Sweet Transit
Review
Tracking nicely
by Howie Howard
reviewed on PC
Railroad Logistics & City Building Galore
Sweet Transit is a city building and logistics management game that has players transporting passengers and cargo around a large landscape map via railroad. The game by indie developer Ernestas NorvaiĊĦas and publishers Team 17 has been in Early Access for the last two years and it has finally made it's full release debut. Even though railroads and their accompanying trains are the main focus, city building is equally as important in this sim. So stay with us as we discuss some of the particulars in the paragraphs to follow.
It Doesn't Go There, It Goes Here
In order to more easily progress in to future expansion everything needs to be placed appropriately in the beginning. If not, then there could be some deleting and replacing of buildings and train track. It might even be necessary to start over to get it just right. To help, there is a comprehensive tutorial that is recommended to be completed before embarking on one of the twelve scenarios or the open world sandbox game. The tutorial is graphically and text based in nature and there is reading involved. It's too bad the tutorial isn't enhanced via a voice driven narrative, but it is helpful nonetheless. Everything from basic screen movement to building placement and to more advanced aspects of the economic model is discussed in detail. Most of the tutorial involves how to actually place items properly on the map. As an example, a village where people will live needs to be located near a water source and a coal mine needs to be near coal deposits and so on.
There really isn't an actual story narrative present in Sweet Transit but the simple and nicely designed graphics does give the impression that the game takes place in a Victorian turn of the century industrial revolution time setting. Progression from steam power to diesel powered train engines impresses the turn of the century time period of the game even further. As progress is achieved and problems are solved, and there will be a lot of problems that will crop up, new trains and more advanced buildings will be unveiled and usable. The rather simplistic visuals in the game gives the game a nice laid back feel and gaming experience.
Trains look and sounds so soothing
The background music further enhances the laid back feeling of the game, and it can be rather soothing to listen to. Even though the on screen game action itself portrays a busy and active kind of train and city environment, the music smoothes things out and adds to the overall ambiance the game tries to portray. Add in the ambient sounds of a bustling city and it increases the desire to keep coming back to make sure everything is operating properly in your growing metropolis.
Sweet Transit is a city building affair that kind of reminds me of Sim City in the way that buildings are placed and how they look on screen. It also brought up fond memories for me of my days playing Railroad Tycoon. Those were two of my favourite games and they certainly can be fun to play even today. The Sweet Transit graphics model is reminiscent of both of those two games, but the main gameplay goals are certainly different. Sim City basically required the game player to keep the cities citizens happy as the city itself grew. While Railroad Tycoon required building and expanding the rail road infrastructure and then each station and it's little town would expand a bit to show growth of the railroad empire. Sweet Transit combines all of those qualities but it touches on both in a more relaxed and less in-depth way and can feel like a puzzle solving affair that requires management of railroad logistics.
What a large world map you have
The world map is enormous and the job of building a city by moving people and goods around the map may appear to be a difficult task in the beginning. Luckily the game AI eases you into things slowly. As you progress, new improved trains and more advanced buildings will become available and all of this will keep things growing nicely. However, various problems like shortages of workers, not enough available resources being delivered on time, and other issues along with required game goals will crop up to throw road blocks (or should that be rail blocks?) in your way. Add an inefficient track or building placement and the need to essentially solve a railroad puzzle will make you wish you paid better attention to the tutorial. That certainly happened to me early on in the games and caused me to decide that it would be better to just start over.
The seemingly sharp learning curve is actually not a bad thing though, as additional replays of other scenarios will become even more satisfying when everything works out perfectly. Success is often measured by a persons life experience and it's no different in Sweet Transit. As you play through the scenarios and make mistakes along the way, you will learn not to repeat those same mistakes the next time. Add in the integrated workshop where customized mods can be created and this will keep the game fresh long in to the future. Since Sweet Transit had been in Early Access for a couple of years, it has allowed modding by the community and this has created many scenarios that can be enjoyed by all.
A satisfying train experience indeed
It would be safe to say that Sweet Transit could be viewed as being a niche title to the gaming public in general. Whilst the management and optimization of railroad logistics with the resulting growth of a city might not be everyone's cup of tea, the game can still provide a lot of enjoyment for those of us that like such things. Sweet Transit looks and sounds great and with the additional content created by fans the game would seem to have a long term appeal for train fans. And even though it has a rather steep learning curve and I was forced to scratch my head over some of the foolish building decisions I made, I still have to give this one a two thumbs up!
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8.7
fun score
Pros
Well done train and city building game that will provide a large replay-ability factor due to fan mod-ability.
Cons
A rather steep learning curve that requires game pieces be placed perfectly or almost perfectly at the beginning.
