As machines go trains aren’t that complicated. Giant engine pulls cars down steel tracks, and there you go. The tricky part isn’t the mechanics but rather logistics, because things need to go in a certain order to work right. Generally this involves a complicated array of switches, sidings, and signal lights, but Railbound is more about assembling the train to get it moving rather than worrying about getting it anywhere on time. That doesn’t make it any easier, though, because the cars are scattered all over the landscape and you’ve only got a certain number of rail tiles to get them where they need to go, not to mention needing to hook them up to the engine in a certain order. Once the track is set you’re able to hit the button to watch the cars make their way down the line, hopefully but not necessarily arriving as planned so the train can depart. There’s a way to get everything in place but it will frequently take a good amount of trial and error to figure out how everything fits together.
Railbound is a low-stress puzzle game about playing with trains, set over a series of eight worlds with their own new additions to the gameplay. World 1 just involves laying down tracks, World 2 has tunnels, World 3 introduces switches while World 4 expands on what the switches can do, etc. The first couple levels of each world introduce the mechanic and then things escalate from there, and the bonus levels get even trickier after that. There are only so many tiles to lay down so it wouldn’t seem that complicated, but managing junctions and timing the cars so none of them crash into each other can take a surprising amount of thought. There are some truly great “A-ha!” moments when figuring out a level, especially when finally breaking free of what had seemed a particularly clever solution that doesn’t quite work.
Today’s release of Railbound sees it available on PC, iOS, and Android. Check out the trailer below to get a sense of just how intricate a rail line can get when assembling the train in exactly the right order.
