TRACKS: THE TRAIN SET GAME
A cute game that could be even cuter with certain features.
By Ian Thrasher
Tracks: The Train Set Game is available on Steam, The Humble Store, and the Microsoft Store. It also available for free as part of Xbox GamerPass.
Say dear fellow, do you like trains? Did you obsess over building model train tracks when you were a kid? Were you like I was and too poor to afford your own model train yet always played with other kids model train sets whenever you could? Do you want that experience on your computer?
If you have answered yes to all the above questions, I have found a game for you. It’s a quaint little game, called Tracks: The Train Set Game and it allows you all the joys of putting together a little wooden train track with a little wooden train riding on top as you were a kid again. It’s a very simple game too, you place down tracks and scenery and then ride a train across it, or don’t put down track and instead let your train ride along the ground. It reminds me of how Roller Coaster Tycoon allows players to build incomplete coasters (read: death traps) and send unsuspecting customers and passengers to their deaths, it’s that freedom to be a destructive little brat that firmly sells this game to me. It evokes nostalgia at every turn and it is absolutely charming for it. There is a sandbox mode and also a passenger mode where the player is tasked with transporting adorable wooden figurines to the train station.
It’s not perfect, however. There are some annoyingly clunky aspects about building tracks, like why do I have to clear an entire section of track if I just want to delete one intersection that I accidentally placed? Snapping terrain and set pieces at the right place in the right height is a little wobbly, and I almost wish that building terrain was like Planet Coaster with how it allows you to sculpt terrain instead of snapping blocks together one by one if not for the fact that that might almost ruin the handmade appeal of this game. There is also no Steam Workshop or mod support to my knowledge, which isn’t really a problem so much as it is a massive missed selling feature. The community would lose their minds with how much more fun they could add to this already fun game.
I can’t fully recommend the game at full retail price of $20 considering that lack of modding and Steam Workshop support, but I do encourage you to try and find a way to try this game out. It’s also available as part of Xbox Game Pass, which probably is the best option available right now to experience it, and relive the days that you were cute child putting together train tracks.
Ian Thrasher is a graduate of the University of Utah’s EAE Program and lifelong video game player and overthinker. Aside from writing about video games, he also likes worshiping Fallout New Vegas and setting Sims on fire after building them a fancy mansion. You can follow him on Twitter @ian_thrasher or look up his Medium profile.