Train Valley World Review (PC)

Dating back to 2015, the Train Valley series has carved out a niche for itself among those who like trains and those who like puzzles, not a place I expected much overlap, but I digress. The original Train Valley had players building tracks and directing trains to avoid collisions. It was more of juggling act as you had to manage your routes while making sure your trains didn’t smash into each other. Train Valley 2 leaned into the management side but kept the traffic management aspect. The latest installment, Train Valley Word, continues the trend and removes the train collision aspect outright so you can focus on the rest of the game.

• Developer: FLAZM

• Publisher: tinyBuild

• Platform: Windows: Steam/Epic

• Release Date: Aug 9th 2024

• Price: $19.99 (22.48 Supporter edition available)

To find a lost train, follow its tracks.

Train Valley World is about moving things from one place to another on the map. Each scenario presents you with different tasks. The logging camp produces wood so you need a track connecting it to the city which is presumably where the market is. The charcoal factory also needs wood and the city needs charcoal. So with your limited budget you have to build stations and lay track. Once you have connected the locations, you purchase a train and have it pick stuff up here and move it wherever the heck the scenario tells you it needs to go. Transporting stuff earns you money, which you use to expand your network and purchase more trains. Each scenario is more complicated than the last and as you move up the line (see what I did there) you will need to plan ahead of time. As stated above, the collision mechanic has been removed, so you can focus on building routes instead of micromanaging trains. It should be noted that when trains do come together once is stopped to allow the other to pass and this slows everything down. Anyway once you set up your routes, you can forget about them and move on to the next step.

Thomas KNEW the Controller would be cross if he was delayed by ANOTHER dinosaur attack.

Another addition is specialists. As things progress, you can purchase the services of specialists who you can add to trains to give them bonus abilities such as additional cars, moving faster, earning more money and so forth. Each specialist needs to be purchased each level, and they can only conduct one train at a time.

The final big addition is a multiplayer mode. In this mode you can work with other player(s) in order to complete objectives or sabotage the other players for your own benefit. The game only includes 16 single player levels and 6 multiplayer levels. This is quite a few less levels than its predecessor, but it includes a decent level editor, so I expect there will be sufficient variety posted online to keep die-hard players interested.

There is really only one glaring flaw. If you have multiple paths to a destination, the trains make really strange route choices. You can manually edit the routes, but this is clunky and time consuming.

My recommendation here is pretty straightforward. If you like Train Valley 2, puzzles and management or have an unnatural thing for trains you will enjoy Train Valley World, but it is a bit of a niche product.

The Good:

• Good replay value

• Accessible development roadmap

• Active multiplayer community

The Bad

• Poor path-finding in some situations

• Clunky level editor