rogaven 2026-10-21 19:43 ♥ 2
I'd maybe make the train movement animation a bit faster. Sometimes you already know how to solve the puzzle, but you have to wait for the train to get there.
Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD60 → Rail Mania
By darkshadow
🤖 AI-Assisted
| Percentile | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Category | Rank | Score | Count | LD60 | Ever | |
| Overall | 31 | |||||
| Fun | 31 | |||||
| Innovation | 30 | |||||
| Theme | 31 | |||||
| Graphics | 31 | |||||
| Audio | 31 | |||||
| Humor | 28 | |||||
| Mood | 31 | |||||
I'd maybe make the train movement animation a bit faster. Sometimes you already know how to solve the puzzle, but you have to wait for the train to get there.
I think it was hard work to make this kind of game. There are a lot of settings and levels. Thank you for your work, dude!
I think it was hard work to make this kind of game. There are a lot of settings and levels. Thank you for your work, dude! (Yeah, i think the same you should make the traim movement faster)
@rogaven and @nesmon thank you for your feedback point well taken, the speed and the effects are quite hard to balance, make it faster then the audio would feel off, I'll be adding some sort of quick jump or fast forward in the post compo game (that or maybe a second loco? Can never have enough trains)
Took a little bit to get a hang for it, I was thinking too much of tower of hanoi, that larger numbers can't be put on lower numbers. I agree, the animation takes quite long, so some way of increasing the speed or skipping the animation would be great once you know how it works and want to focus on solving the levels.
Great game!
Nice game.
That was cool! I like varying levels of difficulty. game can be relaxing or more tense. And nice sounds make environment feel alive. Thank you for your hard work!
Trains are cool! Lovely game, thanks for sharing! Your explanation system is better than the tutorials in many games on Steam. Great job on a fun train-themed brain puzzle, can recommend to play with kids as well! :)
Really cool puzzle game! I stopped at level 7, where I ended up using one extra step. I love puzzle games, but finding the optimal solution was getting a little hard for me.
A couple of small gameplay suggestions:
Add a fast-forward option for the animations.
For each step, simply let the player choose the rail and decide which carts to take with them (clicking the engine would mean leaving with no carts). This might make the controls more user-friendly.
@rogaven @nesmon @fis @digital-bacon @orange-kiwi @gamescodedogs Thank you all for your kind reviews, I have created a post jam version that has the much requested fast forward, set it in the settings or press spacebar or long touch for a 4x speed. This turns off some of the sounds effects.
There is also a puzzle of the day if you want to play the same free-play level as others.
@crotonyl-alcohol
A good suggestion I have moved the click or touch to be on where the couplers are inbetween wagons for better clarity of action.
Well done on the completions, and don't be too hard done, the solver is very good, Golds are no small feat! Because of the weighted A-star to keep the solver fast even in big scenarios, in theory it is possible to even beat it! Especially in the biggest scenarios it will give up and solve section by section.
3ce18824-8870-48e1-a67b-3c3a7b28f180.png Tried my best. I even beat level 11 by 3 steps. However, as the game progresses, it becomes more of a repetitive shuffling puzzle, and the quantity of calculation gets too high. Some additional mechanics would be nice.
Also, the post-jam improvements seem nice. Occasional misclicks don't get me stuck for too long now.
@crotonyl-alcohol amazing stuff. Yeah I've been wondering how to switch it up so it's not too repetitive after thr grey wagons and duplicate wagons.
So far I've been thinking: long wagons that take two slots. A gunpowder wagon that can only be moved a limited times. A run around lane so the loco can shunt from the other side. A turn table or wye to rotate wagons Maybe a second locomotive? Building the best yard for the solver to do?
A funny puzzle game, but it seems to me it has several problems:
- the controls feel weird, the ability to do the same thing in several ways is confusing, it's hard to understand how many cars the train is pulling, when I want to "attach cars" it highlights what will be attached, but when I want to "detach cars" it highlights the ones I'm detaching, this is confusing.
- I feel too constrained, perhaps as a game developer the game seems clear to you, but I would like a bit more freedom and room for error. Right now I feel like the levels literally have only a couple (if not the only) correct solution. It seems to me that computer puzzles should still give more freedom (this is my opinion).
Otherwise great, the audio and graphics are pleasant and quite sufficient for such a game. The style reminded me of Turmoil, maybe you know it. By the way, you also made Daily Yard - that's very cool!
In general, I think you made a good game and you should continue developing it for release, besides, basically it's almost ready.
@kitmani thanks for your quality review, has your control criticism already been fixed in the post jam version where joins and splits highlight the coupler not the car?
Fair comment a good puzzle should have options or tradeoffs. Note the first few levels are basically tutorial, the harder levels will start to have more than one solurion, I was able to beat the Friday daily one under par.
I'll check out turmoil, I've not played it but have similar older flash games. Thank you I intend to keep working on it.
Few! Sorry I didn't complete the game (got to level 9), maybe I'll get back to it.
These were hard puzzles. Most of what I had to say have already been taken into account. It took me while to get the hang of it : clearer explanations would have helped, but it's an interesting twist on tower of hanoi.
I think the puzzle progression is a bit steep for me, I used the yardmaster a lot (thank you for this) to see were the game wanted me to go to be optimal. But I know that puzzle progression is a very hard thing to achieve !
@tomtomgome no need to be sorry, the campaign is a bit much to do in one sitting.
I was working on a transport tycoon type game and when i saw the theme i realised it would make a nice puzzle game. The first version wasn't interactive at all it was just the yardmaster mode. I gameified it but realise, the later levels are a bit much and could do with some other mechanic at the moment there just a bit of a tech demo that the solver can handle up to around 20 cars.
Really nice! My only issues with the game were things already mentioned here, i.e. the speed (once you know what to do already) and the controls feeling a bit weird in the beginning (i.e. which cars to leave behind etc.). But it didn't take long to understand the control logic, and after that it was really enjoyable.
I love to see puzzle games in jams, as I know level/puzzle design can be really time-consuming, and you've done a great job at it! A really stellar entry!
@mikropiru thank you very much, I hope you also try out the post jam version that has those two issues solved.
Thankfully one of the first things made was the puzzle generator so I didn't have to get too stuck into the design, if you see my first blog (here or on itch) I go into more detail about how the generator has a natural difficulty slider.
The game looks great! The puzzles are really interesting and made me think much harder than I expected hahaha. The concept is fantastic, and the execution is spot on. Really clever and well-designed gameplay!
Amazing work, congratulations!!
Interesting railway-themed take on the Tower of Hanoi!
very cool game, I appreciated all the descriptive text, hints and tutorials ❤️. It's clear that a lot of work has been put into this :)), good job!!
Oh boy!!! WHAT A GEM!!!
This literally is ingenious! Let me play more but what I've seen just from level is Incredible polish and spot-on experience!! Great job! ♥️🍀
Love the transitions between levels and how this works in general. Even works on mobile (tried it that way). GJ!
Cool puzzle game! I like idea of using trains to solve puzzles. Vsiuals and sounds are great too! Some levels get pretty tricky, but I've dealt with them. Great entry!
Cool concept but i had trouble unerstanding when the train would stop, take the wagons along and witch wagons. The graphs and sound are clean. Nice work for a jam.
@ethernal-tech, @nikiroz, @lonthy, @aweskybear, @custodi
Thank you for your kind reviews
@divarium
Thank you, if you enjoyed it please consider trying the post jam version that should have addressed those issues.
great game, the only feedback i'd give is maybe the game would benefit from having music playing in the background, other than that really cool experience
Really interesting concept, and the gameplay is quite engaging. Had a good time putting those trains together, nice work!
Hello guys
Today we have a list of top 3 boring games
1. Tower of Hanoi (Rail Mania) 2. Rail Mania (it's secretly Tower of Hanoi) 3. Games with 67 (Rail Mania)
Screenshot_20261026_223819.png
I mean honestly it's a good Tower of Hanoi spinoff with some historical info (accurate I hope), but come on it's Tower of Hanoi, it's as fun as it is boring.
I had a good time playing all 15 levels.
Good job I guess. (I'm sick of playing Tower of Hanoi)
@ericns
Thanks I was hoping to make some music but ran out of time
@rekk1d
Thanks for playing glad you enjoyed
@andriybyelikov I'm sorry the game is not your cup of tea, you didn't have to finish the campaign in one sitting.
If it helps I'm working on a post jam version that is adding more variety and types of puzzle to a level.
@darkshadow Don't worry about it, my review was more of a rant/joke. Still, I wonder how you can bend Tower of Hanoi's rules to make the game more interesting. Railway occupancy management is a Tower of Hanoi type problem indeed and I think you already did all you could there, I don't think you can do much more there mathematically speaking, so I would focus on mixing in another type of game in or making a parallel lore-based game with more mechanics in the newspapers, or even discovering things like illegal cargo in the trains with certain moves and this triggering an event.
really good idea about old railway and trains. Ths graphics ,audio and sfx is prefect and real.
I loved this game - I'm secretly envious of people who are able to think up puzzles like this, I just wouldn't know where to begin... I had the same speed/control issues that the others above mentioned but you've been responsive and fixed that so well done you!! ... now tell me how you figure out how to make puzzles!!
@thoth @blushingcrow
Thank you. I'm afraid the idea came before the theme, I'd been working on a prototype as none of the train tycoon games have shunting, despite being the most interesting bit about trains, I've always liked shunt puzzles, I played one on a real model railway at a show based on the "inglenook". Others have made them into web toys but I haven't seen one polished and gameified. So i guess the answer is play lots of puzzles and not just puzzle games.
Cool puzzle idea! It starts out feeling similar to something that would be in an old puzzle book or that could be a physical tabletop puzzle game but starts to get more complicated. My main note would just be on gamefeel things that other commenters have already mentioned, like increasing the speed to make shifting things around less cumbersome.
