Do you like trains? And beautiful animations? And the dogs? And puzzles? And video games? Of course you have, that’s why you’ll love it Railbound as much as I did.
Released this week on PC, Mac, iOS and Android, Railbound is a puzzle game that gives you a cute little train that separates from its cute little carriages, and asks you to help reunite everyone as quickly and as cleanly as possible. You, as a freak railway engineer, have to lay a limited number of tracks to not only get the carriages back to the train, but more importantly, get them there. Order.
Railbounds‘ The trailer explains what I’m talking about:
This game is Wonderful. The puzzles are nice and engaging, and increase in complexity at the right pace, but it’s the presentation that sets it apart. The trains not only moved, they wobbled. You don’t just put the tracks down, they appear on landing. Everything is cute, fun, and has a real tangible feel to it, as if we were messing up a board game, or a big kids toy.
There are over 150 stages to progress through, most of which are presented like a linear campaign but some are now available as unlockable alternatives for these. And it’s the timing factor for the puzzles that makes the difference here; Simply connecting the carriages is usually no big deal, but connecting them in the right sequence can be a nightmare, requiring all kinds of trial and error.
Fortunately, things never turn out for real discouraging; it’s easy to take a step back or start a puzzle again and everything is so bright and refreshing and playful—supported by a pleasant soundtrack—that you could spend an year getting everything wrong. things but still feel nothing but joy.
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While the game “launches” this week, even more content will be available later in 2022, with the developers promising “new world with a brand new craftsman”(semaphores) with “accessibility fixes, including color blindness mode”.
