Kind of reassuring that people of sound mind still exist in the world of games. To me the business oriented RTS is always like a warm hug and when RailGrade revealed that it is about managing real time industry and trains, I felt a sip of warm choco milk on the edge of my lips.
RailGrade is a rts management sim about using railways to transport resources and power industry on an off-world colony. The colony never really plays into much except the setting of the story. As much as that sounded like an oxymoron, let me explain.
Oh, A Plot
The story follows us as we are summoned to an off-world colony after Saito,
Department Head of Off World Colonies, manages to mess up the entire planet’s automated track system.Your job is to, mission by mission, fix all the chaos Saito caused and continue on doing tasks for your employers.
While it may seem the planet aspect of this game is integral, it takes the back seat most of the time and if I am being honest, you could have replaced it with countries or cities and the effect would be the same. In the end it doesn’t really matter as it is sufficient enough for the gameplay that is the real knockout in this one two combo.
RailGrade just works
There is nothing that unique or out of this world in the gameplay of rts RailGrade but it is its execution that really sells it. Whether you play the story mode or the sandbox mode of RailGrade, it is a classic case of easy to learn, hard to master.
RailGrade starts off teaching you how to install tracks, stations and train engines along with compartments. Then things start getting a bit more technical. The more compartments, the slower the trains get. Here you need to decide if you want to build another train or add another engine. Do you build more tracks? Where do you place them to cost the least amount of cash? These are questions that don’t get answered simply but with careful planning.
CHOO! CHOO!
In my run, I was on a mission where I had to bring oil and water from drilling sites back to a factory. These oil sites were spread far and in different directions while the water spouts were near the factory but you had to order the build needed to get the water out. Still, it looked simple and I could see the way through. Oh ho no!
I built three different tracks, one on each side of the factory, and guided them to their respective oil drills. On the track close to the water spouts, I built two factories and one loop around them attaching back to the track. Now, it was time for trains
I gave each track two trains, one that was long with six compartments and one engine and the other had three compartments and one engine. Now It was time to wait for the quota to be met. 10 minutes later, only 30% of my goal was complete.
I click on the bank, get a loan but before I could spend, half of it was gone. “Oh no!” I said.
The factories, drills, tracks and the trains cost money to run. I still had two loans available so I decided to find the source of the problem.
The factory had no water. I looked at the loop and it was fine, I looked at the pumps and they had water. I clicked on the trains and they had water then what was the problem? Frustrated, I clicked on one of the oil drills. Woe is me, they need water to run.
Not only were my trains dropping water at the oil drills, but drills without water access, never made oil. Did not matter how much loan I grabbed, it was too late for me.
For the readers concerned, this disaster I just recited, was extremely fun!
RailGrade: I like it
So there you have it. If you like RTS management then this game does very little wrong but if story is something you want, I can not recommend RailGrade. Well, unless corporate hoo-ha is something that entertains you then this has a lot of that.
The effort Minakata Dynamics put into this game shows and even now I just want to step back in and play.
Hence I have shared a piece on this game, in my concluding sentence, I shall leave you with this: Don’t itch dry rashes, it will make them worse.
