Tracks – The Train Set Game Revealed, is Those Bricks you Probably Played with as a Kid

Tracks – The Train Set Game, takes the classic wooden-piece playset and digitising it, ensuring that you don’t break off the little connector pieces, and never run out of short corners.

In my many years writing about games I’ve spent a lot of time being nostalgic about old games, and a lot of time being pleasantly surprised by new things. Tracks – The Train Set Game manages to call on both of those, albeit with a few early concerns.

The game basically gives players a sandbox, sterile setting to assemble their own track, and town. Obstacles can be placed, passengers can be loaded, cargo can be hauled. You can ride even ride the train in first person, and as a bonus there’s even potential for VR implementation.

My main concern, however, as somebody who plays through games in quick succession, and generally requiring of pretty fast gratification, is the actual structure, unlocking, and progressing within the game. If the game ends up something like Mini Metro, with additional stations popping up -featuring more passengers who need to get to more locations- then it could well work. However, as a sandbox I can’t imagine it having much in the way of player retention at all. And, in the age of the 2hr refund-timer, that probably won’t bode well for the developer, Whoop Groop, or publisher, Excalibur Games.

All of that said, with game modes, multiple trains in sequence, and maybe switches for the nigh-unlimited track combinations, it could be a really enjoyable game. Especially if the game is built as modular, and Steam Workshop friendly, as the team behind it seem to wish.

Tracks – The Train Stet Game launches into Steam early access on the 28th of September where it will remain for at least a few months.