Train Conductor World 21.0.4

Choo, choo! It's time for some hot railroad action! If you've always been wondering what railroad traffic conductors do in a day's job, then you're reading the wrong article. Train Conductor World is a drag-and-drop arcade game about serving up colored trains, avoiding crashes and collecting Carcassonne tiles (not really).

I remember playing this sort of an optimization game in the past. Not surprisingly, "The Voxel Agents" had some idea on how to make Train Conductor World (TCW) fun, as this is the third released iteration of the formula. TCW has two layers. In one you're playing against the clock to deliver as many trains safely and correctly, but at the same time, each level is actually a setting, existing as a city on the world map. We'll get to that later.

The basic gameplay consists of overseeing a series of parallel railways. Each railway is color coded and has trains of a random color appearing from time to time from either end. Here's where the theme breaks down completely. You must create a temporary junction that leads to another rail in order to redirect wayward trains. The junction and rail disappears immediately after being traversed and is only valid for the current train. You can also stop trains, although they don't like it very much. Yeah, the trains act somewhat like living conscious things, the fret when being halted for too long and start shaking their front part when they're about to go out off the wrong track. It's charming to say the least.

The longer the train, the bigger your reward will be when it reaches the correct exit. Cash is used iexclusively to increase you level. However, you're also after stars. Each train will grant you a star as long as you take it where it wants to and don't hold it for too long (preferably not at all). Stars unlock higher difficulty levels. Honestly you want them, The game becomes more fun as it becomes more frantic.

Every time you level up, you receive a train track tile. These come randomly (or so it appears) and can be used in the second layer of TCW: the world map. Here all available levels appear as cities and can be played as many times as you wish. What's also accessible is your collection of track tiles. These can be placed (but not rotated) on the map in order to connect locations. Connections represent either new levels, with completely new layouts, or railway nodes, which act as cash generators. The more cities you can connect to these nodes, the more cash they will generate over time. The world map is sort of a puzzle. You will have to use your available tiles and decide to which point to connect. Although tiles can be removed and re-positioned at any time, once you connect to a city, that city needs to remain connected in some way. So essentially your network is versatile but not completely movable which is a nice twist. Of course, you can buy track sets as In App Purchases but you can simply play or wait for them to drip in.

I thoroughly enjoy Train Conductor World and honestly, I think they should make a full paid version because there's real quality in it.