Train Fever - Railway Game in Development

[acorn_farmer_84]

I just discovered "Train Fever" on gambitious, which is a crowd funding website. The game is still only in the early stages of development, and they seem mostly focused on PR, and securing funds at the moment, but it looks pretty promising to me.

Its essentially a modern remake of Transport Tycoon, and a bit of railroad tycoon as well, but at this stage at least it seems exclusively about transporting passengers with no freight. In fact some of the shots in the videos really remind me of Railroad Tycoon 3 quite a lot.

The 'pre alpha' trailer can be viewed at http://www.train-fever.com/media/trailer/
There is also an early gameplay video at http://www.train-fever.com/2012/10/new-gameplay-video/

They are currently planning to release the game in Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Feel free to check out their project website at:
http://www.train-fever.com/

Or their crowd funding site at:
http://gambitious.com/ideas/2496-train-fever-pc-mac

Cheers,

[obertran]

looks interesting

[Hawk]

Just my personal opinion -

I see 3 downsides to this game.

1) As mentioned in the first post, it appears to be only passenger oriented.

2) It appears to be only European.

3) It looks like it will be a Steam release.

[Blackhawk]

I agree with many of your downsides Hawk.

I'm not thrilled that it seems to be primarily passenger only. (they may throw in a couple other cargoes later but 2-3 cargoes versus RT's ~30 cargoes is a disappointment)

I am pretty confused why it's called Train Fever when it involves trains, trams, and buses to transport passengers.

I see they used that website rather than kickstarter because thru that website they can give investors are share of the earnings back. However, that website takes a 20 euro transaction fee, so it seems like it would be difficult to actually get any earnings back unless they were substantial or only released once a year. Although they did say they were trying to get the website to take less of a cut. It seems like a nice idea that if you invest you get a share of the profits, but because of US laws and regulations the US is blocked from investing there. The designers picked there rather than kickstarter because kickstarter was only open to the US and UK. Except by going this route they completely cut off the US market which is seems like a lucrative market for gathering money.

It sounds like it will be released via Steam, or Origin or some other online distributor. Good in that it saves them the costs of production of cds and other distribution media. Bad for those of us that dislike steam etc. These days it seems like even the games you buy off a physical cd still require online activation, and some even require a continuous online connection for no reason other than to check up on you and make sure it's a legitimate copy. Apparently the large corporations haven't realized that people don't like having to have single player games requiring an active internet connection. It has had the effect that it's driving more people to find cracked versions of games rather than buying it from the company.

On the plus side maybe it'll be easily customized and more cargoes could be added.

[Lone Cat]

The game might be at the developing stages. There might be more cargo in the actual release.
There are many 'questions' overdue from Sid Meier's Railroads

I fear that this project may not reach retailing stage :( But once they do. Let's hope it worths a long overdue.

Wishlists
- (Japanese-style) Self propelled passenger trains available in the list
- flexible (yet realistic) railroad routing management. Sidings option should becomes available.. (oops! i've forgot that SMRR had the said feature but it's not yet good enough!)
- Fuel price swings with external factors in each play. Players must think critically whether to keep Steam or electrify/dieselize.
- R&D Division. Players may either research or buy technologies to improve his/her RR enterprises in many ways. EXAMPLE: Mallet patents allows player to buy Mallet locomotives, Walshart valvegear increases every steam locomotives speed and power. Superheaters not only acts as speeds and power upgrades for steam but also increases the steam trains distance between each water stops. Fluid fuel burners unlocks oil-firing steam locomotives (and conversions between coal firing and oil firings of each locos) and Cab-forwards... etc.
- Station upgrades should includes; telecommunication upgrades (Telegraphs, Telephones, Computer networks, Internet, Smartphones :P ), Cargo loading upgrades (Cranes, Freight yards, Intermodal Containers Depot), City transits (Taxi, Trams, Bus services)
- Automatic consists managements (RT3 most favorite features)
- Multiple unit locomotives (Features of Transport Giant)
- RTS: Several times, Railroading also means the needs of an enterprise to own an armed forces for various reasons (think of Cowboy movies). Players must also perform a role of military commanders. also Railroad armed forces should be able to upgrade once better weapons became available (Example: Minutemen with flintlock muskets in 1830 -> Gunslingers with colts and winchesters in 1870s -> Gangsters with tommygun in 1920s -> Mercenary with Assault rifles since 1960s onwards).
- Locomotive and Train designing bureau: If player doesn't satisfy with locomotives and passenger carriers commonly seen in the markets. he/she may design his/her 'exclusive' locomotives or train units. including which technologies should the train has.... This allows player to create modern steams even if none has become available in the markets any longer.

What's yours?

[Orange46]

I would be happy if this game makes it off the ground, even without freight. If you have followed my maps on this site, you would know that I love freight. But, we haven't had a decent new economic railroad game since RT3. The budget for this game seems limited, so they probably can't handle the complications and time delay that adding a freight model might entail. RT3 had different models for freight and express. But, hopefully, once the game is out, they might be amenable to adding freight if the game sells.

[obertran]

surely, the game seems that'll not improve RT3, but from my point of view is at an early stage, as it was RT1. In any case I add to your list 'Lone Cat' very nice. I'd add also a good market system (industrial and stocks). Another point important for me is the appearance of airports and their impact.

What I like of this project is the population management. I mean, population development is closely linked to the life of the train as well as industrial. What is certain is that if your game is called 'Train fever' no need to manage bus routes, something that should be automatic game itself depending on your progress, Probably I'd changed this for subways (in large cities). ie manage the large railway network and subways in the same game, although that could complicate the game.

[acorn_farmer_84]

Just thought that I'd share this here. The game dev's have decided to include freight;

In the last weeks, major game design decisions have been made. Most important, due to many requests of investors and the community, we have definitely decided to include freight transport in the game.
The freight model is motivated by the game Transport Tycoon, but many improvements make it more interesting and realistic. Our current design includes coal, iron ore, steel, wood, stock, grain, oil and goods freight.
Raw materials like coal or iron ore are mined at several locations in the game world. These raw materials can then be transported to factories and industrial buildings, which usually process them to goods. Goods are finally needed in commercial buildings in towns. Residents then buy these goods in commercial buildings.
Basically, each building, factory or mine requires some items (freight and people) and produces items if requirements are met. Supply and demand is realistically simulated. Items can be transported by the player, but are also transported by agents (i.e. people walk and workers transport freight themselves, though with low speed, range and capacity).
The freight model will soon also be explained on our website

[Lone Cat]

Meowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww~

That's nice they include freights. and the TF team decided that freight movements model will follow RT3. that is it is better not to do rail links to farms, mines, and industries directly should that branchline in question becomes unfeasible.
but will train setup method follows RT3? (Any cargo, Any freight, and Any express with slidebars if player doesn't want to manage an entire consist manually)

[Orange46]

Seems to be coming in the 3rd quarter of this year. The March 3 video looks intersting. I liked the horse drawn vehicles. I wish Sim City started in the 1800's with these vehicles. Anyone have any updated feelings about game play since the last post in this thread?

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

[Blackhawk]

It will be interesting to see how they integrate all the forms of transportation and how large the maps will be. It seems like European/German methods of transportation are at the forefront (considering it is a European game). A future DLC of American transportation methods may one day be available. If I remember correctly, originally this project was just a guy and his brother, but now it seems like they added a couple more people to the production team. Hopefully it goes well for them and some sort of decent economic transportation game is the end result. Now if only I actually remember to check out this game in ~6 months.

[larrysw]

This looks interesting because: 1) RR Tycoon is not really designed for modern (Windows 7) computers and 2) This is a simulation, not a train driving program.

Question: Are there any other simulation games --- download or online --- that resemble RR Tycoon?

[Tomix]

http://www.train-fever.com/2014/06/trai ... goes-beta/

They are going beta now it seems.

[Goemoe]

I apologize for writing about trainfever in the wrong area, Hawk.
At least this game brought me back to this site. I don't like steam too. Trainfever is a single player offline game after all. Hopefully they make enough profit to develop the game to a fullsized successor of RT3. About 5 weeks to wait and see. I ordered it and will have a look anyway.

[Hawk]

I apologize for writing about trainfever in the wrong area, Hawk.

No problem.

[Blackhawk]

When you get the game I'd be interested to hear your review of it. It would be nice for a decent train game to come out one of these days!

[Lone Cat]

Betatest but Euro-only at this moment.
Is it better if America, and third-world choices are included too? (like RT3) meow~

[MrScott1964]

I got a spot as a beta for this game... It's worth looking into. It will need some modifications but the basics are there for a good game. From what I understand they're encouraging modding of this game. The track work is neat!

[Hawk]

Let us know how it is.

[Orange46]

Mr. Scott, I 2nd the motion on keeping us posted.

I tried to do a scenario for SM Railroads, but found it to be tedious. Hopefully, scenario design will be more like RT2 and 3 where it can be fun, especially when someone else provides me with wonderful logos, rail cars etc. I really appreciated your RR logos that I used for my version of Rail Baron.