railbound

content/games/switch/railbound.md

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+---
+title: "Railbound: A Relaxing Track Through Puzzle Land"
+date: 2024-05-24
+score: 3
+game_release_year: 2022
+howlongtobeat_id: 109179
+howlongtobeat_hrs: 3.5
+game_name: 'Railbound'
+game_developer: 'Afterburn'
+game_genre: 'Puzzle'
+tags:
+  - 'puzzle'
+---
+
+After a few months of on and off track building in _Railbound_, it dawned to me that I will probably never finish the game and could just as well do my write-up. So get yourself a _Ticket To Ride_---no wait, it's not that kind of game. Or is it? Judging a book by its cover won't get you very far here, as the two dogs on the cover have nothing to do with the gameplay and the railroad in the background isn't as broken as the ones you'll have to fix in the levels.
+
+The premise of _Railbound_ is quite simple: a locomotive is ready to go, but it's up to you to connect the wagons by carefully routing them through the 2D landscape using a very limited supply of tracks---in the correct order, that is. The first few worlds serve as an introduction to the concept in which nothing too difficult is thrown your way, but before you know it, your wagons are pressing buttons, picking up passengers, riding through tunnels, and probably most of all: crash-and-burning. Whoops. Time to hit the reset button. Again. Better get used to that gameplay cycle!
+
+![](green.jpg "Wagons 1 and 2 need to be connected to that locomotive in the correct order.")
+
+_Railbound_ is not just a puzzle game: it's a very chill puzzle game. The music is relaxing (but admittedly forgetful), the graphics and lovingly bold colors are easy on the eyes (but admittedly forgetful), and the postcards served in-between the worlds displaying the two friendly and furry animals steering the train provide a moment to relax, as for no reason whatsoever your pointer zooms across the photo to provide even a bit of petting interaction.
+
+At least half of the levels in each world are completely optional, harder variants of your main course---if you manage to solve level `5.3`, you can safely choo-choo into `5.4`, or take a detour into `5.3A` which might even enable `5.3B`. My wife insisted we finish each puzzle before moving on to the next world, but after struggling in world 5, we abandoned perfectionism---and eventually, the game itself. Perhaps that perfectionism ultimately killed the fun of the game.
+
+![](pink.jpg "Now we can ride over a switch that flips a track.")
+
+Why didn't I finish the game, even though we put in twice as many hours as How Long To Beat tells us it should take to reach the credits? Probably because we're just really bad at it. After getting stumped again and again, motivation eventually wears off. I'm not a big puzzle gamer so might unfairly discredit the game for that. Once the locomotive-like repetition sets in, we were ready to move on. The problem is better explained in the [Rock Paper Shotgun review](https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/railbound-review): 
+
+> Railbound's end-game puzzles can be quite daunting without a bit of guidance, and the most troublesome ones either require too many mental gymnastic leaps or are so freeform that even knowing where to start can be a challenge. 
+
+I learned way too late that there's a hint system embedded right into the game!
+
+![](map.jpg "The 'world' map of world 5, showcasing (on top) many more world to explore.")
+
+Still, _Railbound_ can offer a superb brain tease or two in-between the real gaming meat: cracking a misleadingly small or simple `6x5` grid can feel great---once you manage to figure out exactly how to put your tracks and in which order the locomotives should take off. Complexity is thoughtfully introduced step by step. 
+
+_Railbound_ is a charming and relaxing puzzler that eventually has you scratch your head. As warm as it might feel by experiencing it for the first time, going back to it for this review didn't reinvigorate that feeling, and I'm glad we stopped endlessly crashing trains that usually resulted in a quick walkthrough peek. 
+
+![](photo.jpg "The player is awarded with a photo of two dog conductors taking a deserved break. On to the next world full of broken tracks!")