Train Fever

*NOTE: 182 hours played via the Steam version. Please read before deciding on a purchase.* Train Fever is an HD mix of Transport Tycoon and the open-source game Simultrans in which players attempt to build a successful freight and/or passenger infrastructure from 1850 going forward. How the player goes about designing the infrastructure is (somewhat) up to the player, but the limited number of goods to transport, the jumbled layout of the cities and the strict requirements by the system levied at the player when building tracks, placing stops and limited capacities of most of the vehicles for passenger systems (without opening and changing the .lua script files via a text editor) would cause many simulation enthusiasts to uninstall the game for something more full featured. Train Fever is a beautiful game overall. Unfortunately it's no exaggeration that you need at LEAST 16GBs of RAM and 1GB of VRAM if you plan to have an expansive empire. I have a quad-core 3.4-3.8 GHz Haswell machine with 16GBs of RAM and a 4GB VRAM chip (GTX 780M) and after a certain point in the game (a known flaw), the game begins pausing constantly. Additional flaws: - The game will not let you remove/alter main streets, requiring a mod (in the game) to overcome. However... - Using a mod (even by the devs) disables achievements not only for the current file but (for me) every file afterward. - Passenger capacities for road transit is very low, requiring changes in the .lua files. - USA DLC (I felt) was an insult when it was released. The continental U.S. does NOT solely consist of deserts. This requires a mixture of terrains and "all vehicles" selected when making a new game file. - Using a Mac w/ a Fusion Drive causes a serious issue where after a time a piece of game code will cause the machine to refuse to go to sleep, shut down, et cetera. It requires a hard shutdown to turn off. I've notified over a year ago and still no response. As of 06112016 I've uninstalled the game.

Granted. Bought this one really late. But this one is a unfinished mess lacking of features and basic usability options. Performance issues included. Seems unpolished in almost every way.

Expect a steep learning curve, having to abandon many games before you have any idea how to play it. This is barely more than a tech demo. Look at Transport Fever instead. Same devs, same game - but actually playable.

Laying Train Tracks is impossible, it always gives errors and no manual at all how to solve this

This is a great addition to the transport tycoon genre. It's a slow, leisurely game for those who like to plan their routes meticulously and then sit back and appreciate their success. It's a lot of fun working with the contours to make the tracks cost-effective and keep the train speeds high. The maps are always random and everything is spread out, so there's a lot of strategy involved in deciding what trains or trucks will be best to move freight and passengers. The AI is really good--Passengers waiting at a station don't all get on the first train that arrives. Some passengers get on Train 1 going to Location A and some passengers get on Train 2 going to Location B. I thought a small amount of resources would make the game less compelling, but there is still so much to manage, it feels like enough. Train Fever does start off slow and there is very little documentation, but most everything should be self-explanatory to anybody who's played transport games before. Besides, it's not the destination that's important, but the journey there. Right??