🔒 EXCLUSIVE: Id/aliothfox - Complete Album!

I bought this game four days ago and I have already sunk 40 hours into it. It's become a minor (okay, not so minor) obsession. I'm not sure I've ever been as swept up in any game as I have in this one. I'm normally very skeptical of any early access game with "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews, especially when it's not one I've seen any kind of buzz about on social media. But in this game's case, the overwhelmingly positive reviews are very well deserved.

I've been a fan of games like Train Sim World, Transport Fever, and other such games for a very long time, but this game in particular scratches an extremely specific itch: it's mostly just driving trains, but it has just enough of a management/"tycoon" aspect to give the game structure and give your simulation experience some PURPOSE, which a lot of the more hyper-accurate simulators don't really do.

This one, to be clear, is NOT hyper-accurate (at least not yet); the train controls are simplified - you can do pretty much everything with four sliders (though those four sliders are satisfyingly mapped to their "real-world" analogs in the simulated locomotive cabs in first person view), you don't have to worry about things like boiler pressure or understanding how to flick all the right switches to start up a diesel locomotive. That's not a complaint, though; that makes the game less intimidating than a lot of the rail sims I've played.

It's still early access, and it shows in some ways - the scenery leaves a bit to be desired, and the in-game world, for all of its enormity, feels a bit empty (passengers in cars are represented by numbers and not actual models, no people standing on platforms, no cars on roads and at crossings, that kind of thing). I have every confidence that the map's look is going to improve (and as an artist, I appreciate that this developer hasn't embraced the AI slop that a lot of devs have), but the truth is that even if the game never progresses at all beyond its current state (which seems doubtful - this game's developer tends to respond to a lot of community threads and seems very communicative and attentive), I feel like it's been money well spent even as-is.

Excellent game - absolutely worth all the praise it's gotten here on Steam, and it definitely gets my recommendation. I can't wait to see how it develops from here!