Reviews

Review by Onewing all reviews by Onewing

Good: Cows!
Bad: Level 4?
Does this game seem familiar? No, not in the least?
Comments:
Niunio?s Train is actually pretty fun, even if it is a little unoriginal. It?s functional, it?s got all the elements needed and it?s not an eyesore. In other words, it?s a game! That?s a big deal considering most competition games aren?t truly complete enough to be a game. I do agree that it can be slow when you have your tracks set, but in the later levels, it?s almost too fast. I enjoyed it and someday, I?ll beat level 4.

Overall: It?s fun, playable, polished and it?s got music. It feels almost like carnival game, specially with lucky-go-round music. This definitely deserves a 4!

Artistic: Not bad, but not good either. The main title screen is pretty impressive, but during gameplay it could be a lot better. It does encompass the train and railroad requirement and seems to focus around them, so that is deserving of a 3.

Technical: Not much ASCII, but what little there is, is moderately artistic. The help screen was weak, but functional. I?d say a 2.5, (aka 3)

Genre: The only ?time? portion of the game I could see, is the implicit timing of get the tracks to the right places before the train derails. Since time itself wasn?t pivotal to the gameplay, I feel 2 is about is good as I can offer.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 3 Technical 3 Genre 2

Review by miran all reviews by miran

This is a very solid looking puzzle game where you have limited time to move sections of a railway in such a way that the train visits all the stations. It's simple to play but challenging to beat and the fact that the levels are randomly generated, it even has some replay value. The midi music is a bit annoying but adds a sense of completeness to the game. It's an average game, or perhaps a bit above average for this competition, the only reason I gave a 2/5 in the technical category is because there isn't much ASCII art in the game and you get an access violation if you click in the wrong place.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 3 Technical 2 Genre 3

Review by guilt all reviews by guilt

This is a kind of save-the-train game where you rotate tracks as the train passes thru' it. I'm not very good at playing quick thinking games... but the idea is certainly a nice one... The ASCII art windows remind me of good old Turbo Vision!

A fun game to play! :)

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 5 Technical 4 Genre 5

Review by Darksoll all reviews by Darksoll

This game is a puzzle, and i love puzzles!.
you have to guide a train trough some stations.
The game is simple and fun. the controls seem kinda confusing at first but you control it ok after some time.
The music is great, so great!, the readme didn't say anything about it but i'm sure i heared it before, a long long time ago. mmm let me guess, Adventure island maybe? ;-).
I've found a bug, when you press control and then click in certain places of the screen, you get an access violation signal.
I like so much this game, it's one of my favourites.

I think this game would be better if: more ASCII art would be alright.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 3 Technical 3 Genre 5

Review by graue all reviews by graue

Note: This is Ashrilyn. Graue said he could not compile Niunio's entry, as it uses Pascal. (And, unfortunately, I had not registered separately for Tins06.)

The game's titlescreen has an ASCII art train scrolling along, the text on the side of the cars telling you to press F1 for help, esc to exit, and space to play.
The help screen's colors and graphics resemble those of an ASCII DOS game, while the graphics in general resemble old EGA or VGA DOS games.

The game concept is a bit like Pipe Dreams. In this case, there are pieces of track already placed which you can rotate or slide into an empty space. You can still rotate or move pieces of track the train has already been on.

When playing, if I try to slide a piece of track outside the grid that is not actually movable, I get an access violation error, and must exit the game. It's kind of easy to forget about those edge pieces not being movable at first, as they look very similar to the other track pieces (just not inside the grid). The game does handle the error somewhat gracefully, giving me an ingame message about it rather than just crashing.

The pieces of track you are given in each level seem to be a bit random. The first two levels I've been given in several games to be easy.
The first level 3 I was given, which introduced tiles with cows in them, I found difficult. On my second try (after replaying the first two levels), I succeeded. I had to do some quick work with the movable track ends and the two 90 degree curves I was given.
The level 4 I was given was very difficult. I didn't have enough time to move the cow tiles and track tiles around. It would be nice if one did not have to start all over from level 1 upon derailing.

I considered the music during gameplay to be too repetitive after a while.

Scores: Overall 3 Artistical 3 Technical 3 Genre 2

Review by Eric_Love all reviews by Eric_Love

?u?o's game Train is all about keeping the train on the tracks by sliding and rotating pieces of track. It's easy to control, and quite a fun game.

One feature I would have liked is a "Hurry" function to make the train speed to the next station, rather than waiting for it, although that is the nature of public transport :). It's also frustrating that one mistake is game over, but with the Hurry function it wouldn't matter so much.

With games like this I often hack the code to add features I want, but Train was written in Pascal, which I didn't know was possible with Allegro.

Trains and railways are central to the game, while I couldn't really see the time theme much, although I was alternately cursing (a) long wait for the train to reach a station or (b) the lack of time to set the tracks at the start of a hard level. I couldn't find of ASCII art apart from the title & help screens.

Scores: Overall 4 Artistical 5 Technical 2 Genre 2