I’ve been playing this game for the past couple of days. It doesn’t look like I’m going to be playing it today. I might have drunk my fill. It did engage the monotropic attention tunnel for me, and what’s interesting is how little game it took to do it.
Train Sim World is a sim. You have to stretch to call it a game. I had to make a character and give him a name, and he proceeded to collect points for doing things which allowed him to level up, but what those points and levels mean, I couldn’t actually say. Instead, I can tell you that I am now familiar with the inner workings of the cab of a specific type of electric train used to ferry passengers in the United Kingdom. I know where the wiper controls are, and how to turn them on.
I think I’m a perimeter train enthusiast, or maybe a former train enthusiast. This software is definitely written for the train enthusiast. If you are someone who has dreamed of driving a passenger train in England, oh baby, are you in luck. If you are not, you will either become one, or find a different game. As near as I can tell, the game is that you will sit in this driver’s seat for the next hour, while you drive this train up and down the line in real time. There is no music; there are no mobs or power-ups. Each map has a rudimentary set of collectibles that you can wander around on foot to find, but these really feel arbitrary, as if someone told the developer that they needed to put something resembling an actual video game in their game.
But learning how to drive the train was interesting. It’s not hard. It’s a train. You can’t steer it. You make it go forward, faster and slower, and sometimes, but not often enough, you get to go backwards. Otherwise, it’s about learning to read the signals and the speed limits. The signals are either green, yellow, or red. Green means go, and since you just drive the train and don’t have to handle the dispatching or switching, most of your signals ahead should be green. Yellow means be prepared to stop, and red means stop. In the game, if you pass a red signal, the run ends and you have to start over. What was interesting is that despite each engine having a detailed tutorial so that you will know where the wiper controls are, there was very little information about speed limits and signals, which made this harder to learn.
But that is the game. Sit at the station loading passengers. Shut the doors once you get the signal to, and leave the station. Keep the train under the speed limit, and slow down properly at the next station to pull up to a stop nice and gently, and open the doors. Lather, rinse, and repeat for the next hour. That is the game. Did I mention there is no music? The in game ambient sounds are pretty well done, but I really found myself wanting a radio to listen to after a while.
Needless to say, it was a very stress-free experience. Going down the rails at night was almost meditative. Eventually, though, it got a little boring. The base game comes with three maps, a UK one, a German one, and a USA one, each with different trains. Like I said, the game was made for the train enthusiast. What it really reminded me of where these videos we found when the kids were little. I think it’s popular in Germany, but these were videos about super detailed miniature and remote controlled construction videos, and the miniature environments that had been built so that people could do miniature construction with their miniature construction equipment. It’s the verisimilitude that’s important, the level of detail in recreating the real world. I was taken how nice the interior of the cabs looked in the UK compared the American trains. Even the newer American trains had beat up, dingy interiors, while the UK trains were neat and tidy.
I started playing it because I was looking for something that was low stress, and this definitely fit that bill. Unfortunately, there’s just not enough frame for me to hold onto. While you can switch hats and be the conductor for a while, and you can ride the trains as a passenger and then walk about the stations looking for the aforementioned collectibles, that’s about it. You can purchase a huge variety of maps and trains from the store. I think the idea of the game is that you find a map and train set that you like, and then you play it over and over, because the game is getting to drive the train. For some people, that’s enough to make it fun. For me, it was interesting to learn and explore, but I think I’m done.