Derail Valley

[NorthernWarrior]

Available now on Steam, best described as American (or European) Truck Simulator on rails, where you make money hauling cargo between various industries on a map. So I guess also like Railroad Tycoon, except you drive the train!

Primarily intended for VR users but perfectly playable on a normal 2D screen. Still in early access so much work to be done but I was having great fun on a quick run last night.

Not sure if the devs have a feedback site but a couple of areas that do need a bit of work:
Your "inventory" only has a certain number of slots so I was unable to take a job card without dropping another piece of equipment, moat of which you need.
There needs to be keyboard support for the loco controls as it is hard to judge braking if you're looking at the control stand.
Some sort of speed limit indication to minimise derailing.
Ability to remote set your route ahead of the run - possibly some sort of despatcher board.

That aside fully recommended, if you want something a bit lighter in your train simming time!

[ex-railwayman]

A free demo is available, however, note that it dates from mid-2017 and is no longer representative of the full game. Derail Valley has been almost entirely remade since, for it to support large worlds, walking outside, item handling, etc.

That is the advertising blurb on Steam, so, did you get this free Demo version Vern, or, the paid early access edition, which is completely different, so, I'm unsure whether to dip my toe in the water so to speak, it all depends on if you want to spend any money, and looking at a few videos it seems rather arcadey and is not representative of any real country's railway system, or, is it supposed to be like that?
You get more involved though, as a driver, having to manually switch point levers and collecting your job sheets and getting paid to complete the tasks, looks a little immature to me personally, early days possibly, but, I would think plenty of other folks will like it.

Cheerz. Steve.

[haverfordwest]

I thought it looked arcade and toy like Steve.

When i read a review which had a video and piccies.

Mike.

[NorthernWarrior]

I bought the early access version, Steve.

I think it is meant to be a bit arcade like but no more than Trainz in its early days. Think American or European Truck Sim but with trains.

The biggest criticism I have seen on Facebook is the title could be viewed as a bit insensitive - the whole point of driving a train is not to derail and of course it remains to be seen how much balance there will be between supporting the VR side of things and a conventional monitor experience. With my eyesight I doubt I would get on very well with an Occulus, let alone the cost of buying one.

[Edwin]

The game doesn't have passenger trains, nor people in the VR world AFAIK, so no corporal damage done.

The business model is fun and actually require you to work and you get some monetary satisfaction. Haven't earned enough cash to buy me the Mikado. Handling the steamer seems to be quite the hands full experience.

Even in VR handling all the items and paperwork with your Vive or Oculus controllers is a bit tricky. Real tactile VR gloves would be a dream for a game like this, but are still prohibitively expensive and cumbersome.

Devs seem to be responsive to both suggestions and criticism. Updates have come every couple of days so far.

About the derailing, it would be nice if there was a variable to set the chance of derailments or track stability or something.

All in all, a nice game for less than the price of one TSW DLC and much more fulfilling.

PS: Oculus have dropped in price quite some more compared to Vive. Just try one of the headsets in a good game store, the image is projected into your eyes from the distance of about four times your spectacles are from your eyes. Both headsets have eye cushions that allow for wearing spectacles. But prolonged use of the heavy headset makes your face sweaty under the headset.

[dejoh]

https://youtu.be/w1PEAd4iP30?t=3

[NorthernWarrior]

Good news: Quite a few updates including the horn now works on the diesel shunter - I haven't bothered with the steam loco yet - and keyboard commands for brake and throttle allowing finer control.

Bad news: Spurious derailments seem to be back with a vengeance, two attempted runs last night both ended in frustrating derailments. The first hauling a consist uphill under medium power at ~50 km/h when a coupler broke. The second after a very gentle brake application starting to run downhill, whole train started to bang into the loco, almost as if there is no train braking just the straight (loco) break.

Reported via the Steam forum, will maybe leave it a couple of days to see if any further updates are forthcoming.

[seagoon]

Vern.........

I bought this today and, so far, I am prepared to accept that it is Early Access and therefore has many glitches and a lot of work yet to be done.
I've bought many EA games over the years and one has to be patient and hope that the dev(s) do the right thing and keep the head down and bum up.

But even allowing for the fact that it is in early development, I think that they need to get a "save game" capability into it as a matter of urgency.
I am sure that I am not the only one who is irritated by the fact that no progress can be saved.

It certainly has great potential and if the physics can be tuned then the gameplay should be quite entertaining.
At the moment it is certainly living up to its name....which maybe should be changed to "Death" Valley!

[NorthernWarrior]

Welcome aboard Bruce! Yes there a few frustrations at present but hopefully the developers will be addressing them. At least the early access is at a reasonable price, unlike N3V with their outrageous £55 for TRS2019.

The ability to save the run in progress would go far towards mitigating the annoyance when you derail just sort of the destination.

At this stage though I don't really see DV as a serious competitor to the established train sims, belongs more in the niche of the truck games, just a bit of fun.

[seagoon]

Certainly fun, Vern.
I actually managed to do a bit of touring, at speeds up to 70 kph, without derailing.

There are several things about the UI which I would suggest modifying - toggle the action of the Inventory selection key, for a start. Having to choose 1 - 0 and then Tab to see it and then Tab to put it away is overkill. Just toggle 1 - 0....on, off. Simple.
Also a key-press to show/remove the Inventory display at the bottom of the screen.

The loco sounds are excellent, IMHO.
Graphics are acceptable; not photorealistic but it's a game, not a sim, set in a fictional world.

There are several aspects which I already like - the "GPS" capability of the map display; the tasking system for choosing jobs.

It will be nice to interact with AI at some point.

They'll get there gradually and, yes, it is a fun game without being totally arcade. Certainly piques my interest.