One of the first train games I ever played was simply called "Trains" and was on the C64. You took control of a locomotive and had to run goods back and forth between various places on the map. Games like this still exist today, and I'm often on the lookout for something to capture the nostalgia.

Train Valley however, reminds me of Detour. Better AI but with similar UI issues.

Here you don't control any trains directly, instead telling each train when to depart from a station placed in preset spots on the map. Using a limited amount of cash, you can buy tracks to lay down a path for the train to follow to a different station that matches the colour of the goods a departing train has. The value of goods slowly drops down over time, so the aim here is to have the train depart as soon as possible.

This is fine when there are only two stations. When you get to three or more is when the strategy finally starts. Multiple paths and ways around obstacles or bridges have to be taken into consideration.

Trains and their drivers are rather braindead and will happily have a head on collision. Now, I know these vehicles take a long time to come to a full stop. Up to several kilometres for long freight vehicles. But...

Well, at first I thought some trains were exploding when they entered/exited a station. What really happens is that the train can get impatient and just drive out on its own without user interaction. There's a countdown before this happens, but it is awfully short giving you little time to provide a solution with the space and finds available, and is easy to miss if your attention is elsewhere.

It honestly makes managing the trains rather a pain in the arse.

Tracks are laid down by clicking and dragging where you want them to run, and it is already hard enough with the funds you are given and the limitations of rail lines. There are obstacles in the map that can quickly eat up all your money just to get through them. I could also find no way to create stop points or other ways to delay a train other than creating long loops to route them through.

This game has such a slow leisurely pace the frantic actions at slow speeds are a little annoying to have to deal with. Even though you can do this paused, it just feels bizarre that you are rushing when the world is stopped or casually driving to its complete and utter doom.

When it works and you see the whole system in motion and you can queue up good transfers by selecting track directions in advance it is rather lovely.

Getting this to happen is far harder than I was expecting. Thankfully though, you don't have to deal with other traffic!

The UI here is also absolutely awful at 1920x1080. Tiny icons up in the corners of the screen, with even tinier text letting you know the value of the goods or cost of developing land to place rail on.

There is hover text, highlights, hotspots, and audio feedback. Everything you would normally see to guide the player along the few control pieces the game has. The majority of the text however, is minuscule.

I did like the scrapbook/album design of stage selection, and overall appearance of the game. The music, while not fantastic or memorable, was rather calming.

The only real way around this would be to run at a lower resolution, or project onto a very large surface. Neither of which are desirable.

If you like this type of puzzle game and are willing to put up with some, admittedly minor, issues, you can get a good number of hours out of this one.

There's no DLC though the devs have pushed out a sequel.

Game Acquisition: Humble Monthly (October 2016)
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Threads: 1 - 8 November 2017
PC Used: Scorptec Venom 2009 MK2

OS: Windows XP (SP3)+ (can crash in Win10)
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 @ 2.2GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ @ 2.8 GHz
Memory: 2 GB RAM
Graphics: ATi Radeon HD 2400 or NVIDIA GeForce 7600 or better
DirectX: Version 9.0c
Storage: 1 GB available space