Train Fever -- modern-day Transport Tycoon game

[Duke]

Hi chaps,

I know we have a fair few who played the original Transport Tycoon and the open source OpenTTD version of the game. I was linked to a new game in development which has been described as a modern-day TT.

Train Fever is a railroad-focused business simulation game. In other words, it's a modern-day Transport Tycoon with procedural content and a sophisticated city simulation.

"It’s the year 1850, and there are great times ahead! Establish a transport company and be its manager. Build infrastructure such as railways and stations, purchase transportation vehicles and manage lines. Fulfill the people’s needs and watch cities evolve dynamically.

Train Fever runs on an engine specifically developed for this game. The engine has a great innovative scope and is specialized in procedural content and urban simulation. A key point is the fact that there is no grid that game objects have to be aligned to, allowing for a great degree of freedom.

Features
- Randomly generated, modifiable terrain with realistic dimensions
- Advanced passenger simulation
- Dynamically simulated urban development
- Procedurally generated buildings
- No grid - that is, the game world is not limited to 90 (or 45) degree angles
- Vehicles from more than 150 years of transportation history
- Passenger and freight transport
- Achievements and experience points
- Detailed 3D graphics
- Freely adjustable zoom factor

http://store.steampowered.com/app/304730/

http://www.train-fever.com/media/screenshots/


It actually looks quite good and has positive reviews.. might give it a go

 

[Tricks]

Have just bought it, read good things...

 

[Tricks]

So, played it for about an hour or so last night, and it's clearly very inspired by TTD. There is a lot of promise for Transport Tycoon fans, but it's still quite rough around the edges at this point and needs GUI improvements. The isometric tiles of TTD made it pretty quick and clear, and initially I'm finding it more fiddly to manage what I'm building and more time consuming.

I'm sure I'll continue tonight...

 

[233]

Have to give this a look when I get back home

 

[pastymuncher]

I would stay clear for the moment. There is trouble brewing on the Steam forums as the game autosaves each year and the size of the save is up to 250mb every time depending on the map size!!! Apparently you can't disable autosaves either. I was going to buy this game but sensibly waited to see how many bugs there were on release. I won't be buying this until it's fixed.

 

[Duke]

Going to leave it a little while, but certainly interested. Those who do try it, keep us posted

 

[Raumarik]

Looks promising, keep us informed guys I'm a massive Transport Tycoon fan

 

[Tricks]

Got to say the more I play the more I get hooked. Quite used to the interface now and while I would welcome some improvements it's not a big problem. Only thing that's bugging me at the moment is how 90% of my raw resources aren't producing anything.


There was a news update today;

We had a brilliant launch and we are very pleased that first game reviews draw positive conclusions! For instance, the most important German game magazine "GameStar" rated Train Fever with "very good" and 82%. For a debut title of a small team like ours this is just awesome!

Let us say a big thank you to everyone who bought the game. You can be sure that we care about you and your input also in the future.

We are excited that there are a lot of discussions about Train Fever in the Community-Hub. Of course, there are also critical votes which we take very serious. This project was based on community feedback since the very beginning (crowdfunding) and it’s absolutely sure that we will carefully listen to the community also in the future.

This said, it should be clear that there will be serious updates for the game in the next weeks. You may wonder how our plans for the next days look like. Let us give a short summary:

Improve performance
Reduce size of save game files
Optimize support for people who cannot start the game
Various small visual polish and UI improvements
Provide Mac and Linux versions


Official release notes for every update will be published. A first small patch will already be published later today.

Thanks again for your interest in the game and for your feedback!

Best wishes,

Basil Weber
Urban Games

 

[EssexBoy]

will keep an eye on this thanks.

 

[Firantil]

Got to say the more I play the more I get hooked. Quite used to the interface now and while I would welcome some improvements it's not a big problem. Only thing that's bugging me at the moment is how 90% of my raw resources aren't producing anything.

I was tempted by this but was put off a little by some of the comments I was seeing about it. I like this kind of game when I am in the mood so thanks Tricks, sounds like it will be one worth me keeping an eye on.

 

[Tricks]

Even though it's exactly a game that a TTD fan would want, it's hard to flat out recommend it until some issues get ironed out. It also lacks the more advanced stuff from TTD in terms of number of industries and more complex train signalling, to pick out two.

On the positive, the passengers in the game are all visible and you can actually click on them to see there destination and mode of transport. They basically take the quickest route via whatever transport is available. So they won't just wait at the nearest station/bus stop, they'll start walking if it's quicker, or not go at all if it takes more than 20 minutes (I think). Changes up the game mechanic a little.

 

[corkhead]

Id agree with Tricks. The comparisons to TTD are inevitable and it does come up short in some areas.

I find the track laying can get somewhat fiddly. When trying to line up two tracks to join up for switches/junctions i get a lot of errors saying terrain not aligned or something. Maybe thats just me, i still like the game! Spline based tracks mean you can create some nice sweaping coastal lines though

Its harder than TTD too. Ive had to start again a couple of times because i have tried to expand too big, too quickly. Ive been more successful with cargo trains than passenger trains so far.

I do like the fact that your transportation has to actually be the better option before its used. Cargo will still choose to 'walk' (or whatever it does..) to industries if your route isnt quicker. There are no competitors in the game. You wont get AI companies starting up like in TTD.

 

[Tricks]

I find the track laying can get somewhat fiddly. When trying to line up two tracks to join up for switches/junctions i get a lot of errors saying terrain not aligned or something.

I usually get that if I'm making trying to lay a track at too shallower angle to an obstacle. eg, a track crossing road needs to be pretty much at right angles.

Its harder than TTD too. Ive had to start again a couple of times because i have tried to expand too big, too quickly. Ive been more successful with cargo trains than passenger trains so far.

Same here, I was sitting on millions so started to expand my passenger trains between towns and ended up losing all my money and getting loans out and ultimately couldn't recover.

With the passengers having a destination in mind, I guess it would be useful for the game to give you some data on how in-demand a route is, so you know if a link between towns would get used enough to be profitable.

 

[PaulC2K]

Watching some 'lets play' videos and the biggest concern for me is the lack of competitors.

As much as i loved Banished, it felt like once you understood what works, there isnt something to challenge you. Here it seems like you could just build at your own pace, take no risks, and just play at a leisurely pace. TTD you couldnt do that, you had to be looking for the next big thing, and establishing a service for it before the competition came sniffing around, at which point they'd lock you out and stealing customers was hard work unless your location or service was superior.

This looks like a modern version of TTD, but is missing key aspects, which is such a shame because at £20 it seems like its missing a lot to justify that price-tag, it seems like an Early Access titles first offering, and not a released product which needs a load of basic features patching in afterwards, let alone significant ones like AI players. Cant imagine i'll be buying this, even for £5 on a steam sale, unless these things are added in. Its a real shame, and seems more like a £10 title, cos its not good enough to consider itself a £20 game when a full blown retail game is £30, its lacking too much, which is acceptable for an indie title with an indie price, but this isnt £8-15. Too much for too little IMO.

 

[Tricks]

The game has far more fundamental issues before adding competitors. Personally I find just building profitable lines and expanding without going broke is enough, satisfying enough for now.

It is a bit of a joke that this isn't categorised as a 'early access' game on Steam, if this is close to what they planned for as a final product it should have been a sub £10 game as you say. I live in hope they are a large enough dev to build from these good foundations.

 

[PaulC2K]

I've just had a go of the 'trial' version, to be fair it seems enjoyable, if somewhat broken in a few silly little ways (vehicles driving under roads on hills).

2 odd things i noticed in my 2hr play.
1) I had a successful road line taking wood to the cutting factory, and its goods taken to the town, and then back to the logging factory. It was a nice triangular circuit and i'd given it direct roads to speed up the process. They were making decent money, 150K for the line i think.
I swapped that out for a train line. I removed any tricky sections of road, and created another triangular route with 3 stations. I was making a significant loss. -50k easily.
That was with a fairly cheap train, and a faster one later on, and with 3 trailers (didnt need more).
I ended up removing the loop, so instead of it travelling anti-clockwise round, i just made them all join in the middle, and it'd go down, stop, reverse and come back. Shorter route, but still made significant losses.

2) Linking up oil to a refinery, simple 2-stop link using trucks (i dont see how trains are profitable, and they get more expensive to run each new version) and it'd take the oil to the plant, produce goods, it'd pick up the goods and then drop them off at the refinery, then they'd travel miles on foot. So it seems as though because it was leaving one town and arriving at another, thats all it needs to accept goods.
So it begs the question, whats the point of building a goods drop-off close to a town, and travelling further, when you can simply dump them on the city limits and cash in.


Its enough to tell me i like what they're doing, but its definitely not acceptable to call it a finished game, it feels far more like an Alpha which is missing a handful of features but you're buying it knowing this. But its not an alpha, its not Early Access, its being sold as a finished game when it obviously isnt, and i dont believe any degree of testing would have told them it was either.

Shame really, cos i'd love a modern version of TTD, and if it had all of those features with the same spline based paths, stuff like that, it'd be fantastic, but as it stands its a very poor imitation and i cant see it implementing enough in the next year (if at all) to justify how much they're asking. I'd happily pay £20 for a modern TTD though.

 

[Duke]

I'm going to wait until its in a sale on Steam, as I would pay £10 but not £20 until it is actually completed.

 

[Tricks]

1) I had a successful road line taking wood to the cutting factory, and its goods taken to the town, and then back to the logging factory. It was a nice triangular circuit and i'd given it direct roads to speed up the process. They were making decent money, 150K for the line i think.
I swapped that out for a train line. I removed any tricky sections of road, and created another triangular route with 3 stations. I was making a significant loss. -50k easily.
That was with a fairly cheap train, and a faster one later on, and with 3 trailers (didnt need more).
I ended up removing the loop, so instead of it travelling anti-clockwise round, i just made them all join in the middle, and it'd go down, stop, reverse and come back. Shorter route, but still made significant losses.

I've had similar problems with trains at the moment.

Below there is a forest bottom left producing 87 wood, the train takes it to the saw mill in the middle. On the bottom right is another forest producing only 10 wood, and two lorries taking it to the same saw mill in the middle. As you can see from the stats shown, it's hard to make the train profitable with the running costs. (and that's only one of the two lorries)

 

[PaulC2K]

i actually had a look on the steam forums a few hrs back, and ppl were saying easy was too easy, and medium was too hard. Someone commented and said pretty much what we're seeing, it very easy to make money with road lines, but rail is killer.

Its been a long time since i played TTD, (should revisit OTTD) but im sure they had payments based on delivery speed, so it was financially beneficial to use a faster mode of transportation. I think TF may simple pay $x per unit, which means providing a service with a faster mode which costs more to run, has limited benefits.

I moved from vans to trains because they needed replacing every 15y, and with 10-15 of them it was annoying me. Trains were 30yr, and 1 would make a trip often enough enough to cover a dozen trucks. It doesnt seem to matter how far the journey is, as long as its not sitting in a depot for '20min' for collection, so i dont even think long distance movement is a factor.

For a game called Train Fever, it seems bizarre that trains are the inferior mode, at least financially. The problem is even when the trucks have a 30yr life, you still need a load of them versus 1 train, so replacing 10 trains doing 10 lines isnt bad, replacing 50-100 for 10 lines is a real PITA.
I did find around the 1920s or so, the vans can do 45kph v25kph of the early vans, and carry 11 v 6/8 units (i forget) so later on you can drop a couple, although maybe not if the plants expand beyond 25/50/100 or more later, but they still do the same job for less expense, making them the clear winner.

I'd hate to see it in Hard mode :/

 

[Vern1961]

Have had a brief dabble with this but must concur, has potential but it's no TTDLX or RRT2 (or even RRT3). Main issue for me was that just setting out a rail line to link two towns with feeder road transport from the centre used up virtually all my starting capital. There's no undo button so if you make an expensive track laying mistake, you can't get your money back.

Starting off in 1850 with just the horse/cart and one early steam loco IMHO far too early. Should start in 1890 when there are more options. It looks as if eventually you can lay tram lines within the towns.

The interface is a bit clunky too, took me ages to find the "exit" button.

This will probably appeal to those who found A Train 8 a bit hard to get into, but as a huge fan of the genre so far a little disappointing.