Introduction
Last week NIMBY Rails became available for early release on Steam. In Nimby Rails, you run a Rail company that can build railway stations, railway tracks and tramlines anywhere on the map. Now the map has caught my imagination. It is a fully scalable map of the entire world. On this map, you can build a railroad network. I have looked at the map for my home town looks very accurate.
Game Play
NIMBY Rails is a sandbox game you can select to play with unlimited funds or with limited finances. If you choose to play the game with limited finances, you start the game with a 1 billion dollar loan, and that money is enough to start building a network, but it won’t get you far.
You will need to consider streets and waters as they impact where you can place a station. Fortunately, the map has blank areas where stations and ground railway lines are locating allow you to build stations in a city centre close to the location of where real-life trains are.
Tracks and station platforms are laid out on the map as a blueprint, the cost of construction cost is displayed, and changes can be made quickly to the track and stations while they are still in the design mode. The blueprint needs to be constructed before it can be used, and only at this point is the cost taken from your account.
Once the stations and track have been constructed, you need to define the line for that route, including specifying what platform the service will use. You can also set the price for this line either as a base price, price per Kilometer, or a combination of the two. You can also calculate the journey time and even set the minimum gap between the trains running on the line.
Mods can be added to the game, with several mods already available in the Steam workshop.
Conclusion
As I stated in my introduction, the game Nimby Rails is in early release, and the game is perfectly playable. On a couple of occasions, I have noticed some issues with routing that could become an issue with a complex network, though in my experience, the train was still able to get to its destination. It is something to be aware of at the moment, especially if designing a more complex network.
While the game is fully functional, it’s evident that some planned functionality isn’t implemented. For example, to add a train to a line, you must set up a schedule, but currently, it doesn’t seem to impact the game.
The fact that the game is in the early release will make it understandable to put some people off purchasing the game at the moment. However, anyone interested in transport management or simulation game should keep an eye on how the development of this game goes. You can find out more about our experience of Nimby rail in our Let’s play Nimby rails part 1.
Have you played NIMBY rails? If so, what are your thoughts on the game?