Rail Route
Pros:
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Hours upon hours of tycoon gameplay
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Diverse challenges in a scored timetable mode
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Editor that allows you to build your masterpiece
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Nice community members
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Tons of community-made maps, including most of the ones in the game*
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Community input often considered and sometimes helps remake parts of the game
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Workshop support for easy sharing
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Endless/Tycoon mode replayability - Not for everyone, but I’ve played Prague 21 different times by now in the alpha version of the game.
– Real player with 1277.9 hrs in game
Read More: Best Automation Building Games.
Rail Route is a mix between a railway management game, a train dispatcher game and a puzzle game. You task is to make trains ride , keeping a timetable and make some virtual money so you can invest in more track.
Depending on how you play, it can be very hectic or a very relaxed game. Extending tracks can be hard, because, like in real life, there are restriction. You cannot just put your track where you like. When you gain money and experience points, you can “buy” game upgrades, starting simple like an function to reverse a train direction automatically to high speed tracks, tunnels and so on.
– Real player with 170.6 hrs in game
Red Trains
Red Trains is a strategic simulator game. Build tracks to connect industry and cities. Customize locomotive designs to optimize for particular goods and routes. Manage your political clout to avoid being removed from your post.
Train Design
Train design involves balancing train strength, speed, and capacity to optimize various cargo types and different length routes.
Research
In Red Trains, research progresses automatically without your input. The People’s Republic never stands still. You can, however, affect the direction of research and make requests for particular areas to be investigated. Research unlocks components for train design, increases production, and even enable new types of rail tracks.
Signals
To better manage train pathing and scheduling use signals. While collisions never happen in the People’s Republic, deadlocks and other problems can occur if signals are not skillfully and carefully placed.
Story Scenarios
Twelve novel scenarios with light story to provide alternative play experiences.
Read More: Best Automation Transportation Games.
TrainClicker Idle Evolution
There' something strangely soothing about watching the trains cross across the screen, chugging along the rails to it’s destination. I do wish I could lower the bird sounds so I could hear the engine and train itself more. The game runs smoothly and the music is nice.
My biggest criticism or thing I wish we had is an auto-progress option so that it can just move on to the next level if I want it to instead of manually activating the train forwards. I do like to let it run on a certain level but if I could also be allowed to let it go forward of it’s own volition that would be great.
– Real player with 65.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best Automation Clicker Games.
Sending this to library. Developer was active in March and went silent. Enjoyed game play for a while though.
Is this a clicker game? Sure, auto clicker is not something is needed to progress. Click half an hour and close :)
Is it idle? Yea sure, i get a lot of money while idling with 4 trains and maxed out engineers.
Game-play is broken. Half of the skills are dead and other half are breaking economics.
Ascending? Never saw that screen :D I never had to, as i wasn’t stuck. Game just became boring to me.
– Real player with 49.3 hrs in game
Factory Town
TL;DR:
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A mix of elements from Anno, Factorio and Kingdoms and Castles
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It’s got that game loop in place: discover improve discover improve. There’s always that one new thing you want to build or line you want to change
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Very active dev, daily responses in Discord and weekly updates
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Already a large amount of content, even in its current state you’ll get your money’s worth in playtime
Disclaimer:
I’m one of the early beta testers, probably the 3rd or 4th wave. So I did get the game for free (although I’ve since abundantly made up for it with feedback & bug reporting etc). I’ve also been bumped up to mod on the Discord (come say hi!). So you know, this is a sliiightly biased review ;)
– Real player with 541.3 hrs in game
What is it?
A resource management game where you will find increasingly efficient ways to route goods from source to manufacture, and onwards to sell so that you can grow your town.
You’ll start with a few workers with which you’ll gather wood and stone. Then you’ll manufacture planks which in turn can make a wheel! Along comes a cart that can carry more than all those people. Meanwhile, new buildings will start to unlock, and new products can be manufactured which in turn can earn you coins of differing colours, with more advanced technologies needing the rarer coins to research and unlock.
– Real player with 498.3 hrs in game
Train Mechanic Simulator 2022
Take on the role of a Train Mechanic, repair old-school steam locomotives for your customers. Spend earned money on expanding your workshop capabilities and improving your skills.
It all starts with…
Cleaning the locomotive of dirt and rust. This will enable quicker accurate diagnosis and significantly speed up the repair process.
Work, work
Repairs are the essence of the game. It’s your job. It’s your way to get more cash and new skills needed to stay relevant in the business.
Fully Stocked Workshop
Your fully stocked workshop will allow you to carry out the most complicated diagnostics and repairs. As your business grows, you will be able to upgrade your current tools and purchase new ones to increase efficiency and bring in faster profits.
All aboard!
You will find a wide range of various types of steam locomotives in your workshop, from the oldest through to the most recent designs. Be prepared, it won’t be a walk in the park.
Choo Choo
Your locomotive doesn’t have to be boring, use the available personalization options and make it your own.
Locomotives for life
Your biggest challenge will be the disassembly of the locomotives themselves. Full of realism and details, these will make it no easy task, and you’ll have to work hard to fully understand them. After that, you will have the opportunity to take her on a spin and find out if everything is ok.
Product features
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Plenty of steam locomotives to fix
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Over 3000 unique parts
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An infinite number of randomly generated repairs
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Interesting story missions
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Skills and garage upgrade system
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Locomotive personalization options
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High level of detail
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Realistic environment
New to Train Mechanic Simulator 2022
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Train Fluids
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Pressure washer
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Paintable mechanical parts
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New engine sounds
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New mini-games
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Quality upgrade system
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Visual customization body parts
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Rusted bolts
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New equipment for locomotive diagnostics and repairs
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And more.
Automation Empire
I wanted to like this game, I really did. I put in a bunch of time so I could experience all versions and content of the game. Here is some of what I noticed:
1: There is no need to progress beyond steel plates and gold, you can win every map by using only those 2 material exports.
2: Every map is absolutely 100% identical when it comes to resources. They all have the same amount of iron, coal, gold and oil nodes.
3: Late game means severe and I do mean severe lag. 1 frame/2 seconds is not out of the ordinary on a game load.
– Real player with 333.9 hrs in game
First I thoroughly enjoy this game, and it does have its ups and downs, but I cannot recommend it more highly.
I would like to address my opinion on what most negative reviews have to say. These are my opinion only. YMMV.
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it is not a sandbox or an optimization game. It is a puzzle race against the clock.
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It is NOT Factorio, that’s not a fault, it is just different. Why make a clone of another game?
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It does not have blueprints. - Part of the gameplay is to continually rebuild factories in new and different styles to match each level of tech you unlock, staying ahead of the tax curve. Blueprints would reduce this part of game play into cloning rubber stamps all over the map, and limits creativity and ingenuity.
– Real player with 209.4 hrs in game
Factorio
The absolute gold standard in factory games, standing out as the exemplar of smooth progression curves, options out the ears, gameplay that keeps the “one more turn” itch going and developers that care far beyond selling copies. To elevator pitch this one, “If you can do it, you can automate it.”
To describe Factorio by only using games that preceded it feels like an exercise in futility. The concept was born from Minecraft mods, but it feels unfair to compare the two or make the Terraria reference (this, but in 2D). So, taken on its own, Factorio is a game where you play an engineer who is trying to escape the situation they are in by building a rocket. But since the refining and assembling of material components for that sort of thing is unfeasible by yourself, you must build a factory to automate the process. Along the way you must research concepts and upgrades for the planet you are on, mine resources and deal with the locals (in the form of giant insects).
– Real player with 3172.1 hrs in game
I read a comment by a user saying “If you enjoy creating your own problems and solving them this is for you.” and he was bang on the money.
tl;dr
The knock-on effect caused by dependencies across an entire production chain will drive you nuts and it’s this that makes you play and I mean MAKES you play. Sleep is not an option.
Factorio
Engineers rejoice. Learn Technology, Automation and Efficiency in one easy to learn package. No? Seriously. this is a hard game to put down.
– Real player with 1654.2 hrs in game
Transport INC
Disclaimer: Ol' Il Pallino has Asperger’s, and the characterization of aspies having a high tolerance for repetition is mentioned in the Negatives section of this review. If stereotypes of aspies offends readers (however true) the reader is advised to go read someone else’s review. Ol' Il Pallino and REXCurse hereby disclaim liability of triggering snowflakes who become butt-hurt as a result.
Overview
This is one of those times where writing a review is tricky, because recommendations are purely Yes/No and management sim Transport INC is in a gray area with a slight red tint from what was experienced in the story. Apart from the story, which is a campaign about the son of a bus driver who has ambitions of becoming a shipping tycoon who’s father very early own proves to not share-in on the main character’s ambition, the main character branches out from a bus empire to also trucking, which leads to other modes of transporting passengers and cargo. The game also has a casual Free Play mode and Global Race mode where the player and AI opponents compete against each other to “capture” cities by being the most profitable carrier.
– Real player with 21.4 hrs in game
[url] Please see my curator page for more games that are well worth your time[/url]
I’ll start this review with something I normally wouldn’t need to do, a WARNING: At the time of writing, there is one achievement in the game that you can’t unlock (yet).
There is an achievement for completing the campaign on expert mode, however, the expert mode appears to not be added to the game. People who’ve completed it on Hard Mode have reported on the Steam Forums that it hasn’t unlocked the Expert Mode. I’m not sure if that is how it should unlock or if there is something else currently causing the issue, I just hope that in the future, this warning will not be needed.
– Real player with 19.7 hrs in game
Stormworks: Build and Rescue
the game is generally good and i enjoy playing it but it has its fair amount of downsides too, but i am only making this review to complain that they changed how rocket fuel tanks looks, because it seems that they failed to realize that players have been using the rocket fuel tanks for decoration and now when it became simplified it just looks stupid. and there is no way to use the old ones. :(
– Real player with 2347.1 hrs in game
Honest review from someone who has put a huge amount of time into this game
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Badly optimised, crashes are fairly common.
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Multiplayer mostly unplayable due to desync between clients.
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Base game content is lacking after they pulled the original missions
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Original purpose of the game entirely lost and forgotten by the devs based on a single discord poll
As much as I had no issues with the weapon DLC coming as it could’ve added some real great additional content but sadly the entire focus has been on the weapons.
– Real player with 588.9 hrs in game