Currently we are working on the development of Train Fever with full commitment. We are making big steps forward. Our plan is to release the game in Q2 2014.
In the last months, major game design decisions have been made. We are pleased to officially announce three of them here.
First and most important, due to many requests of the community, we have definitely decided to include freight transport in the game. Second, there is now clearness regarding the terrain: There will be a 256 square kilometer terrain with a one meter resolution. Third, we decided to include more than 50 vehicles in the initial release.
Freight transport
Our freight model is motivated by the games Transport Tycoon and Simutrans, but many improvements make it more interesting and realistic. Our current design includes coal, iron ore, steel, wood, stock, grain, oil and goods freight.
Raw materials like coal or iron ore are mined at several locations in the game world. These raw materials can then be transported to factories and industrial buildings, which usually process them to goods. Goods are finally needed in commercial buildings in towns. Residents then buy these goods in commercial buildings.
Basically, each building, factory or mine requires some items (freight and people) and produces items if requirements are met. Supply and demand is realistically simulated. Items can be transported by the player, but are also transported by agents (i.e. people walk and workers transport freight themselves, though with low speed, range and capacity).
Terrain
Due to many requests for huge dimensions, we are currently finalizing the implementation of a 256 square kilometer terrain with a one meter resolution. This is way larger than what other simulation games (e.g. SimCity or Cities in Motion 2) can offer. We believe that such dimensions are important to make constructing railway lines fun and realistic.
The implementation of such a huge terrain is a challenge (e.g. think about the huge number of trees!), but we are confident to meet the goal, without increasing minimal system requirements.
Also, it’s still our plan to allow loading user-created terrains through modding. This way, it will be possible to e.g. play the game on well-known local maps!
Vehicles
The game includes trains, buses, trucks and trams/streetcars between 1850 and today. The current design specifies more than 30 trains, and more than 10 buses, trucks and streetcars each.
We believe that a high number of vehicles is important for game-play, because the player should have a choice between several competing vehicles at every point in time. As a consequence, Train Fever is telling an almost complete history of railway and road transport!
Due to the fact that the game starts in 1850, there will also be some special vehicles like carriages or horse streetcars.
Finally a notice on the update frequency of our website: Unfortunately, due to the huge amount of work and a tight budget and time schedule, we are only able to update this website from time to time. Also, please excuse us if your forum questions stay unanswered longer than expected. We simply need to fully concentrate on development at the moment in order to not run out of schedule.
Sounds brilliant!
Can’t wait for this. Keep it up guys. 😀
Good job, i´ll be waiting for a first release to test it ! 😉
***CLAP CLAP CLAP*** 🙂 🙂
Great! So it will in fact really be kind of a 3D-version of (Open)TTD (without the airplanes). I’m truly looking forward to it.
Just an idea about the vehicles: I know there are a lot of enthousiasts who like doing game-modding, 3d scale drawings, etc from trains and buses (and i’ld guess also from trucks). I would advise you to open up a public program and let them participate! Let the people that enjoy making realistic models help you with the development of the game. That way you have more time developing the rest of the game (you don’t need to draw so many vehicles yourselves), while the public improves it by adding more models (and you just have the final quality-checking to do). With some luck you can have a full spectrum of vehicles available at the release, and not just 10 buses. Because only 10 buses /and or trucks can never be a realistic representation of all the vehicles released between 1850 and now.
And that said, if you’ld open up such a program you’re already starting with an active fanbase pre-release. That can really boost publicity.
Very exciting stuff. Thanks for the update guys. Much appreciated
Thanks so much for the update. I guess what I’m not sure about is what Continent(s) you are planning to model? Those vehicles are going to be very different if we are talking Europe or North America.
I will admit a strong affinity to the incredible unique Union Pacific power and North America and I hope you intend to head in that direction.
Thanks for all your hard work. I appreciate your efforts! .
Hi, when do you open alpha/beta test or playble demo for all?
@Rich: The first release of Train-Fever is going to be focused on the middle European countries. So most vehicles and buildings will be European.
@Jarda: We wont make an open beta neither a demo before the release, there is no time for this. We’re going to show gameplay videos before the release, to give you a good impression of Train-Fever.
Thanks Mikael, I’m sure I will enjoy playing the European version and will look forward to an eventual North American version 🙂
Awesome announcement! Looking forward. Please also make complex cargo schemes, such as producing cars that requires, Rubber > Tires. Iron + Coal > Steel. Steel > Car parts. Car parts + Tires > Car.
AutoPlant mod of OpenTTD gives a perfect idea of it. It also have recycling. More complex greater it is.
I suggest you play transport giant 2 if you haven’t tried it. That game handles complex industries like car factories (all the way from iron ore to actual distribution to car sellers).
Hopefully they will leave the game open to modding so it can be included by fans.
It would be awesome if when the Game is Released there are many Updates/Patches or DLCs (But im not a Friend from DLCs) with more Features in the Future like Ships and Airplanes, More Vehicles in each Categorie etc.
But one Question i have. I dont know if i have overread this: Can we place Signals?
Yes there will be signals. We try to develop an easy-to-use signal system. At the same time our approach should allow for complex configurations in order to overcome the typical problems which you might know from similar games.
great update guys,
as stated already just a inquiry , is there any chance of getting planes and ships in future dlc or patch..that would just make this game great for ever.
Great News!!
It is very good to hear, that the game will much more like the good old awesome Transport Tycoon and I am sure, if the game will be a financial success (I think, it will be), airplanes and ships will be there in Tra(ansport)in-fever 2 ;)).
Killing some time before you release this by playing Cities in Motion and The Train Giant. I’m so glad you intend to include freight. Cities in Motion is aesthetically beautiful, but the lack of this function makes it get a little monotonous.
As far as A Train/Train Giant, it too can be beautiful or dreary, lacks people and seems to have a lot of potential, but the controls are cumbersome and I still have no idea how I am supposed to control the trains and trucks (“timetables”).
Please make the vehicle control/routing more like Cities in Motion. That “click-n-route” procedure is simple and intuitive.
take my money now!
I’m really excited to play this game! Can’t wait! Been waiting for a good Locomotion type game.
I wouldn’t compare this game to open-ttd or simutrans, since the scale is quite different, the two games mentioned usually offer several thousands (and even millions) of square killometers, naturally with the trade-off between size and resolution.
Also, I’m not sure if the name is misleading somewhat, and this is more of a city oriented game like Cities in Motion, or more a train engineering game like Railworks, but if the latter is the case, I’m quite in doubt that much can be done with a 16×16 terrain, in terms of simulating real train lines.
The engineering mechanics and graphics do quite remind of Railworks, which is very good indeed.
I see no attempt so far to deal with complex passenger behavior (in terms of timetables, prices, hours of the day etc.), but I realize this is still a very early stage, and also, after the colossal failure (pun intended!) of CiM 2 in that field, maybe it’s better not to go there at all and leave it indeed simple as to what vehicle goes the fastest. But still, a lot of essential depth might be missed if waiting time and time walking to the station are not considered.
I wish you godspeed!
Nice news! At a later time (may be in DLC) also consider a multiplayer gamemode pls! I think lots of us would be more than happy with that! At least me and 5 of my friends 😛