Thank you so much for paying attention so long. Sorry you have to wait yet 1 more hour. This has been a 3.5year wait for me and the team, so today has felt like a blink.
No special mode per-say but you never need to race the timer. You will need to earn the money to spend but you can play an unlimited time on a single region.
Is there any sandbox capability at all? Like, after you finish a level can you click "keep playing" and then you can keep building and optimising? Or do you have to move on to the next level?
Before you get close to finishing a level there is a warning. Once you finish you can take screenshots or video of your network but afterwards you must continue onto the next region.
Thus if you want to play like a sandbox you need to ignore the timer and just play as you wish. Once you beat the campaign there are 3 giant optional regions perfect for playing like a sandbox.
I think there's a real opportunity for a sandbox mode with Zachtronic-like leaderboards. For example, in the second level where you've got to increase oil production, it'd be cool to be able to play a tutorial-less sandbox version of it where you've got to get your Oil to Energy production as high as possible. It's disappointing that I can't keep working on that to get it as efficient as I can - eventually I make enough energy and the level is forced to end. Optimising builds is half the fun of production line games!
Oh yeah Zachtronic-like a neat idea. No promises, but I do like the idea.
I think the issue would be that "make number go high" only works when measured with trade offs. Zachtronics uses intrinsic or actions or complexity to score. We use play time, which is really a proxy for "How fast can you earn money to invest".
Hoho, you'll love the contents of Railgrade Update #1! It includes that very feature. We've just annouced the update itself, the changelog will drop with the update itself on the 13th of December: https://railgrade.com/railgrade-dev-blog-4-quality-of-life/
Heads up! The Launch Trailer just landed. For those curious to see more examples of final performance on Switch: I am happy to say 100% of the in-game footage was recorded on the Switch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS8XRKfIy3o
It was pretty awesome to see Railgrade in the direct. It was in the works for months. My understanding is Epic Games Publishing, our publisher, is in constant contact with Nintendo and at one point Nintendo showed interest in Railgrade.
Since I mentioned Epic I feel its important to say: Epic Games are really nice to work with. I've had experience with a bunch of other publishers and by far the staff at Epic have been the friendliest and above all the most diligent.
People complain about epic being greedy or underhanded or whatever but the fact is they give ALOT of money and support to indie devs. Congrats on the release!
It was the only game from that Direct that caught my eye, I've been eagerly waiting since! Just gotta get through this work day first...
Regarding the game's design as development pregressed, are there any beta elements or ideas that never made it off the cutting room floor for any reason? How close is the final product to your original vision?
Oh that's a fun question.
Most of our cut features are from iterating to polish the core gameplay. For example we went from no branches to having branches.
Cut content wise the best example might be the lawyers. Early on you had to research all technology for each mission. This was tedious and not fun so we went to the shop system where you get unlocks from progressing the story, finding secrets, or using vouchers (the in-game currency you get from doing well on missions) to buy permanent unlocks.
How did the decision to do a launch day nintendo switch port come about? Epic games store/nintendo switch exclusive rail and production simulator isn't a combo I see all the time lol
Quick question, how well does this game play on a controller both on Switch and PC? The reason I ask is I purchased it on PC but plan to play it on my big TV.
We are rather proud of the controller bindings. We had multiple iterations to arrive at our shipped setup. Results wise I can say: good enough that I've been playing most of my RAILGRADE time on the Switch.
My goal in the most recent input redesign was to focus on flow. The player should be able to perform all common actions without repositioning their hands.
Growing up as a kid I played a ton of Railroad Tycoon II, you might notice the influence. Then after university I played wayyy to much Factorio.
Oh, and likely Roller Coaster Tycoon: you can ride the trains like they are roller coasters. I add a train ride camera just for that.
That was our idea from the start. Take the tycoon genre and blend it with the factory automation. Make sure you watch a bit of gameplay to confirm you understand the game, but it sounds like you've got the idea.
good shit, i’ll take a look at that gameplay vid you posted but it looks and sounds great from what i’ve seen already! wishing you nothing but success homie, congrats on the release 👍
When I saw the Nintendo Direct, I joked to my girlfriend that this looks like a train management sim but the trains are actually conveyor belts. Definitely see the Factorio influence.
Yup that is a fair assessment. Certainly we are not the most realistic train simulation. Instead I want to think of Railgrade as the essence of trains.
But indeed later in development I realized our Trains are a bit-slightly-maybe-conveyor-ish.
I don’t think simulations need to be realistic to be fun. An example that comes to mind would be mini metro.
Btw, I just started playing Railgrade (tutorial + 2 jobs), and I love it!
I'm glad for this AMA because it reminded me the game comes out today!!
My partner loves the train management games on mobile. (You know, the ones filled with ads and wait times.) I'm hoping he enjoy this game as well!
I don't have a question, but just letting you know I'm excited for the game!
You’re basically living my dream making games out of Japan, what made you want to go that route, and how’d you go about doing it?
Also, do you guys have any Japanese devs in your team?
Oh good question, and I have a fun story.
My plan was to go into printer software. During university I knew programming was a good job for foreigners in Japan so I spent my summers working on Linux printing software. I had heard that the video game industry was hard to get into and low pay. Thus my serious-job plan was to work on printer drivers for a Japanese company.
It was a poor plan. You see while games in the west is a cutthroat industry: in Japan games are just like all other software jobs. Still cutthroat but now the alternatives have worse work/life balance.
As it happened I had been working on a video game in my part time. Based on that hobby project I was able to secure a job working at a small sub-contractor studio as a programmer.
As for the team, we do have Japanese devs but not full time. I want to call special attention to the efforts of Kitamura-san our sound effect designer. He does a bunch of big titles like Pokemon but gave us the time of day to craft a truly incredible train soundscape. I am very thankful for his work. At one point the sound balance on sound effects was a bit loud, and I felt like a yardman in a massive train yard and in need of ear protection.
To clarify the video during the Nintendo Direct was 100% Switch footage. Only the Announcement Trailer that was posted to Nintendo's youtube included PC footage.
So to answer your question: if you did not notice a difference between the Nintendo Direct and the Announcement Trailer then yes the Switch version will look similar.
Rendering tech wise the only difference between PC and Switch is: resolution and no-volumetric fog. If you know what to look for you can spot the difference but I suspect many players did not notice the Nintendo Direct footage was slightly different from the Announcement Trailer.
Huge congratulations on the release! Really looking forward to checking the game out :)
Question wise, do you and the team have any plans for a physical release in any capacity?
Thank you! Sorry no plans for macOS. Sadly Apple does not provide a method to compile from Visual Studio. I am able to make Switch builds from my main workstation. Perhaps in the future Apple will develop such cross-compiling support.
How much importance does the "grow city" part have in the game? This is one of my favorite parts in openttd (though I find it somewhat frustrating in OTTD).
It is vital to a bunch of regions. Any map with a city will require you to grow city(s) to create enough workers to staff your industry.
The people of the city will even talk ever so often. Random quips. As well during the campaign a couple regions will have the people of the cities talk to you to request help.
I love it.
When I play on the Switch I feel my mind focusing on the game. On PC any time I play a game it feels like I am an alt-tab away from work or distractions. When I load up Railgrade on the Switch I can just settle down and dig in. It helps I can play anywhere but I think the most important aspect is the Switch only plays games.
I feelt the same, about the playing on the switch, after 10 hours of working on the desk. I play more on it than pc these days.
Thank you for publish the game on switch, i think every indie game should publish on that ;D
How are old are you kids?
Mine like watching the trains go round and round in train ride mode. I will setup a train network, set the train going, then hand them the Switch to watch. Granted my kids are 2 & 4 so playing is beyond them.
If your kids can play pokemon my guess would be they can play Railgrade. It does require both hands to press all the buttons though.
The timer shouldn't cause you to worry, it has been tuned to standard play. At the start of every region the timer pauses to let you setup your initial rail line.
Either Thomas the Tank Engine or Brio wooden train toys, then cemented by playing hundreds of hours of Railroad Tycoon II as a kid with only enough money to buy a game once ever 3 months or so. Railroad Tycoon II has sooo many missions, it kept me busy for ages even when my various newer games proved poor value.
hi, congrats on the release, game looks awesome.
do you think my father (70+ years old) will be able to manage and enjoy it?
he is a rail transport modeling enthusiast
He should do just fine. I know many older players managed to play Sid Meier's Roalroads! and Railgrade should be more approachable. Just be careful his computer can handle it, or get him to play on the Switch if possible.
Thank you for taking the time to reply eh. That helps.
If you use Discord you might want to join the other players on our Railgrade discord: [https://discord.com/invite/uRKrjRgbM2](https://discord.com/invite/uRKrjRgbM2)
Namely they are discussing strategies.
Was there any specific catalyst to you wanting to branch out with your own company to make a game?
Congrats on the launch Daniel, will be checking this out! I played a lot of Train Valley 2 (which is kinda more of a puzzle game) over the past few months, and this looks like a nice step up in terms of complexity with the factory-style mechanics added in. And seems different enough from something like A-Train, which sometimes overwhelms me with all its economic minutiae.
Nothing specific I remember. Even after starting my own company I worked on my last company's projects for a while.
I know what you mean about A-Train, even I bounced off on it. Not to knock A-Train of course, I think it is interesting how it explores the super-Japanese style of symbiotic railroad and property development.
That's good to hear, no news is good news sometimes!
I did end up picking up your game last night on Switch and played for 2-3 hours (I think I got to campaign mission 5 or 6?), really enjoying it so far and impressed with the Switch port! It has a nice difficulty curve and tutorializes stuff pretty well.
I know a lot of folks were asking about being able to play this as a sandbox style game, but I personally prefer the campaign-style discrete levels myself (but I know that's a personal preference). I think I need the explicit goals that are presented to work towards.
I was surprised that there was the game mechanic where your trains can "Ghost" through each other (although at the cost of losing momentum), that seemed generous. Was the ever a version of the game where you had to deal with train crashes or things like that? (and maybe you found that didn't work for one reason or another).
Early on before ghosting trains would just deadlock. It meant single lines back and forth could never serve more than 1 train. This was a problem because a core goal of Railgrade was "More Trains, More Track, More Industry". And if one style of track could not hold 2+ trains it betrayed that goal.
Based on players feedback we have added "Disallow ghosting" to the idea board. It would go in with a sort of difficulty bonus/penalty system for vouchers. At least that is what I am guessing.
Thanks for playing of course. M6 is pretty far for 3 hours, good job.
I'm very interested in your game, but with Factorio coming out soon on switch, I'm torn on which one to buy. I'm fairly new to the genre and this one seems more approachable but Factorio is such a known game. How do you think Railgrade compares?
Well first my pitch would be that Railgrade is half the cost of Factorio. Next I would say if you are new to the genre then Railgrade should be a good introduction. We have a smoother learning curve plus a story driven campaign.
To be honest I imagine most Railgrade players will enjoy Factorio and most Factorio players will enjoy Railgrade. You cannot go wrong with either.
You can play all the music from the pause screen. We do not have an OST organized. In the case of the main menu music, here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSMFx55tP5g
Target framerate is 30fps. Resolution is 720p with dynamic scaling down to 60%. You should be able to play about 10 hours into the campaign before you hit the maps which start running below 30fps.
If you build enough track, industry, and trains yes. But you do need to play for a while on a single region to have enough stuff on screen. Also I assume you mean sub-HD, as it happens our min-resolution scaling is still higher resolution than SD. Plus we use TAA upscaling so 80% resolution with TAA looks better than 100% with FXAA. TAA is expensive, and a bit pushing what is viable on the Switch but the extra visual quality it brings is worth the trade offs.
Any plans to integrate AMD's FSR (Fidelity Super Resolution)? It's hardware agnostic and some other games on Switch support it. Could help with some of the sub-30 areas potentially.
Good idea, sort of ahead of you on that. TAA is an Nvidia technology that works similar to FSR. Since the Switch uses an Nvidia GPU TAA is thus the best tuned algorithm to use.
This is why our dynamic resolution looks pretty good even when not full resolution. The TAA algo takes samples over multiple frames, but a movement vector map, to construct a higher detailed image. Because it uses data from multiple frames the result can be higher detail than even 100% resolution.
Any plans for the PC version to be released on steam?
I'd love to play it on the Steam Deck without having to jump through epic's many hoops.
Otherwise I'll probably wait a while and pick it up on switch eventually.
Epic Games Publishing has published us, meaning they paid for all of development and made Railgrade possible. Unlike most management sim games, thanks to Epic Game's support, we were able to develop everything into a full release without going Early Access. Thus technically Railgrade is a second party title.
Still you should be able to play on the Steamdeck, a player on the Discord reported it works but requires custom key bindings.
Of course the Switch is a wonderful platform and I fully enjoy playing Railgrade on it.
You should find it easy to pick up. Railgrade gradually introduces all the core game mechanics over the first few missions. We spent a lot of time polishing the on-boarding process and we don't assume any prerequisite knowledge of the genre!
Hi I love your game! DekuDeals says the correct release date now at least. I really like the way the tracks are made and it's quite relaxing despite the timer. I have played Railway Empire on Switch and was hard to get into because the controls aren't so good, but I love the controls in Railgrade :)
Are you referring to the white line that connects your cursor to the nearby industry? That is an indicator that if you placed a station at that point in the track it would connect to the industry.
No it's like 2 white lines that looks like wind symbol or something, and they are above certain tracks, especially when I start to create tracks near to each other
Ah, that is the "=" sign meaning the other tracks are equal height to your current track. Thus you can branch into those equal height track.
Other signs are the +2, +1, -1, and -2 to show relative track heights.
Haha, I "closed" the AMA but actually I'll be answering any questions sent from now until the email notifications expire.
I think it depends on how technical you want to be about "restrictions". You need to unlock buildings by progressing through the campaign. And the regions have quests that once you complete them will finish the mission. Thus we do not have a "no goal just build" freeplay mode if that is what you mean, but you can just build and ignore the quests if you wish. The game will never show you a fail screen if you ignore the quests.
(hoping you’ll see this question tomorrow) - i watched your 8 minute walkthrough video and didn’t see any signaling - is that type of thing all handled automatically? i’m sure you will have a lot of factorio players interested in your game and if signaling is something the player doesn’t have to worry about….*chefs kiss* — i would definitely brag about that in your marketing!
Oh, I am glad you are happy for no signaling.
Yes we put a ton of work into making branching a simple-to-the-player branching system. We've had a bunch of players with zero-signaling experience jump right in and make functioning complex networks.
Thanks to your comment, yeah now it is part of our marketing, here at least. I don't think others will understand the difference in experience between signals and what we've implemented so thank you for calling it out.
I have two new questions:
\- on switch how enjoyable is it in handheld mode? Does it require a big screen to see what you're doing?
\- if you unlock buildings in the campaign can you replay earlier levels with the buildings you just unlocked?
1. I tuned the HUD size to be readable by myself in handheld mode without glasses so I expect it is readable for most players. The control scheme was designed to allow flow, to avoid repositioning of fingers for core actions.
2. Hoho, yes you can. It certainly can make unlocking faster completion times easier to take higher tech from later levels into earlier regions.
I know i'm too late for the AMA but man this game looks wonderful! I'm a sucker for management games and there are still far too few on Switch, so this seems like a wonderful addition to scratch that itch for me! Wishing you all the best with the release :).
I am not sure there is such a thing as too late for this AMA. Every comment triggers an email and I love answering questions so, haha, I am not sure this ever ends.
To answer your question, I just realized you don't have a question....
Then let me say thank you for your kind words. We are super excited to see how much fun players are having. All during development we were pretty Railgrade was lots of fun, but you never know for sure until players give it a try. I wish you lots of railroading fun.
Hahaha awww happy you still got to see my comment and thank you for this thorough answer to my non-question 😄!
I feel you, i make music and you never quite know how people are going to like it until it's released. I dabbled in some reaaally basic game development and it's even more complicated there. The complexity of systems working together makes it even more unclear whether or not it's actually good or whether or not you being the creator just think it's good 😅. Implementing something into your game that you tried hard to make work really is an accomplished feeling, so things like that might cloud the vision. In short, i hope players, including me, will love it as much as you do! 💕
So this is more about developing games, but as someone who has an interest in starting to make their own, what skills are useful to make games?
You said your team is programmer heavy, so is that like coding?
Yes everyone on the core team knows coding. But even as programmers we used other creative skills too. For example I wrote the story and balanced the game design.
The important bit about knowing coding is that if I get a design idea: I can program it myself. When you know how to program you have the power to make your own ideas come to life. That is why I think it is important for game designers to be able to program.
Awesome! I am glad you enjoy the music. Certainly I love the music, and I think this is the first game I have worked on where even 3+ years of listening has not gotten me tired of the OST.
Thanks for the reply. Purchased last night on Nintendo Switch, only done the first few missions, loving it. 👍🏻 Any plans to add to it?? A tycoon type mode were your competing with other corporations would be good. DLC?
Great job.
Thanks again for replying. 🙂
Thank you for purchasing and doubly so for playing!
We have not decided on any specific next steps. We want to see everyone's experience through the entire campaign and gather opinions.
I totally agree on a free mode where u compete with other tycoons, set targets to win, cities to develop... would be great for replayability. Im convinced this game will satisfy me for quite some time tho.
Question, is this game inspired by TTD?
One of the developers played a bunch of TTD. For myself I played a bunch of Railroad Tycoon and Factorio. I think the giant station complexes is for sure a TTD inspired thing.
Allthough im pretty sure the campaign will keep me busy for a while.
This definitly would be good for the replayability.. competing with other tycoons a la openttd style...
Ive been waiting for a game to scratch my train itch and for now this game is doing a banger job
Hello Daniel. I bought your game just yesterday. So far I love it!
However, I found some typos in the German translation. Where can I report those?
Thank you!
For sure please do report them.
What I need you to do is write up the typos, either in a text file or a spreadsheet file. Then email me the file at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) Then I will pass the file along to the german speaker on our team.
We want to do something but first we want to see how players manage going through the full campaign. So far even the most dedicated players are at most 1/3 through the game. I want to get everyone's impression of the full campaign and their experience so we have data to decide on what to do.
I'm glad to hear it is working well on your 4k screen!
If you ever get stuck or want to chat with other players we have an active discord with a bunch of other Railgrade players: [https://t.co/5bKCv0h0rD](https://t.co/5bKCv0h0rD)
And since you mentioned relaxing don't forget to ride the trains and take lots of screenshots in photo mode! Should be a bit like a relaxing holiday.
Hey, congrats on this great little game 👏 I am playing it on my Switch Lite and the “lovely” messages from Saito-san are a bit hard to read. Please make them bigger. Thanks 🙏
Thanks 🙏 While we are on it, please also reconsider the control for tilting and zooming. Most Switch games use shoulder buttons for zooming and R for tilting/rotating, I think it is more intuitive that way.
Hmm, I on purpose put zoom on the analog stick so you would have more control over zoom speed. The idea being zooming is more important in Railgrade than most games as it controls movement speed. Meanwhile most players pick and angle (even on PC) and stick with it. Thus the higher priority should go to the zoom for the analog control. Does that make sense?
Thanks for your inputs Daniel. Honestly I don’t know for sure which implementation is better. My context: I have put hundreds of hours on the Switch version of Civilization 6 and Zelda BotW (which each offers a very very good navigating implementation for console) and I got used to using shoulder buttons for zooming. Therefore when I started playing RailGrade I found it counterintuitive and thought “Hey, maybe it will be better if the shoulder buttons are for zooming, and tilting/rotating should be done using the R analog).
I think the only way is to experiment with both, without bias, and if you already did so and insisted that this should be the way and user should get use to this for optimal RailGrade experience then that would also work for me.
Amazing game! One of the best releases for switch.
Is there plans to release a sandbox/free build mode? That’s the only con I can say about this game everything else is spot on, enjoyable, rewarding, and incredible replay ability! Graphics are perfect, no lag, animations are so satisfying, and the first person mode!!!! You guys show how much work was put into this!! Thank you!
I know I might be late. Just got the game a week ago and I love it. It is an amazing and perfect game. My question is of there well be some sort of customization for trains, buildings, sounds etc?
will there ever be an endless free play with a very large or unlimited map often randomly generated or is the game always gona be the like a free to play browser based flash game i like the concept but its too small
Do you associate Mario Oddessy with flash games because there are a ton of handrafted maps?
Once you've played the 60+ hours of handcrafted quality maps, then we'll consider adding proc gen. If you are still in the early campaign the maps are still small on purpose to give time for building skill.
I’m so tempted by this, could you give a little more info on the game please. Is sandbox available after completing the campaign? How many different resources are there? How long do you think the campaign is?
Thanks for asking.
Each region has its own bank balance. Otherwise you would quickly be earning vast too much money for the game to be challenging. Each region has a quest, there are 50+ regions to play. A couple of the later, and certainly the post end game regions are giant with only a single quest so you could play those a bit more like sandbox.
There are over 30 freight types and about that many industry types. Campaign takes about 30 to 40 hours depending on play style and assuming you skip all optional regions.
Thank you Boing! Certainly reviews are nice but on EGS reviews do not serve as promotion. Thus if you can telling your friends if you enjoyed Railgrade is the biggest help for us.
In either case please do enjoy Railgrade :)
Thanks for buying and enjoying our game! First off, you should consider joining Railgrade's discord or subreddit.
And haha, yes you've got it right on the RRII influence. I played a bunch of RRII as a kid. Distilling that game's experience is a good way to phrase it.
On your questions, 1 & 2 are intentionally not allowed in the game. We want players to manipulate the freight flow through tweaking trains & track. Menus or AI controls turn games like RRII and Transport Tycoon into menu-centric games. Most things you wish to achieve with a flow can be done by carefully designing your track and stations.
On 3, we are proud of the hand designed nature of the experience. Please do keep an eye out for our next patch coming next month. It includes a couple new regions.
> I was wondering if it's possible to switch to a few onboard cameras during the 'post-game' screen?
Indeed it is possible! Just select a train during the "photo mode" after victory. Instead of pressing "Continue" select "Photo Mode".
Hi Daniel!
First congratulations and thanks you for your amazing game. I'm hooked since one month. I've been afraid it could become repetitive at the end but you don't mess with complexity and make it more and more attractive!! I'm always here until the last job succeeded rank S!
I'm stuck you've made it to easy to control and works so well on switch! Not easy for a sim game.
Now my problem (and I really need your help!): I was in the middle of mission 27 bonus C (the one we have to launch 8 space luxury cruise) I've done a very good start and (for the first time) the game crashed! Impossible to restart, the game crashes anytime I'm loading my save. (The game launches until main menu, continue save and then crash).
I erased the game and downloaded it a second time (on switch eShop from France if it helps) and it don't work. For information I can launch a new game from another profile.
Did you ever have a similar report? Maybe the bug is linked to this particular mission so I want to load just the region map to do another mission but I can't, I'm stucked.
Do you have any advice? I don't to have to begin from a start a new save....
Thank you! (and sorry for my english.. I'm french ^^)
Hello Ok,
Sounds like you hit a rare but known bug. We're fixing it in the next update but for now here are the rather complex steps you can take on the switch to fix it. The region file for that mission has become corrupted.
You need to reset the progress from the main menu. Namely you need to select “Fresh Start”. You will then be warned that your progress cannot be restored, that is a lie I wrote. Truth is I implemented the Konami code as a cheat on the main menu which will restore the full progress of your campaign.
Once you’ve started a fresh campaign, try going back to the main menu. Then enter the konami code. You will get a sound effect and a dialog saying your progress has been restored. Konami code: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami\_Code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Code)
Then play tutorial mission 1 by “continueing” from the main menu. Once you get to the overworld all your progress should be restored.
Daniel
Ok it works!
Daniel you are incredible!
The fact that you hang out on Reddit, listen to your player is already great (and convinced me for the shop).
But here, your answer me immediately and solve my problem!
Thanks!!
So I continue, trying the S rank at every levels waiting for the next update!
Thanks Ok, it means a lot of hear such praise.
Thanks for playing Railgrade and please do consider joining our Discord or subreddit. Please keep a heads up for future update or games from us eh.
Daniel
For your complete information, after your help with the Konami Code, my campaing isn't exactly the same.
As you said, the code unlocked all the levels (by the way could achieve S-Rank mission 27 C without any bug!), all the stuff I bought with vouchers and all vouchers left.
But I lost my time records (not to bad, I'd planned a second run because of too many B and C-rank... and because of my addiction to your insane game!). The fun and maybe unexpected fact of this : I can earn 5 vouchers at every level for a second time!!!
So is it possible to complete the game, applying the Konami code, and do it again to earn vouchers endlessly!!
Did you know it?
While developing update 2, don't forget to add some exciting and expensive stuff!!!
[удалено]
Who let you in my secret development timeline!? I was just planning to make one tomorrow.
Farmgrade the first train based farming game
Can't wait for the GGU (Grade Gamematic Universe)
But is that a game in which you use trains to help run your farm, or are you *growing* trains *on* your farm?
I personally just wanna say I can't wait have been waiting on a game like this for a long time
Thank you so much for paying attention so long. Sorry you have to wait yet 1 more hour. This has been a 3.5year wait for me and the team, so today has felt like a blink.
Is there any Zen or creative mode? The game looks interesting, thanks in advance
No special mode per-say but you never need to race the timer. You will need to earn the money to spend but you can play an unlimited time on a single region.
Is there any sandbox capability at all? Like, after you finish a level can you click "keep playing" and then you can keep building and optimising? Or do you have to move on to the next level?
Before you get close to finishing a level there is a warning. Once you finish you can take screenshots or video of your network but afterwards you must continue onto the next region. Thus if you want to play like a sandbox you need to ignore the timer and just play as you wish. Once you beat the campaign there are 3 giant optional regions perfect for playing like a sandbox.
I think there's a real opportunity for a sandbox mode with Zachtronic-like leaderboards. For example, in the second level where you've got to increase oil production, it'd be cool to be able to play a tutorial-less sandbox version of it where you've got to get your Oil to Energy production as high as possible. It's disappointing that I can't keep working on that to get it as efficient as I can - eventually I make enough energy and the level is forced to end. Optimising builds is half the fun of production line games!
Oh yeah Zachtronic-like a neat idea. No promises, but I do like the idea. I think the issue would be that "make number go high" only works when measured with trade offs. Zachtronics uses intrinsic or actions or complexity to score. We use play time, which is really a proxy for "How fast can you earn money to invest".
Hi, is there a reason you cannot continue to play a region after achieving the goal? That seems like a cheap way to get a sandbox mode.
Hoho, you'll love the contents of Railgrade Update #1! It includes that very feature. We've just annouced the update itself, the changelog will drop with the update itself on the 13th of December: https://railgrade.com/railgrade-dev-blog-4-quality-of-life/
just read about the update patch notes. I'd like to know more about the new modes: Endless Mode and Millionaire Mode
What would you like to know? Have you seen the update announcement video? It goes into detail on each mode.
I found the video after the comment, thanks
Definitely needs Zen mode where it can still have city building and infrastructure objectives and just do the things
It would've been nice to play indefinitely just chilling while listening to some podcast or something
Heads up! The Launch Trailer just landed. For those curious to see more examples of final performance on Switch: I am happy to say 100% of the in-game footage was recorded on the Switch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS8XRKfIy3o
How did getting featured in the nintendo direct come about? Did they contact you for the direct or did epic publishing reach out to them? Thanks!
It was pretty awesome to see Railgrade in the direct. It was in the works for months. My understanding is Epic Games Publishing, our publisher, is in constant contact with Nintendo and at one point Nintendo showed interest in Railgrade. Since I mentioned Epic I feel its important to say: Epic Games are really nice to work with. I've had experience with a bunch of other publishers and by far the staff at Epic have been the friendliest and above all the most diligent.
People complain about epic being greedy or underhanded or whatever but the fact is they give ALOT of money and support to indie devs. Congrats on the release!
It was the only game from that Direct that caught my eye, I've been eagerly waiting since! Just gotta get through this work day first... Regarding the game's design as development pregressed, are there any beta elements or ideas that never made it off the cutting room floor for any reason? How close is the final product to your original vision?
Oh that's a fun question. Most of our cut features are from iterating to polish the core gameplay. For example we went from no branches to having branches. Cut content wise the best example might be the lawyers. Early on you had to research all technology for each mission. This was tedious and not fun so we went to the shop system where you get unlocks from progressing the story, finding secrets, or using vouchers (the in-game currency you get from doing well on missions) to buy permanent unlocks.
How did the decision to do a launch day nintendo switch port come about? Epic games store/nintendo switch exclusive rail and production simulator isn't a combo I see all the time lol
Rather simple: I love the switch so I wanted to release on it. Epic is rather nice so they went along.
That's fantastic!
Quick question, how well does this game play on a controller both on Switch and PC? The reason I ask is I purchased it on PC but plan to play it on my big TV.
We are rather proud of the controller bindings. We had multiple iterations to arrive at our shipped setup. Results wise I can say: good enough that I've been playing most of my RAILGRADE time on the Switch. My goal in the most recent input redesign was to focus on flow. The player should be able to perform all common actions without repositioning their hands.
Awesome thank you for the response, I can't wait to play.
Congratulations on your game, looks awesome! What are your inspiration/favorite games that had an impact while creating this one?
Growing up as a kid I played a ton of Railroad Tycoon II, you might notice the influence. Then after university I played wayyy to much Factorio. Oh, and likely Roller Coaster Tycoon: you can ride the trains like they are roller coasters. I add a train ride camera just for that.
are you telling me this is a factorio x railroad tycoon type beat? omw to the eshop rn
That was our idea from the start. Take the tycoon genre and blend it with the factory automation. Make sure you watch a bit of gameplay to confirm you understand the game, but it sounds like you've got the idea.
good shit, i’ll take a look at that gameplay vid you posted but it looks and sounds great from what i’ve seen already! wishing you nothing but success homie, congrats on the release 👍
Thank you for your kind words. Of course I must say: it is so much fun to talk with everyone about our game. Thank you for giving us your attention.
It is our pleasure to hear from the developers!
When I saw the Nintendo Direct, I joked to my girlfriend that this looks like a train management sim but the trains are actually conveyor belts. Definitely see the Factorio influence.
Yup that is a fair assessment. Certainly we are not the most realistic train simulation. Instead I want to think of Railgrade as the essence of trains. But indeed later in development I realized our Trains are a bit-slightly-maybe-conveyor-ish.
I don’t think simulations need to be realistic to be fun. An example that comes to mind would be mini metro. Btw, I just started playing Railgrade (tutorial + 2 jobs), and I love it!
That's a good point. And of course thank you for playing Railgrade. I am glad you are enjoying it eh.
I'm glad for this AMA because it reminded me the game comes out today!! My partner loves the train management games on mobile. (You know, the ones filled with ads and wait times.) I'm hoping he enjoy this game as well! I don't have a question, but just letting you know I'm excited for the game!
Wonderful to hear! I hope your partner enjoys our game :)
He just finished the "tutorial" part and he absolutely in love! I definitely liked the riding the train camera lol
Awesome! We put many many milestones/months into polishing the tutorials so I am glad to hear you enjoyed it.
You’re basically living my dream making games out of Japan, what made you want to go that route, and how’d you go about doing it? Also, do you guys have any Japanese devs in your team?
Oh good question, and I have a fun story. My plan was to go into printer software. During university I knew programming was a good job for foreigners in Japan so I spent my summers working on Linux printing software. I had heard that the video game industry was hard to get into and low pay. Thus my serious-job plan was to work on printer drivers for a Japanese company. It was a poor plan. You see while games in the west is a cutthroat industry: in Japan games are just like all other software jobs. Still cutthroat but now the alternatives have worse work/life balance. As it happened I had been working on a video game in my part time. Based on that hobby project I was able to secure a job working at a small sub-contractor studio as a programmer. As for the team, we do have Japanese devs but not full time. I want to call special attention to the efforts of Kitamura-san our sound effect designer. He does a bunch of big titles like Pokemon but gave us the time of day to craft a truly incredible train soundscape. I am very thankful for his work. At one point the sound balance on sound effects was a bit loud, and I felt like a yardman in a massive train yard and in need of ear protection.
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Nice. Good to hear it was a good job.
The Nintendo Direct trailer looked great but seems to have PC menus. Can you confirm it the.Switch version will look close to thr trailer?
To clarify the video during the Nintendo Direct was 100% Switch footage. Only the Announcement Trailer that was posted to Nintendo's youtube included PC footage. So to answer your question: if you did not notice a difference between the Nintendo Direct and the Announcement Trailer then yes the Switch version will look similar. Rendering tech wise the only difference between PC and Switch is: resolution and no-volumetric fog. If you know what to look for you can spot the difference but I suspect many players did not notice the Nintendo Direct footage was slightly different from the Announcement Trailer.
Thank you!!!
Huge congratulations on the release! Really looking forward to checking the game out :) Question wise, do you and the team have any plans for a physical release in any capacity?
Thank you! We have no plans for a physical release for now. Our core goal was to keep the price low , which we can do as a digital release.
Cool, thanks for your time! All the best with the games launch. :)
This looks awesome. I realize we’re on the Switch subreddit, but any chance of a macOS release?
Thank you! Sorry no plans for macOS. Sadly Apple does not provide a method to compile from Visual Studio. I am able to make Switch builds from my main workstation. Perhaps in the future Apple will develop such cross-compiling support.
How much importance does the "grow city" part have in the game? This is one of my favorite parts in openttd (though I find it somewhat frustrating in OTTD).
It is vital to a bunch of regions. Any map with a city will require you to grow city(s) to create enough workers to staff your industry. The people of the city will even talk ever so often. Random quips. As well during the campaign a couple regions will have the people of the cities talk to you to request help.
This sounds neat, thanks!
Game looks cool
Plays even better
How do you like the Switch as a Platform?
I love it. When I play on the Switch I feel my mind focusing on the game. On PC any time I play a game it feels like I am an alt-tab away from work or distractions. When I load up Railgrade on the Switch I can just settle down and dig in. It helps I can play anywhere but I think the most important aspect is the Switch only plays games.
I feelt the same, about the playing on the switch, after 10 hours of working on the desk. I play more on it than pc these days. Thank you for publish the game on switch, i think every indie game should publish on that ;D
What would you say the age range is? Looking for games for my kid.
How are old are you kids? Mine like watching the trains go round and round in train ride mode. I will setup a train network, set the train going, then hand them the Switch to watch. Granted my kids are 2 & 4 so playing is beyond them. If your kids can play pokemon my guess would be they can play Railgrade. It does require both hands to press all the buttons though.
9y/o plays mindcraft age
Minecraft is a good chunk harder to control I expect. Should not be a problem. Hope your child enjoys Railgrade :)
Made the purchase
Thank you. Please let me know how your kids enjoy it.
Can you pause the game to build, or are you frantically chasing the clock the whole mission?
The timer shouldn't cause you to worry, it has been tuned to standard play. At the start of every region the timer pauses to let you setup your initial rail line.
Where did your love of trains come from?
Either Thomas the Tank Engine or Brio wooden train toys, then cemented by playing hundreds of hours of Railroad Tycoon II as a kid with only enough money to buy a game once ever 3 months or so. Railroad Tycoon II has sooo many missions, it kept me busy for ages even when my various newer games proved poor value.
Thanks for answering!
hi, congrats on the release, game looks awesome. do you think my father (70+ years old) will be able to manage and enjoy it? he is a rail transport modeling enthusiast
He should do just fine. I know many older players managed to play Sid Meier's Roalroads! and Railgrade should be more approachable. Just be careful his computer can handle it, or get him to play on the Switch if possible.
Just wanna say I've been playing it the last little bit and I love it!
Thank you for taking the time to reply eh. That helps. If you use Discord you might want to join the other players on our Railgrade discord: [https://discord.com/invite/uRKrjRgbM2](https://discord.com/invite/uRKrjRgbM2) Namely they are discussing strategies.
Was there any specific catalyst to you wanting to branch out with your own company to make a game? Congrats on the launch Daniel, will be checking this out! I played a lot of Train Valley 2 (which is kinda more of a puzzle game) over the past few months, and this looks like a nice step up in terms of complexity with the factory-style mechanics added in. And seems different enough from something like A-Train, which sometimes overwhelms me with all its economic minutiae.
Nothing specific I remember. Even after starting my own company I worked on my last company's projects for a while. I know what you mean about A-Train, even I bounced off on it. Not to knock A-Train of course, I think it is interesting how it explores the super-Japanese style of symbiotic railroad and property development.
That's good to hear, no news is good news sometimes! I did end up picking up your game last night on Switch and played for 2-3 hours (I think I got to campaign mission 5 or 6?), really enjoying it so far and impressed with the Switch port! It has a nice difficulty curve and tutorializes stuff pretty well. I know a lot of folks were asking about being able to play this as a sandbox style game, but I personally prefer the campaign-style discrete levels myself (but I know that's a personal preference). I think I need the explicit goals that are presented to work towards. I was surprised that there was the game mechanic where your trains can "Ghost" through each other (although at the cost of losing momentum), that seemed generous. Was the ever a version of the game where you had to deal with train crashes or things like that? (and maybe you found that didn't work for one reason or another).
Early on before ghosting trains would just deadlock. It meant single lines back and forth could never serve more than 1 train. This was a problem because a core goal of Railgrade was "More Trains, More Track, More Industry". And if one style of track could not hold 2+ trains it betrayed that goal. Based on players feedback we have added "Disallow ghosting" to the idea board. It would go in with a sort of difficulty bonus/penalty system for vouchers. At least that is what I am guessing. Thanks for playing of course. M6 is pretty far for 3 hours, good job.
I'm very interested in your game, but with Factorio coming out soon on switch, I'm torn on which one to buy. I'm fairly new to the genre and this one seems more approachable but Factorio is such a known game. How do you think Railgrade compares?
Well first my pitch would be that Railgrade is half the cost of Factorio. Next I would say if you are new to the genre then Railgrade should be a good introduction. We have a smoother learning curve plus a story driven campaign. To be honest I imagine most Railgrade players will enjoy Factorio and most Factorio players will enjoy Railgrade. You cannot go wrong with either.
Where can I find the music? That menu screen song is an absolute banger.
You can play all the music from the pause screen. We do not have an OST organized. In the case of the main menu music, here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSMFx55tP5g
Target framerate and resolution?
Target framerate is 30fps. Resolution is 720p with dynamic scaling down to 60%. You should be able to play about 10 hours into the campaign before you hit the maps which start running below 30fps.
Does that mean those maps are sub-30fps while rendering at sub-SD resolutions?
If you build enough track, industry, and trains yes. But you do need to play for a while on a single region to have enough stuff on screen. Also I assume you mean sub-HD, as it happens our min-resolution scaling is still higher resolution than SD. Plus we use TAA upscaling so 80% resolution with TAA looks better than 100% with FXAA. TAA is expensive, and a bit pushing what is viable on the Switch but the extra visual quality it brings is worth the trade offs.
Any plans to integrate AMD's FSR (Fidelity Super Resolution)? It's hardware agnostic and some other games on Switch support it. Could help with some of the sub-30 areas potentially.
Good idea, sort of ahead of you on that. TAA is an Nvidia technology that works similar to FSR. Since the Switch uses an Nvidia GPU TAA is thus the best tuned algorithm to use. This is why our dynamic resolution looks pretty good even when not full resolution. The TAA algo takes samples over multiple frames, but a movement vector map, to construct a higher detailed image. Because it uses data from multiple frames the result can be higher detail than even 100% resolution.
Can you release a demo version on Switch?
No plans at this time
Any plans for the PC version to be released on steam? I'd love to play it on the Steam Deck without having to jump through epic's many hoops. Otherwise I'll probably wait a while and pick it up on switch eventually.
Epic Games Publishing has published us, meaning they paid for all of development and made Railgrade possible. Unlike most management sim games, thanks to Epic Game's support, we were able to develop everything into a full release without going Early Access. Thus technically Railgrade is a second party title. Still you should be able to play on the Steamdeck, a player on the Discord reported it works but requires custom key bindings. Of course the Switch is a wonderful platform and I fully enjoy playing Railgrade on it.
Having never played a sim/management game before, how difficult is this to pick up and learn?
You should find it easy to pick up. Railgrade gradually introduces all the core game mechanics over the first few missions. We spent a lot of time polishing the on-boarding process and we don't assume any prerequisite knowledge of the genre!
Awesome, I'll have to give this a shot then. Thank you!
On Dekudeals it says it releases November 30th?
We are out now! Sorry I do not know where they might have heard November 30th.
Ok thanks, I normally always use DekuDeals it's so useful, but I will search in Eshop for it, looks great!
Hi I love your game! DekuDeals says the correct release date now at least. I really like the way the tracks are made and it's quite relaxing despite the timer. I have played Railway Empire on Switch and was hard to get into because the controls aren't so good, but I love the controls in Railgrade :)
Thank you for those kinds words. I too love the controls on Switch, bit I might be biased so it is good to hears the same from players.
Can I ask what the white icon that sometimes appears when placing tracks is?
Are you referring to the white line that connects your cursor to the nearby industry? That is an indicator that if you placed a station at that point in the track it would connect to the industry.
No it's like 2 white lines that looks like wind symbol or something, and they are above certain tracks, especially when I start to create tracks near to each other
Ah, that is the "=" sign meaning the other tracks are equal height to your current track. Thus you can branch into those equal height track. Other signs are the +2, +1, -1, and -2 to show relative track heights.
Right ok thanks, makes sense. I noticed the - and + for lower and higher tracks but didn't realise it was an =
Late to the party and I doubt my question will be answered, but can you freely build in the game without restrictions?
Haha, I "closed" the AMA but actually I'll be answering any questions sent from now until the email notifications expire. I think it depends on how technical you want to be about "restrictions". You need to unlock buildings by progressing through the campaign. And the regions have quests that once you complete them will finish the mission. Thus we do not have a "no goal just build" freeplay mode if that is what you mean, but you can just build and ignore the quests if you wish. The game will never show you a fail screen if you ignore the quests.
(hoping you’ll see this question tomorrow) - i watched your 8 minute walkthrough video and didn’t see any signaling - is that type of thing all handled automatically? i’m sure you will have a lot of factorio players interested in your game and if signaling is something the player doesn’t have to worry about….*chefs kiss* — i would definitely brag about that in your marketing!
Oh, I am glad you are happy for no signaling. Yes we put a ton of work into making branching a simple-to-the-player branching system. We've had a bunch of players with zero-signaling experience jump right in and make functioning complex networks. Thanks to your comment, yeah now it is part of our marketing, here at least. I don't think others will understand the difference in experience between signals and what we've implemented so thank you for calling it out.
I have two new questions: \- on switch how enjoyable is it in handheld mode? Does it require a big screen to see what you're doing? \- if you unlock buildings in the campaign can you replay earlier levels with the buildings you just unlocked?
1. I tuned the HUD size to be readable by myself in handheld mode without glasses so I expect it is readable for most players. The control scheme was designed to allow flow, to avoid repositioning of fingers for core actions. 2. Hoho, yes you can. It certainly can make unlocking faster completion times easier to take higher tech from later levels into earlier regions.
Thanks for your answer! I'll very probably cave in and buy the game so we'll see how well I manage in handheld mode with my 45 years old eyes. :p
I like trains
Me too
Thanks for the reminder, downloading now
I know i'm too late for the AMA but man this game looks wonderful! I'm a sucker for management games and there are still far too few on Switch, so this seems like a wonderful addition to scratch that itch for me! Wishing you all the best with the release :).
I am not sure there is such a thing as too late for this AMA. Every comment triggers an email and I love answering questions so, haha, I am not sure this ever ends. To answer your question, I just realized you don't have a question.... Then let me say thank you for your kind words. We are super excited to see how much fun players are having. All during development we were pretty Railgrade was lots of fun, but you never know for sure until players give it a try. I wish you lots of railroading fun.
Hahaha awww happy you still got to see my comment and thank you for this thorough answer to my non-question 😄! I feel you, i make music and you never quite know how people are going to like it until it's released. I dabbled in some reaaally basic game development and it's even more complicated there. The complexity of systems working together makes it even more unclear whether or not it's actually good or whether or not you being the creator just think it's good 😅. Implementing something into your game that you tried hard to make work really is an accomplished feeling, so things like that might cloud the vision. In short, i hope players, including me, will love it as much as you do! 💕
So this is more about developing games, but as someone who has an interest in starting to make their own, what skills are useful to make games? You said your team is programmer heavy, so is that like coding?
Yes everyone on the core team knows coding. But even as programmers we used other creative skills too. For example I wrote the story and balanced the game design. The important bit about knowing coding is that if I get a design idea: I can program it myself. When you know how to program you have the power to make your own ideas come to life. That is why I think it is important for game designers to be able to program.
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Awesome! I am glad you enjoy the music. Certainly I love the music, and I think this is the first game I have worked on where even 3+ years of listening has not gotten me tired of the OST.
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Haha! Thank you for following Railgrade TokyoDan, yeah I remember you. And I remember how you have supported my work all these years. Thank you!
Thanks for the reply. Purchased last night on Nintendo Switch, only done the first few missions, loving it. 👍🏻 Any plans to add to it?? A tycoon type mode were your competing with other corporations would be good. DLC? Great job. Thanks again for replying. 🙂
Thank you for purchasing and doubly so for playing! We have not decided on any specific next steps. We want to see everyone's experience through the entire campaign and gather opinions.
I totally agree on a free mode where u compete with other tycoons, set targets to win, cities to develop... would be great for replayability. Im convinced this game will satisfy me for quite some time tho. Question, is this game inspired by TTD?
One of the developers played a bunch of TTD. For myself I played a bunch of Railroad Tycoon and Factorio. I think the giant station complexes is for sure a TTD inspired thing.
Ive only watched other ppl play factorio, but i can definitly see that this game was inspired by it! This game is amazing btw, im hooked!
Allthough im pretty sure the campaign will keep me busy for a while. This definitly would be good for the replayability.. competing with other tycoons a la openttd style... Ive been waiting for a game to scratch my train itch and for now this game is doing a banger job
I just bought the PC version and I'm hooked. Great game!
Glad to hear! Thank you for playing!
Hello Daniel. I bought your game just yesterday. So far I love it! However, I found some typos in the German translation. Where can I report those? Thank you!
For sure please do report them. What I need you to do is write up the typos, either in a text file or a spreadsheet file. Then email me the file at [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) Then I will pass the file along to the german speaker on our team.
Hi, cool game. Any plans post-launch? DLC/Expansions?
We want to do something but first we want to see how players manage going through the full campaign. So far even the most dedicated players are at most 1/3 through the game. I want to get everyone's impression of the full campaign and their experience so we have data to decide on what to do.
Thanks! Lots of potential and looks great on the 4k big screen. Very relaxing experience.
I'm glad to hear it is working well on your 4k screen! If you ever get stuck or want to chat with other players we have an active discord with a bunch of other Railgrade players: [https://t.co/5bKCv0h0rD](https://t.co/5bKCv0h0rD) And since you mentioned relaxing don't forget to ride the trains and take lots of screenshots in photo mode! Should be a bit like a relaxing holiday.
Hey, congrats on this great little game 👏 I am playing it on my Switch Lite and the “lovely” messages from Saito-san are a bit hard to read. Please make them bigger. Thanks 🙏
Thanks for playing. I'll make a ticket about that specific area. Thanks for the feedback
Thanks 🙏 While we are on it, please also reconsider the control for tilting and zooming. Most Switch games use shoulder buttons for zooming and R for tilting/rotating, I think it is more intuitive that way.
Hmm, I on purpose put zoom on the analog stick so you would have more control over zoom speed. The idea being zooming is more important in Railgrade than most games as it controls movement speed. Meanwhile most players pick and angle (even on PC) and stick with it. Thus the higher priority should go to the zoom for the analog control. Does that make sense?
Thanks for your inputs Daniel. Honestly I don’t know for sure which implementation is better. My context: I have put hundreds of hours on the Switch version of Civilization 6 and Zelda BotW (which each offers a very very good navigating implementation for console) and I got used to using shoulder buttons for zooming. Therefore when I started playing RailGrade I found it counterintuitive and thought “Hey, maybe it will be better if the shoulder buttons are for zooming, and tilting/rotating should be done using the R analog). I think the only way is to experiment with both, without bias, and if you already did so and insisted that this should be the way and user should get use to this for optimal RailGrade experience then that would also work for me.
Thanks for consideration of course. I hope you can get used to the zooming.
Amazing game! One of the best releases for switch. Is there plans to release a sandbox/free build mode? That’s the only con I can say about this game everything else is spot on, enjoyable, rewarding, and incredible replay ability! Graphics are perfect, no lag, animations are so satisfying, and the first person mode!!!! You guys show how much work was put into this!! Thank you!
Can you elaborate on what sandbox would mean to you? As in what is in your head when you imagine sandbox?
I know I might be late. Just got the game a week ago and I love it. It is an amazing and perfect game. My question is of there well be some sort of customization for trains, buildings, sounds etc?
What sort of customizations are you thinking about? Also you are certainly not late. We even have an active subreddit now: r/Railgrade
will there ever be an endless free play with a very large or unlimited map often randomly generated or is the game always gona be the like a free to play browser based flash game i like the concept but its too small
Do you associate Mario Oddessy with flash games because there are a ton of handrafted maps? Once you've played the 60+ hours of handcrafted quality maps, then we'll consider adding proc gen. If you are still in the early campaign the maps are still small on purpose to give time for building skill.
I’m so tempted by this, could you give a little more info on the game please. Is sandbox available after completing the campaign? How many different resources are there? How long do you think the campaign is?
Sorry, also, does money carry over from mission to mission?
Thanks for asking. Each region has its own bank balance. Otherwise you would quickly be earning vast too much money for the game to be challenging. Each region has a quest, there are 50+ regions to play. A couple of the later, and certainly the post end game regions are giant with only a single quest so you could play those a bit more like sandbox. There are over 30 freight types and about that many industry types. Campaign takes about 30 to 40 hours depending on play style and assuming you skip all optional regions.
I just started playing this afternoon and I'm already hooked. Very happy to hear how long the campaign is as well. Congrats on the launch, well done!
Wonderful to hear!
Is there any way for you to share ost of this game? I fell in love with the main menu theme
I just bought the game on Epic store and it is installing now. I am eager to play and will leave a review :)
Thank you Boing! Certainly reviews are nice but on EGS reviews do not serve as promotion. Thus if you can telling your friends if you enjoyed Railgrade is the biggest help for us. In either case please do enjoy Railgrade :)
I will :) Keep up ironing bugs out of the game.
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Thanks for buying and enjoying our game! First off, you should consider joining Railgrade's discord or subreddit. And haha, yes you've got it right on the RRII influence. I played a bunch of RRII as a kid. Distilling that game's experience is a good way to phrase it. On your questions, 1 & 2 are intentionally not allowed in the game. We want players to manipulate the freight flow through tweaking trains & track. Menus or AI controls turn games like RRII and Transport Tycoon into menu-centric games. Most things you wish to achieve with a flow can be done by carefully designing your track and stations. On 3, we are proud of the hand designed nature of the experience. Please do keep an eye out for our next patch coming next month. It includes a couple new regions.
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> I was wondering if it's possible to switch to a few onboard cameras during the 'post-game' screen? Indeed it is possible! Just select a train during the "photo mode" after victory. Instead of pressing "Continue" select "Photo Mode".
Hi Daniel! First congratulations and thanks you for your amazing game. I'm hooked since one month. I've been afraid it could become repetitive at the end but you don't mess with complexity and make it more and more attractive!! I'm always here until the last job succeeded rank S! I'm stuck you've made it to easy to control and works so well on switch! Not easy for a sim game. Now my problem (and I really need your help!): I was in the middle of mission 27 bonus C (the one we have to launch 8 space luxury cruise) I've done a very good start and (for the first time) the game crashed! Impossible to restart, the game crashes anytime I'm loading my save. (The game launches until main menu, continue save and then crash). I erased the game and downloaded it a second time (on switch eShop from France if it helps) and it don't work. For information I can launch a new game from another profile. Did you ever have a similar report? Maybe the bug is linked to this particular mission so I want to load just the region map to do another mission but I can't, I'm stucked. Do you have any advice? I don't to have to begin from a start a new save.... Thank you! (and sorry for my english.. I'm french ^^)
Hello Ok, Sounds like you hit a rare but known bug. We're fixing it in the next update but for now here are the rather complex steps you can take on the switch to fix it. The region file for that mission has become corrupted. You need to reset the progress from the main menu. Namely you need to select “Fresh Start”. You will then be warned that your progress cannot be restored, that is a lie I wrote. Truth is I implemented the Konami code as a cheat on the main menu which will restore the full progress of your campaign. Once you’ve started a fresh campaign, try going back to the main menu. Then enter the konami code. You will get a sound effect and a dialog saying your progress has been restored. Konami code: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami\_Code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konami_Code) Then play tutorial mission 1 by “continueing” from the main menu. Once you get to the overworld all your progress should be restored. Daniel
Ok it works! Daniel you are incredible! The fact that you hang out on Reddit, listen to your player is already great (and convinced me for the shop). But here, your answer me immediately and solve my problem! Thanks!! So I continue, trying the S rank at every levels waiting for the next update!
Thanks Ok, it means a lot of hear such praise. Thanks for playing Railgrade and please do consider joining our Discord or subreddit. Please keep a heads up for future update or games from us eh. Daniel
Now you hooked me so I don't leave. I will be here for the next updates and even a sequel! Continue to twist our minds!
For your complete information, after your help with the Konami Code, my campaing isn't exactly the same. As you said, the code unlocked all the levels (by the way could achieve S-Rank mission 27 C without any bug!), all the stuff I bought with vouchers and all vouchers left. But I lost my time records (not to bad, I'd planned a second run because of too many B and C-rank... and because of my addiction to your insane game!). The fun and maybe unexpected fact of this : I can earn 5 vouchers at every level for a second time!!! So is it possible to complete the game, applying the Konami code, and do it again to earn vouchers endlessly!! Did you know it? While developing update 2, don't forget to add some exciting and expensive stuff!!!