Yesss it's finally out! Check it out, lemme know what you think. I'll try to monitor this thread, so ask any questions and I'll do what I can to help!
I *think* it should still retain your state from the beta if you've still got it on your phone, but let me know if it doesn't, I'm curious to find out.
if you've synced to itunes in the past, it might have backed up your progress then... otherwise, I think you'll find that you can breeeeze right by the early levels now. Hot tip: I didn't want to make it easy to skip the tutorials(a lot of people will miss important stuff), but for you, since you already know how to play: in a tutorial, just press back, and then click on the level after the tutorial, you don't actually HAVE to watch the tutorials.
Yeah, I don't anticipate having too much trouble resolving, except on a few levels (but most of the really elaborate solutions I uploaded on the fantastic website). It's more a matter of having the time. I solved most of the puzzles while commuting to classes, but I don't have any of those til the fall.
I beta tested this game, and it's absolutely brilliant. Some of the solutions you can pull off look amazing. *goes and buys*
This is truly a fantastic game. Simple concept, wonderful execution. It just exudes polish. The only thing I believe could use work is the laying of the railroads themselves. The system is fine, it's just that placing them is either extremely touchy or extremely unresponsive. There are no real problems, as the game is a puzzle game and has no time constraints, so if it's touchiness causes problems, you can just fix it. However, for the best experience for your customers, a fine tune of the sensitivity issues for the tracklaying would be fantastic. It would really perfect this game.
Pretty much mirrors my own impressions. I didn't have THAT much trouble laying tracks, but it could definitely be better. Really excellent game overall.
Excellent little puzzle game. Starts off very slow and easy (do we really need 5 levels teaching you how to lay track in a straight line, followed by 5 levels teaching you how to go round corners? At least people will struggle to claim they can't work out what's happening!) But by the time you get to Halifax 60 levels later, things start to warm up and you have to start thinking creatively. I agree with the other posters that sometimes it can feel unresponsive and can miss track segments if you stop sliding your finger slightly too early. But the simple clean graphics are great, and I love that it's kept as a proper puzzle game with no annoying scores or time limits. I haven't finished it yet, but it's still fun and interesting without reaching anything that's felt impossible or with much tedious repetition (once you've finished the tutorial at least). I'm a little curious to find out what Expert mode is going to be though... Some incentive to go back and improve on previous solutions, perhaps?
Yeah, the difficulty curve is very shallow by design. Trust me, the later levels are immensely challenging. I agree that the controls can seem a bit fiddly, but you get used to them, and I really don't think there are any obvious ways to improve them. It helps to envision the grid, and make sure that you are sliding your finger from one side of each square to another, starting outside the square and ending outside the square. Crappy ascii follows to illustrate: To make a curve from the bottom to the right: .............________ ............|............| Finger ends here ............|..........".| * ............|......."....| ............|......".....| .............________ . . . . . . . . * Finger starts here Entering AND exiting each square will ensure that the track goes where you want it to.
Great game, unique puzzle mechanic. The train-combining, colour mixing and intersection switching really add a great deal of depth. Well done Matt!
Heh, I created most of the levels while commuting to work... It's a good game for that sort of thing Yep, I think you've hit on the purpose of the game. I was getting a little annoyed at games that had a great mechanic, but then they'd make you rush to solve it as fast as you can, or while avoiding an enemy, or something like that. I wanted a game that you can take your time with, and not feel rushed or stressed. Expert mode(as you'll probably soon discover ) gives you a couple more stats about your solutions: the "track count", which is the number of track pieces used, and the "number of steps", which is the amount of time the trains take to finish the solution once you press start. Think of it as the speed of your solution. As for the drawing of the track being a little tricky, that's always been a bit of an issue. Most people seem to work it out by the time they get through the game, it's hard for me to improve it too much because of the reasons TheSporkWithin provided. I've got some ideas though, so I'll see what I can figure out.
You also forgot to mention it gives you some bonus levels A couple of questions though. Firstly, are "Christmas Eve" (on Niagara) and "Christmas Day" (on Oakville) supposed to be the same level? Also I'm seriously struggling on Rocky Road - is it actually possible to solve it without needing a three-way junction? I can merge the two trains to get my required green ones, but once the first green train has gone through the gap in the wall, the other train always seems to be on the wrong side of the junction feeding into the gap. Considering it's only a 6* and the next two were stupidly easy, I'm guessing I must be missing something obvious, but it's possible there's a bug in the level Finally, when is the next level pack coming out, please? I've only got 4 left to go now
It's possible, I know I solved it in the beta. Unfortunately, I didn't upload my solution, so I can't give you any hints. I remember I spent a really long time on it though. I had initially thought, like you, that it wasn't possible. I really have no recollection of how I solved it, except that it involved delaying one of the trains via some loops...
Heh, you're right about Christmas Eve and Christmas Day! I don't know how I missed it... Well, that'll definitely be something that needs fixing. Thanks for pointing it out Rocky Road IS solvable, but it's definitely more than a 6 star, you're right about that. I had a tricky time trying to figure out the "star difficulty" of the levels, and that's one that I got wrong... If it makes you feel any better, there are some "9 star" puzzles later on that are actually more like 6 star If you get really stuck on Rocky Road, someone has uploaded a solution for it on the website... But I think once you solve it, you'll be proud, because the way to solve it is kinda neat.
Aha, thanks SporkWithin and ElectricGrandpa! The knowledge that it is solvable was enough to make me look again and find a different way to trigger the junction an odd number of times ;-) You were right, that is a really neat trick Excellent, can't wait! \o/ Oh, and I finally let my ipod touch discover the world wide web to help build up your collection of solutions, as well
I'm really happy with this game! Lately I've found myself purchasing all these games that I really don't enjoy playing (even though they were positively reviewed) but this game has turned that around! It's nice to have a game where the pressure is off, and you just have to use your brain to figure the puzzles out. The game is presented very nicely and very polished. Also, I love the fact that these are all Canadian cities! My hometown is even there, which is kinda neat! I'm looking forward to getting to some of the harder levels (I was just stuck on Guelph for a bit...) Keep up the good work devs! Thanks for breaking the "bad game spell" for me!
