Toy train builder Tracks comes chugging out of early access today
Rather wooden, innit?
After two years ferrying tiny passengers around in early access, Tracks - The Family Friendly Open World Train Set Game (to use its full name) left pre-release station earlier today. Forget you're well into adulthood for a moment and settle down on the digital carpet, tip open the toybox, and indulge in a long-forgotten nostalgia while you put together a fun-sized wooden village. Isn't that nice?
It looks absolutely lovely, dunnit? Tracks is built around creating dioramas. Not the sort of meticulous recreation of the English countryside your rich uncle has tidied away in the basement. Rather, it's a childhood toybox gone wild, filled with simple wooden trains, tracks, towers and such.
That trailer is packed with more naturalist creations - building convincing little villages on verdant green fields. Rubbish, I say! Tracks provides a living room map, and I expect you to use it. Where's the fun if you're not risking losing villagers down the back of the sofa?
In the two years since we last looked at Tracks, that toybox has exploded. There's a trove of new buildings, foliage and various doodads, while tracks can now feature boosters, bells and the like. You can likewise tweak the environment further, adding foggy atmospherics and altering the terrain.
Besides crafting a wooden wonderland, you can also hop into the driver's seat and ferry passengers through town yourself. There's a light game side there, where you'll need to built a route from one stop to the next, but it's all quite relaxed. Not nearly as stressful as Mini Metro's transit juggling antic, I'd reckon.