PREVIEW : Sweet Transit (PC)

0
360
PREVIEW : Sweet Transit (PC)

PREVIEW : Sweet Transit (PC)

What if there was a city builder in which the only means of transportation for people travelling long distances was trains and only trains? That’s the pitch for Sweet Transit, a “train-led city builder” from Ernestas Norvaias, one of the Factorio programmers and 3D designers, and published by Team17.

It’s a simple twist on the city-building genre: instead of building motorways, create a train network. Sweet Transit, even in its Early Access condition, will appeal to fans of locomotives and games in which logistics and automation play an important role.

PREVIEW : Sweet Transit (PC)

However, if you’re a city-builder player who has no understanding of how trains function, like me, it’s still a fascinating game, but you’ll have to bang your brain around basic principles that the game believes you already understand.

To begin with, Sweet Transit features some cool graphics. The sprite design for this isometric game is incredibly realistic, bringing to life a setting inspired by the untamed frontier days of the early twentieth century when railways ruled the globe. It looks wonderful up close at the highest zoom level, and the far-out overview, which highlights all of the buildings and train network in brilliant colours, is quite handy when you need to see the big picture.

PREVIEW : Sweet Transit (PC)

There is also something for Factorio aficionados. Because of the tank engines and locomotives choo-choosing around, you can see some hazy pollution clouding your vision. The soundtrack enhances the wild west flavour that pervades Sweet Transit’s environment.

The gameplay is already solid. However, it can be difficult to grasp at first. There will be a learning curve. Although efforts are made to keep the curve as smooth as possible, there are still a few bumps in the early game.

So, the first thing you construct is a warehouse to house all of the items and resources. Then you choose a location for your first community. Then you place dwellings one by one and build some local roads and amenities (including a House Of Worship, where these people worship… the Great Train). Then you must begin putting the residents to work by constructing workplaces. The fishing spot is simple to establish because it is located near the town’s source of water.

However, other places of employment are located outside of the village. You’ll then need to extract coal from a mine, which will always be well out of town (you can’t establish mines too close to your settlement). Then you have to start laying railroads and building trains, which is where the time sink begins.

Sweet Transit’s city-building features are well-materialized, and you’ll constantly be directed on what to do thanks to a set of objectives that helps you to unlock new buildings to plop down. Though, as it stands, I don’t think it has enough depth to be a rewarding city-builder.

I hope the balancing task of putting the correct buildings in the proper places pays off when your village evolves into a town, and ultimately a city later on.

But what about the train logistics, which are the lifeblood of Sweet Transit? This feels like another fleshed-out feature. However, it does not provide adequate tutorials. I tried going into the game blind and seeing how much I could figure out on my own, and it was a difficult time. But as I progressed through the tutorials, I realised that the game didn’t teach me enough, particularly how to create trains and rails.

Sweet Transit should divide the train and railway components of the tutorial into individual classes rather than include them in the “basics” portion. Having a dedicated tutorial on city-building is cool, but having a dedicated tutorial on showing players how to build trains, design a railway network, and other best practices (such as placing two railways adjacent to each other that go in opposite directions) is something I believe would be extremely useful for new players. Particularly as they have no concept of how trains work in general.

I am confident that this will work because there is already an example of it in the game. The rail signal lesson, which separates tracks into parts to prevent trains from colliding, is excellent. It’s a vital idea to understand when creating trains in Sweet Transit (and, from what I understand, functions similarly to how it does in Factorio), and the tutorial does an excellent job of teaching you how to utilise it. I like how it turns into a series of riddles to solve; that’s a great way to get folks to learn it.

I may have scratched my head a lot when building my first railway network, but it was a nice kind of head-scratching.

Sweet Transit operates in systems, which can be learned by trial and error.

After seeing enough instances of two trains colliding or becoming stuck opposing one other on the same track, I learned how to employ rail signals properly and eventually made the railways strictly one-way each track. Knowing that trains do not miraculously U-turn at terminal stations taught me that trains can be designed with train heads at both ends, allowing them to drive forwards or backwards (just need to remember to flip the other train head around during construction).

The train-building instruction should be improved, but thus far I’ve discovered a fairly strong system that lets you design inventive and/or cursed solutions for your railway logistics. Thank you, Sweet Transit, for making me appreciate the amount of engineering work that goes into making trains run.

Another thing I’m hoping Sweet Transit can work on during this Early Access time is smoothing out the user interface. It’s a little strange right now. You never have universal access to all of the structures and amenities available; everything is restricted to certain locations. If you want to create something in the village, you must first open its building menu by clicking something on that village. This also applies to stations, which can be built in a modular fashion.

The way the UI is built, if you’re creating a train station, it’s implied that you need to lay down the tracks first, then build the station around them. Because you can’t lay down railway tracks while on the station building menu, you’ll need to go to the railway menu and then back to the station if you need to fine-tune the station’s modular components now that the tracks are in place.

PREVIEW : Sweet Transit (PC)

The user interface is odd but functional. But it doesn’t imply it can’t be improved. Veterans who are experienced with logistics tycoon games should be able to find all of the necessary functions, while newbies may get lost in the UI.

Closing Thoughts

Sweet Transit’s roots are already rock-solid in this Early Access edition. The city-building aspect is enjoyable if a little too linear at the moment. The trains and rails system, the game’s showpiece, is a well-oiled machine that is detailed and full of promise.

All it needs is some fine-tuning to get city-builder aficionados on board with learning all the geeky aspects about railroads, as well as some UI enhancements to make constructing easier.

PREVIEW : Sweet Transit (PC)

Sweet Transit is currently on pace to be an exceptional train-building game as well as a fantastic city-builder. Should you get on board straight away? You should join if you have a thing for locomotives.

REVIEW : Aluna: Sentinel of the Shards (PS5)

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here