What A Lovely Way To Burn: Train Fever
Didn't derail
Trains! Yes. Because I went to university in the late '00s and am awful, I have a poster on my wall depicting a line drawing of a boy that says "Keep calm and like trains." For similar reasons, I have never played a train simulator or management game. Train Fever is the most provocative so far, not least because of the name. Literal train fever would likely be very unpleasant, sweating scalding steam and burning oil. Here it thankfully simply relates to the passion needed for track-based vehicular movement so you can guide a burgeoning empire from 1850 up through the modern day. It launched on Steam and Humble today if you're feeling train-frisky and you'll find a disappointingly jazzless launch trailer through the ticket barrier.
In the Steam blurb, Train Fever makes a big deal of not having a grid system for its placement of objects. Freeform jazz tracks galore, then, along with ones that can go through hills thanks to "randomly generated, modifiable terrain with realistic dimensions." Hot.
Train Fever was originally funded through a games crowdfunding website known as Gambitious. I hadn't heard of it before, but according to the about page, it's for serious investors with more dollar to put down. This explains how Train Fever got over £210,000 from just 651 backers. It's 'real' investment in that there's revenue share and returns for those who help out. Frankly it sounds, uh, quite a lot better than the Kickstarter model in a lot of ways. Not as popular or as open though.
Surprise Peggy Lee!