i live for the victor now train poppo signal the end of a level rail boundSometimes you can figure it out in 30 seconds. On the first try, he figured out how to arrange some tracks to connect his two stranded trains to a waiting locomotive in the correct order. train poppo, proceed to the next puzzle. Sometimes that locomotive tooth is my hard-earned reward for bumping my little train for ten minutes and for him drawing and erasing and drawing the tracks fifty times until he finds the right path.
I’ve given up on one so far. Railbound is a cute and relaxing puzzle game that elegantly teaches you new mechanics at the start of each level. The desert introduces tunnels, beach crossing gates and switches, and forest tracks that change direction when the train passes the switch. Solving these feels as meditative as staring out a train window and thinking, “Maybe I know what life is.”
Then try to work out some optional levels that can be unlocked in each biome. It’s like being pushed into the cockpit of a Shinkansen and realizing that you can’t be an expert just by watching Thomas the Train when you were three years old. Just like in life, a highly demanding train puzzle will soon be upon you. We had to abandon several trains deep in the desert. Prioritizing my railroad skills, I vowed to return to them when I threw all unnecessary knowledge out of my head.
It’s already been a good year for cute puzzle games like Dorfromantik and Please Fix the Road, but Railbound has my favorite aesthetic. I love cel trains, railroad tracks, and pastel colored worlds. Each set of levels comes with its own music and seems to increase in complexity as the game progresses. When the piano sounded in World 4, noisy.
The whole aesthetic is thick, bouncy and simple, but there is enough talent in the animation to make the train a hilarious little cartoon.
Each click of the mouse places a piece of rail in a satisfying little thunk, and dragging the mouse in the right direction snaps the pieces together elegantly. I’m afraid I’ll be a model railroad guy in 20 years.
No kids, just a 1/64 scale train paradise.
I’ve already started creating an infinitely looping track, and then I’m making the train go round and round so you can see it.
What Railbound is really missing is a pause button. In his fourth set of levels, the switches and truck shifts are starting to get a little more complicated. I want to be able to get the train in motion and then pause it while it’s running so I can see exactly how everything is unfolding. you quickly lose track of what’s going on. I think I could have created a much more elegant solution than the one above if I had the option to pause or slow motion.
But hey, they finally got there. That’s all I really want from a train.
