
Homepage: https://railroute.bitrich.info

 

[mithril]

Playable demo of Rail Route is out!

Note that it's first polished prototype. We wanted it more like a game, so we added one scored level into it

. Final game will be A LOT different in terms of game play.

But any feedback is more than welcome! Can you reach score of 27?

Download at our blog: https://railroute.bitrich.info/2018/04/17/demo-r0-1-released/

 

[mithril]

Now you can play the demo on-line without downloading the app. Click "Play (Web)" here: https://railroute.bitrich.info/2018/04/17/demo-r0-1-released/

Highest possible score is 28 – watch this video:

What is your top score?

 

[Wivenswold]

Excellent, I will have a look at this in the week. I've always dreamed of a depot manager sim. I think it would extremely absorbing, managing train maintenance, refurbs, deciding which trains go out on what diagrams. Or a Sim version of railway control. Extreme Waterloo Signalling Meltdown could be one scenario.

 

[mithril]

Indeed, we think of depot management as a part of the final game. But not sure yet how to connect two parallel activities in the game: depot management and train dispatching...

 

[mithril]

Update:

• The simulators we drew inspiration from employ the player mainly with operational tasks... It is fun, too (at least for some), but we felt that it is not enough for a good multi-context game. Our player should benefit both his creativity and strategic thinking too! So the game lets him to build his own railroad.
• ... looked into the graphics of the UI a bit – Rail Route now looks more like a game than a prototype!

Read full article: https://railroute.bitrich.info/2018/05/ ... ding-mode/

 

[Quaver]

An option to Pause the game would be brilliant (i play this game in work to pass the time between calls I wont lie) also don't take points off for every real time minute you play the game.... makes it really finite no matter how good you are.

 

[mithril]

Thank you for feedback! Pause will be indeed part of final game.

First release was just a very basic demo, we are glad you really play it! It is also finite because the schedule is fixed and created manually - to create an endless game, we have to bring some procedurally generated schedule.

Soon, we are going to release another demo including much bigger plan (inspired by Prague railways) and concept of "Contracts" - game presents you various train contracts (generated randomly), you can choose to run a trial for those you want try and based of the trial a schedule is created. Then, trains run according to this schedule regulary and for each train you will obtain a fee and for each delay / wrong track a penalty. There will be no penalty for play time. We will let you know...

Meanwhile, you can try or second small demo where you can try (old-timer) manual control of switches and semaphores.

Checkout out a blog post about manual routing. You can also try it yourself in a web build.

 

[skifans]

You've made a great game which I've just had some quick fun with, and overall I think its great. Only very minor thing is I felt some of the text (especially the codes above the trains) was too small, and some pop-ups where chopped off the screen. I think it defiantly shows lots of potential though.

 

[mithril]

We are still at the beginning, you see just the splitters that are already finished enough to be shared with you. We hope we are creating a multi-dimensional game worth playing for many hours.

 

[Quaver]

Thank you for feedback! Pause will be indeed part of final game.

First release was just a very basic demo, we are glad you really play it! It is also finite because the schedule is fixed and created manually - to create an endless game, we have to bring some procedurally generated schedule.

Soon, we are going to release another demo including much bigger plan (inspired by Prague railways) and concept of "Contracts" - game presents you various train contracts (generated randomly), you can choose to run a trial for those you want try and based of the trial a schedule is created. Then, trains run according to this schedule regulary and for each train you will obtain a fee and for each delay / wrong track a penalty. There will be no penalty for play time. We will let you know...

Meanwhile, you can try or second small demo where you can try (old-timer) manual control of switches and semaphores.

Checkout out a blog post about manual routing. You can also try it yourself in a web build.

Please don't think my feedback was negative .I thibktthis is an absolutely brilliant game and I am thoroughly looking forward to the future updates

 

[skifans]

We are still at the beginning, you see just the splitters that are already finished enough to be shared with you. We hope we are creating a multi-dimensional game worth playing for many hours.

Great to hear, best of luck.

 

[mithril]

​

We added contracts to the game to overcome the pre-defined timetable that has serious limitations for building-based campaign mode. With contracts, the timetable is built dynamically as the game progresses: Each contract has a trial phase – the player routes a “prototype” train to reach given stations so a timetable is recorded for all subsequent operational trains for this contract. The player obtains payments for routing the operational trains and is penalized for their delays relative to the prototype.

Demo will follow this week!

Read full blog post: https://railroute.bitrich.info/2018/06/12/contracts-uncovered/

 

[mithril]

​

The third demo of Rail Route is out! We intended it to demonstrate how contracts work. You will find quite a big rail network inspired by Prague railways to prove your dispatcher skills.

But any feedback is more than welcome!

Download on our blog: https://railroute.bitrich.info/2018/06/15/demo-r0-3-released/​

 

[DenmarkRail]

​

The third demo of Rail Route is out! We intended it to demonstrate how contracts work. You will find quite a big rail network inspired by Prague railways to prove your dispatcher skills.

But any feedback is more than welcome!

Download on our blog: https://railroute.bitrich.info/2018/06/15/demo-r0-3-released/​

I love this game, but I keep getting this error? "An exception has occurred, but exception handling has been disabled in this build. If you are the developer of this content, enable exceptions in your project WebGL player settings to be able to catch the exception or see the stack trace."

 

[mithril]

If possible, please download and run the Windows build until we fix this.

 

[dozd]

I love this game, but I keep getting this error? "An exception has occurred, but exception handling has been disabled in this build. If you are the developer of this content, enable exceptions in your project WebGL player settings to be able to catch the exception or see the stack trace."

Hello, could you please try it now? I've uploaded new WebGL build.

 

[mithril]

Now you can try the web build again. Exceptions are enabled, so you will see some error details. Please share them with us...

 

[mithril]

Hot summer – coding summer. Colorful autumn – coding autumn.

A teaser how building looks like:

Demo of campaign & building soon!

 

[mithril]

Next demo is out! This time we want to show you the campaign mode. This will be the core game play when finished. It's in the early stage but the game is getting a direction.

Try it out and tell us your feedback! Share it with us and you will receive the complete game for free!

More on our blog: https://railroute.bitrich.info/2018/11/ ... eginnings/

 

[mithril]

Check out an update about the automation! You will be able to automate the game so you can think bigger!

https://railroute.bitrich.info/2018/12/10/automating-the-game/

 

[dozd]

Automation demo is out! Check it out and give us your opinion on it!
We have made a lot of changes and with the automation at hand it is quiet a different game. But the core mechanics remains same - it's still train dispatcher simulator we want to create.

You can join our Discord server and talk with us about the game and your feedback!

 

[Peter Kelford]

Thanks

 

[mithril]

Check out the introduction video!

 

[mithril]

We decided to release the feature alpha updates of Rail Route on the itch.io platform. And by today you can download the latest alpha preview of our game:



Beside bug fixes there is a major rework of automation. Read more...

 

[Peter Kelford]

Congratulations, we await further developments with interest...

 

[mithril]

Congratulations, we await further developments with interest...

Thank you, we are indeed eager to hear feedback from you to make our game better!

 

[mithril]

New update is out! Check out the teaser and read about the new features.

Grab the alpha preview game at itch.io.

 

[dozd]

New update: Reworked graphics, routing queues, tunnels and much more. Grab update at itch.io.

Full info at update post at game website.