Train Station Simulator

I would love to enjoy this game, but even for early access it is over-simplified, lacks atmosphere and in general is no fun at all.: 1. you start from the scratch, but in fact you don't build any train station, just terminus, which is unusual kind of train station 2. you can't freely plan the tracks, thus you are forced to build an open-space kind of station 3. you can't create any buildings (just put up walls, which have no real use) 4. a lot of elements are ready-made object that can't be modified (f.e. you can put ticket booth, but can't build indoor ticket counter, you can't just assign room to be converted into bar or toilet, you can only place them as an object) 5. you can adapt link between arriving trains and buses, but you can't see the time table for both of them at the same time 6. you have to build separate bus stops for each kind of buses, which makes no sense at all 7. changes of the timetable are more annoying than add anything to the gameplay And worst of all is that the game has no purpose - you build elements, collect money, build some more and... that's it! It doesn't feel that you have influence on most of the game mechanics

Good concepted but a few issues that stopped me loving this game: 1. Your train time table needs resetting every evening, but sometimes it doesn't. Not sure if this is a bug or by design but there isn't any explanation either way 2. The placement of tile objects and walls means that any South and East facing walls cannot have objects placed next to them, which ultimately means you waste space 3. Removing a facility or object return zero cash to you. So if you place a $30,000 rest room incorrectly then hard luck. You lost the cash. 4. Facilities like restrooms and cafes which would logically be a "room" are just multi tile objects. This doesn't allow you to make a station as you want, you have to plan and build around the constrains of them 5. Objects and Facilities rotate but not always 360. EG Some only rotate to face South and East. This means again you are forced to build around these restictions. So a rest room which has an enterance/exit door can only be located with it's door facing S or E. 6. You cannot rotate the view, you're fixed to the iso view as shown in the screenshots. So positioning objects can be difficult EDIT: In an attempt to reply to the developer: I do not accept that it is "like real life" that you would lose all of your investment in moving a factility such as a rest room. Although some costs would be unrecoverable (such as tiling and pipework) the main assess such as sinks, toilets and urinals would in real life be taken and used in the new facility. It's bizare to even consider than by "moving" a restroom you would throw these things away only to purchase more of them! This is normally simulated in game by getting a part (normally 50%) return of the initial purchase cost. As for the rest or your answers, I believe they are more design decisions to masks gaps in your own skill and/or existing code base rather than actual decisions to enhance gameplay. Again, I cannot recommend the game in its current state, and as a lot of your answers are excuses as to why you don't want to address issues, then I cannot even hold out hope things will get better.

[h1]Introduction[/h1] There are dozens of railway management simulations on Steam. You might have already played some and you think that you know the basics and seen it all. Today I’m reviewing a game that wishes to focus even more on the management side and logistics of railway travel rather than setting up tracks between points A to B while constantly improving the means of transportation. No, Train Station Simulator just as its name suggests shall offer you a perspective into the intricacies of the gateway itself, so to speak. An ambitious Steam debut by Appliks Apps Studios with relatively few flaws and a lot of potential even in its current Early Access stage. [h1]Story[/h1] While campaign missions are certainly present in Train Station Simulator, an actual storyline is not. For now you’ll have to contend with the open-ended structure of the assignments given during each mission you tackle from the game’s Main Menu. They range in both complexity and duration. Some operations focus on restoring prebuilt train stations back to their former glory, yet the most challenging missions are still the ones related to full creative freedom while on a tight in-game budget. Even without a story, the title performs its tasks as expected and the only visible flaw I could notice in regards to its narrative structure, is the absence of a tutorial. “Pop-up” tips & tricks are hardly a substitute for a comprehensive explanation of the game’s features or even basic economy. It is perfectly fine for new players to try out economic simulations even without previous experience for this particular genre. We all started out from pretty much the same point before accumulating the needed know-how. Tutorials smoothed the transition from simple to complex gameplay mechanics, for a genre that’s more about creating virtual jobs and making an equally virtual profit instead of shooting people in the face. So Appliks Apps, please make your project accessible to all gamers on Steam and offer them a tutorial that might take them step by step towards their first successfully ran train station. The trial & error method is a viabile alternative, but it won’t endear you to economic sim novices. [h1]Graphics[/h1] The graphics engine powering Train Station Simulator is custom-made and not even Modb could pin it down to a certain asset manufacturer. It did remind me of my Roller Coaster Tycoon exploits from “back in the day”. If you’re going to say that the looks are not on par with the gameplay, know that true simulations never need eye candy in order to convey their intended vision for a focused job description. I’m not going to be hypocritical either and deny the many benefits of a full 3D environment, but my point refers to the efficiency of the game itself which given the genre we’re discussing now, the 2D assets are more than able to satisfy an established fan base. Never judge a book by its cover. [h1]Audio[/h1] Most sound assets are simplistic yet within acceptable parameters. Voice acting or not, there’s still a station announcer notifying passagers of incoming or outgoing trains. That was expected as were the various sound effects for the traffic outside the station or the restless crowd which doubles as your potential customers. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] Which brings us to the really strong points of this title. Commuters or simply occasional tourists represent your main source of income. In order to manage a successful train station you’ll need to cater to the many needs of any who enter the premises. Customers on one hand and the station employees on the other. I’m pleased by the attention to detail which went into the simulation of the human resources department. Any manager worth his salt knows that hiring staff is more than just the simple and more often than not, cold procedure of examining a dossier while seeking the best qualified person willing to work for the smallest paycheck. Low wages are obviously going to reflect into the same manner of services and level of motivation. The first lesson you’ll learn when starting a new mission in this game, is that respect is earned, not instantly won or enforced in any manner. You will have to hire individuals from several categories of the workforce, ranging from hygiene technicians, security personnel, engineers and last but not least, medical staff for any potential emergencies. By letting the players choose both the wage and the work hours, the dev team have included the options for working in multiple shifts while being able to set custom salaries. Maximizing profits may be the end goal of far too many greedy companies in our real life, but there’s no reason not to properly motivate your virtual employees and also keep the customer satisfaction on a similar level. Mutual respect is the key to long term profits. By focusing on the train station and its secondary amenities, you won’t be able to draft or influence routes but you can enhance the local infrastructure up until the point at which bullet trains will replace any other form of railway transportation. A hefty number of customers will overflow your station after you’ve built advanced bus stations or limousine parking lots. It may seem a bit strange that someone which can afford a limo service may travel by train instead of plane, but perhaps they might be afraid of the commercial aviation. Players shall keep a close eye on the needs and expectations of all who work inside the station or use it for traveling purposes. It goes without saying that maintaining the place properly cleaned, in working order and well decorated, shall draw in numerous customers and eventually extend your profit margin. Since there’s no pause button yet, players have to shift their focus between human and immaterial assets in real time. Pausing in strategy titles (economic sims are a form of strategy, of course) is vital. It should be an option as ubiquitous as saving the game state. I’ve learned through the initial slow development and even financial failures that you should only work on expanding and redecorating the train station outside of the working hours. You need as many customers as you can get during daytime and while you may conceive your next building projects whenever you wish, set those plans into motion at night. The old adage for “working smarter, not harder” is fitting like a glove in these continuous scenarios that can only be sped up and never paused. [h1]Verdict[/h1] More diversity for the visual and sounds assets or a simulated weather system would be welcome, but the crucial issues that require immediate attention stem from the lack of a pause option and a proper tutorial. There’s a decent amount of Achievements to stimulate players and one can only hope that Trading Cards could be introduced eventually. What’s certain however is that you won’t get bored even in the title’s Early Access. Do try out the sandbox mode with nearly unlimited funds, until you learn the ropes and feel confident enough for the challenging missions. Edit: Trading Cards have been implemented. [h1]Strong Points[/h1] + Replay value. + A simulation of decent complexity. + Steam Achievements & Trading Cards. [h1]Weak Points[/h1] - No option to pause the game. - Complete lack of a tutorial. [b]Rating 75/100 [/b] [quote]This review was submitted for [url=http://steamcommunity.com/groups/sgiveaways]SUPER Giveaways[/url], through the generous contribution of [url=http://steamcommunity.com/id/ghostalau]GhostalaÜ[/url] and the Steam Curator Connect program.[/quote]

tl;dr DO NOT BUY THIS GAME, NOT EVEN ON A 99% OFF SALE Everything this game does, a much more polished game called Overcrowd (also available on Steam) does far better and for cheaper too. Want to manage different rail tracks? This game makes you manually set the schedule for each train every two in-game days. If you fail to set the schedule, too bad. You now have punished yourself with a business day WITHOUT trains. Customers will flood your station, buy tickets, and then just sit there like morons as no trains arrive to pick them up. Overcrowd automates train schedules for you, allowing you to seamlessly adjust the length of tracks, frequency of trains, optional manual control of arrivals/departures, and boarding/alighting side. Initially, your trains have to be manually called, but if you get distracted in Overcrowd, the game autonomously calls trains for you after a long period of time, something TSS could have implemented but just didn't. Want diverse passenger types? This game's idea of diversity is some passengers pay more for tickets. That's it. As you'll see later on, it's so ridiculously easy to earn money in this game that this "diversity" is virtually nonexistent. Overcrowd has standard passengers that can get sick, injured, lost, late, angry, trampled in a stampede, scared, pass out from heat stroke, and even die! In addition, there are disruptive NPC passengers such as thieves, vandals, drunks, and brutes that just want to fight everyone, adding another layer of challenge to the game. Want to add employees to your station? This game has NPCs that serve no real purpose and are ineffective at their jobs. TSS's janitor NPCs can't keep a station clean, even if you pay them maximum salary, don't overwork them, and keep their happiness meter high. Overcrowd allows you to hire, train, and maintain a competent station staff that actually CLEANS THE STATION. Want challenge? This game literally has no real difficulty settings. Overcrowd has various scenarios that, even on the easy mode, can bankrupt your station or cause your station to shut down due to poor reputation if you're not careful. Challenges include high litter, wave of sick passengers, higher than normal traffic volume due to business conferences, drunk passengers coming from a soccer game that vomit and assault other passengers in the station, anarchists that destroy your appliances and set off stink bombs, and rat infestations. Want to have multiple floors? Sorry, one floor only. Overcrowd lets you do at least four. Want to rotate the camera? Sorry, not possible. Overcrowd is 2.5D (i.e., you can rotate between four isometric, 2D views). None of the building options in Train Station Simulator matter. Walls don't matter, you can't set fare control points (a MUST HAVE for any real train station; you can't simply walk through the front door and wait at the terminal of a real life station, but you can do that here in this game), many of the in game buildings don't work, you don't control where passengers enter the station, none of the passenger complaints matter because you will always turn a massive profit, the game wants you to use its scheduling system to link bus routes/tram routes/taxis etc. with your train schedules, but you can just ignore this and set all public transport to constantly show up, ignoring the entire system. In short, you have no penalty for making a terrible station. The final complaint is with the development itself. The dev(s) seem to want to add meaningless updates that only add little cosmetic features a la Yandere Simulator instead of working on core issues of the game. At its current state, Train Station Simulator is so unfinished that you can complete everything it has to offer within 2-3 hours of downloading it. There are two possible scenarios that explain this: 1) The devs are knowingly scamming players with a game they never intend to get out of Early Access. They will keep adding unneeded features instead of fixing the game's problems and then abandon the game in a few years when they've milked it dry and the Steam rating drops to Mostly Negative. 2) The devs are trying their best to make an indie game from scratch but they are overwhelmed with the process. They have many ideas on how to improve their game but are incapable of implementing them all, so they resort to the easy route of adding little cosmetic goodies and putting the occasional bug fix out instead of sitting down and polishing all the incomplete parts of the game before deciding to add new features. They simply haven't found the balance between playable game and game with variety. Shame Steam won't give me a refund because I happened to go to three hours (without knowing about their refund policy). ***Do not buy this game until the developers have actually fixed all the issues stated above.***

You cant lose and you dont have todo anything while youre playing the game, the game just is playing itself, just relax and watch you howre money is growing, i dont see any "simulation" here just a relaxing game where you can build youre "dream" train station. As iam wanting a more chalanging and rewarding game its nothing i could recommend. Walls are not importent, the bus station are just show, people came either way if you offer a ticket maschine...the rest is just for youre decoration and bonus income. You dont know how well things are selling if you click on them there is no information...just GOOOOOD as always ;-). I dislike the game i love the idea of managing a train station, but this isnt managing its just build stuff and place it how you like it.

If you are a fan of railways & simulators then this is a game I would reccomend. Yes it's in early access but I already feel this is going to be an excellent game with an enjoyable future as it develops. The developers are really engaged with the community & welcome thoughts/feedback. All in all if you like trains & Simulation games then this is one I think you will have fun with as even in early access you can already build good looking stations & I'm enjoying myself everytime I play this game. I wanted to update this review as the game has recently just had a Metro Station added as one of the transport options & I've found this is bringing my station even more passengers now. It's very nicely detailed & really is an excellent extra feature for the game. Also the game now gives you the option of taking out a bank loan as you build your station. So it should make things easier as you build or expand your station. Yes I can still 100% say I would reccomend this game.

tl;dr If you have ever played a tycoon game before, steer well clear of this. If you've never played any type of game before and have no expectations as to what a UI should look like, fill your boots! This game is truly terrible, clunky to the point of disbelief. I bought this two years ago and couldn't get on with it. Two years later I'm astounded that there have been regular updates because it is still a trainwreck. £14 are you high? You would struggle to fit a list of all the issues onto the Great Wall of China even with tiny handwriting, but here are a couple of very simple UI issues that make me think, if you can't get this right, why are you bothering? 1. Scroll-wheel zoom is inverted. Yes. I know. 2. There are tool-tips on one out of four menus, providing you don't already something in that menu open. 3. The tutorial is a joke. It gives multiple instructions at the same time, hoping you remember what all the menus are called, never highlighting or hinting. The instructions are badly formatted and poorly written. It refers to menu items that are not where it says they are. It never tells you _why_ you are doing anything. 4. I still have no idea what the winning or losing conditions of a campaign are. 5. Placing objects. "Press R to rotate". Oh, except the bathrooms. You gotta press R twice for that. What?

Don't buy, its abandoned.

Das Spiel wird scheinbar nicht weiterentwickelt seit über einem Jahr keinerlei Update, keine offiziellen Informationen ob wie oder ob das Spiel weiter entwickelt wird…

So the game looked pretty interesting at first glance but when I played it I sadly didnt really enjoy it. I found it a bit annoying that you need to re-schedule the timetable for every day. I guess thats part of the core "managing" theme of this game but meh, like I said, didn't enjoy it. But best of luck to the developer(s) with this game as it has potential!