GG:
I’d never considered how much I wanted to be a train conductor in 19th century USA. Thankfully, Bounty Train is here to slap me upside the head and give me the dream I never even knew I wanted – shovelling coal on the great eastern railways.
In a lot of ways, Bounty Train reminds me of runaway roguelike hit FTL: Faster Than Light. You take control of a steam engine in the 19th century, and are tasked with travelling between cities in the USA delivering goods for profit, ferrying passengers and completing objectives along a main quest line. Much like FTL, Bounty Train ate away at my evening hours until I had to force myself to close it or risk losing all of my night’s sleep.
Bounty Train is a curious game. It's a sandbox trading sim/adventure game/railway enthusiast entertainment piece that, while the positions are static and the routes are fixed, still manages to give the player a great deal of movement. It's a genre bending game with multiple story routes and an excellent way to generate micronarratives as you go.
In general, those who want to see what America is like in my boots may also be interested in boarding the Bounty Train. It can be a fun way to learn about history, as well as an intriguing strategy game to play. Just watch out for bandits. Oh, and you may want to look into getting a smuggling compartment for your cargo cars.
Bounty Train is an interesting mashup of edutainment, real-time strategy, economic simulation and role-playing game. It shows quite a bit of progress in this early access stage, but still needs more work before we feel we could whole-heartedly recommend it. We look forward to seeing how it develops, though!
