InfraSpace
Lots of reviewers are throwing out comparable games. The first thing that came to mind for me was Anno 2070 but with actual traffic and less frustration. I loved that game, so this is a plus. I also got a huge whiff of Surviving Mars, again with actual traffic and less frustration. I was not a fan of that game, so I’m happy to say I enjoy InfraSpace more. If you liked either game, you’ll very much like InfraSpace.
If you enjoy solving traffic problems or even just watching traffic in Cities Skyline, then this will appeal to you. If you enjoyed solving logistic problems in Shapez.io, this is a must have. If you strive for logistical efficiency and optimization, well that’s most of the game.
– Real player with 77.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best City Builder Early Access Games.
At this time, I DO recommend this game, but, there are still lingering issues that I’ve found. See bottom of post for my “rant”.
[EDIT-Seems as though the #48 news corrected the issues I was experiencing. Everything else looks to be “my” problem with the routing and design of the roads]
Things I like:
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I like having a system that I have to continuously replenish, such as the residential zones.
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I like how in order to grow the residential, you need different components to create more dense areas
– Real player with 42.9 hrs in game
StarScraper
I have loved watching this game grow and can’t wait for it to grow even more.
I love the variety of rooms,
The music is kinda cute,
I love that there is a management side to it,
The requirements of the rooms give it a bit more of a challenge.
I do feel like there are some improvements to be made but they all seem like minor things.
It would be nice to not have to click so much. The option for a tutorial would be helpful too.
And the option to customize the over all color of your tower to give it the aesthetic I would want.
– Real player with 10.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best City Builder Sandbox Games.
StarScraper is a fun chill game. It’s feels sandboxy. There is some progression, you unlock rooms and amenities. There’s not campaigns or scenarios. It gives you a lot of room choices up front rather than having to unlock a bunch, which I think is what gives it the sandbox feel. I haven’t tried the Speedrun Mode yet though.
I’ve never played SimTower, but I’ve played a lot of Project Highrise. Very cool to have another tower builder game to play.
I’m not into making the most optimal money farm, so I’m not playing it that way.
– Real player with 4.8 hrs in game
A-Train 9 V4.0 : Japan Rail Simulator
A-Train 9 V4.0 is not about instant gratification. A-Train 9 V4.0 does not care if you feel daunted or confused. A-Train 9 V4.0 has no time for such trifles as tutorials. A-Train 9 V4.0 makes actual city planners tremble and weep.
And, I love it!
To start, calling A-Train 9 V4.0 a mere rail simulator is like calling a pizza nothing more than a kind of bread. Oh, no no no. AT9v4 is a full on city builder! It focuses around rail transport (be it cargo or passengers). But, soon (very soon!) you will find yourself managing truck routes and distribution centers, setting up passenger bus lines, playing the stock market, and even taking a leisurely cruise around the nearest ocean bay or scenic lake on your yacht.
– Real player with 722.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best City Builder Trains Games.
A train 9 is a fantastic game, don’t let the price put you off as this game is so absorbing you will certainly get your money’s worth. First off this game is pretty hard-core, and reading the manual is essential. It’s also worth remembering that it’s a Japanese game originally and therefore not aimed at the Western market so there are a few quirks which may take a while to master.
Once said quirks are mastered you may actually die of starvation as the “just one more thing” mentality really bites you once you get the hang of this game. The graphics are beautiful especially when use the “train window” function or using a leisure vehicle to drive around the city.
– Real player with 168.5 hrs in game
Moons of Ardan
So I really wanted to like this game….. And I do!
I figured Id give this a try not expecting it to be all that since it’s very early access and cheap, boy was I surprised by a well thought out, fun game to play with no crashes or errors. Yes it has some teething issues of course and those are annoying flashing lights when night time comes, the lights seem to flicker a bit. Also, if you send feedback it will not lock the mouse and keyboard to the feedback page, so if you go to edit you will be spinning your world and placing random buildings all over. Other than those 2 things its silky smooth really.
– Real player with 80.0 hrs in game
Short version: game has potential, but needs a lot of work.
Long version: It runs at a solid 6 fps once you start getting things set up on the other moons. Increasing or decreasing the graphics settings (which give no indication as to what they actually change) seems to do nothing. There is no way to change keybinds, the sound effects are (probably) just default sounds that come with the Unity engine. Switching views to the other moons is clunky at best, and painful at the aforementioned 6 fps. This feels more like something that should be on a kickstarter as a proof of concept rather than released as even an Early Access game. The music is decent, albeit a bit repetitive. The balancing feels a little off, though that’s to be expected for an early access title.
– Real player with 9.9 hrs in game
Cities in Motion 2
The tutorial in this game is useless, since there’s a ton of little annoying things that are not intuitive. But once you know, it works:
You have to delete and rebuild roads to get bus lanes. Trams can have tracks on medians and pedestrian paths, and you have to build the tram station appropriately (in the median or on the side of the road). Metros can be built elevated or underground with the page up/page down key (minimum clearance is 8m, which is two page ups/page downs). Building metro track at elevation zero (0 m) will enable your cursor to snap to metro track stubs. Building a metro track/road curve is like using the pen tool in photoshop: you drop a vertex with left click and you undo the last vertex with right click. Waterbuses cannot navigate through/around terrain, so you have to manually waypoint around those. The metro passenger entry point is that tiny “teleportation box” that appears on the nearest roadway when you build the station. Tram tracks/Trolley Wires need to be connected through intersections by clicking on the tracks/wires on one side, then clicking on the side you want to connect to. If there’s no routable path to the next station, zoom in and inspect the roads for one-way streets and missing intersections. When you delete intersecting roads/metro tracks, the remaining road can still have remnants of an “intersection” that makes it count as two roads. That “intersection” can be deleted again to turn the road back into a single piece of road/track.
– Real player with 98.0 hrs in game
For those who come from the newer game from the devs, Cities: Skylines wondering what this previous games of theirs is like: In short, CiM2 is [still] the best public transport simulator out there.
In Cities: Skylines you get a way bigger map area, better and faster engine, more possibilities for building a city - but its public tr. system is simplified, whereas CiM2 is completely built around that with lots more options.
Pros:
- Schedules: Creation schedules is incredible, you can tailor each line to demand. Also worth setting different lines from a same depot to leave with a delay (e.g. fist buses leaving each line at 4:30,4:35,4:40 respectively, for instance) to avoid queuing, jams, etc on the roads nerby. Don’t forget to buy enough vehicles for every depot, for servicing. Don’t buy too many either because they won’t fit in and just deteriorate over time, waiting on the streets.
– Real player with 86.9 hrs in game
Model Railway Easily
A very good simulation game. Like a relaxed version of Cities;Skylines without the pressure . It’s very easy to get the hang of once you get used to the way that track and objects are moved, placed etc..
No bad points, but three things would, in my opinion, improve the game further.
(1) A tool for easily joining the road sections. i.e drag & join.
(2) An indicator as to which way the track switches are set.
(3) A bridge or two to carry road surfaces over the water features.
– Real player with 79.2 hrs in game
Amazing game, not a train simulator but in my opinion the best and easiest game to build those giant miniature worlds you’ve always dreamt of. The graphics are pretty good compared to some of the other games, and the menu is so incredibly easy to use, even a toddler would understand it. If you’re doubting about buying this game, you could play the smaller, free christmas version of it to get an idea of what it is and if you like it.
– Real player with 18.2 hrs in game
Rule the Rail!
[EDIT:] I don’t recommend the Steam version anymore. It’s bugging out at least 5 times per hour, and is showing stuff as black blobs just before killing itself. If you have bought this program, you have the registered version at least. Download the 1.5 version from Brainbombers, take the js.bin file from Steams and put that in the Real version. Anything else you have uploaded is easily transfered afterwards. The only Real difference in the BB-version is that you can’t move the camera with your mouse, you have to use the two buttons up right.
– Real player with 125.0 hrs in game
the trains are very fun and easy to use and bulding a layout is easy
– Real player with 65.6 hrs in game
Transport Fever 2
I like trains.
It has a lot of room for improvement. Early game and late game are very meh. It is really hard to get into a new map. And once everything is connected, and you have billions in cash it just is nice to look at, but there’s nothing left to challenge you. You’ve just become Bezos and that’s that.
Recommend, because the devs are Swiss and keep push out 1-2 major updates each year. Modding community is pretty active too, which is great if you like to add more modelling elements. If you like trains/dont have space for a real model train layout, this is a pretty good alternative.
– Real player with 1425.0 hrs in game
Listen, realtalk: This game is scratching my itch for model trains in such a way that i was able to sell my IRL ones. Saved me a hell of a lot of cash.
But dont play for Money or economic.
And dont play with less than 32GB RAM.
– Real player with 1061.6 hrs in game
Malmyr
I stumbled across this recently, and have been enjoying working through the campaign. I give this a thumbs up primarily because of the enthusiastic and helpful developer responses to questions I had, and I feel I got my moneys worth of entertainment value. These guys deserve some more attention for their efforts. It is a game that I “like” but don’t “love”.
Malmyr offers some quite different mechanics to what you would normally expect, though not all of those are necessarily positive things (it is very mouse clicky) and can take some getting used to. Kind of revealing is the lack of a lets play series out there - people tend to bounce off it after a few hours I think. Fundamentally the game is more of a puzzler than a true building game - space is limited and the randomly generated tiles can require some planning before you commit to building. I am hoping to finish the campaign, I am always a sucker for trying to “finish” a game. I haven’t tried the sandbox mode though I may give that a quick shot once I knock off the last two missions, we shall see. I just have too many other games that are begging for my time and this just doesn’t have that magic X factor or depth of strategy tp keep coming back to.
– Real player with 77.2 hrs in game
Malmyr is THE game you’ve been waiting for a long time! What a pleasant surprise!
Malmyr is the perfect mix of real-time strategy and puzzle game. Because in Malmyr building your city is not made as easy as in other building games. Instead, you have to ensure an always sufficient flow of raw materials through increasingly complex road systems. but malmyr always remains clear, fair and, above all, relaxing. Relaxation is the perfect word to describe malmyr. You have no time pressure, you can correct mistakes at any time without losing your progress.
– Real player with 23.8 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.