First we managed a skyscraper in Tiny Tower. Then we tried our hand at air traffic control in Pocket Planes. Now NimbleBit is turning us into train magnates with their newest simulation game, Pocket Trains!
Gameplay is easy to pick up, especially for fans of Pocket Planes. You start with a few engines, cars, and cities, and build your empire bit by bit as you earn coins and make deliveries. There are extra challenges and special cargo that help you advance as well. In Pocket Trains each bit of track is "owned" by a single railroad, and it costs coins to claim tracks or change who owns it. This means you'll be dropping cars off a lot so you can get that hayride car from Minsk to Rome, and it means you get to create a brightly colored map of train routes just as gorgeous as the ones in every subway station. You also have to refuel your trains, which happens automatically as they idle in the stations.
As usual with NimbleBit's games, Pocket Planes' strength is in how well it scales. Prices increase at roughly the same rate as your income and you only see train parts that are appropriate for your level, meaning that it's nearly impossible to encounter a bottleneck where you need that new, shiny engine but it would take two weeks to earn the coins for it. You can speed things up in a variety of ways by buying Bux, but there are so many ways to earn Bux that there's no reason to spend real-life money for them if you don't want to. "Balance" would be the name of the game, if the game weren't already called Pocket Trains. There are a few features (Bitbook, social elements like Pocket Planes' flight crews) that don't exist in Pocket Trains (yet) but the game is so polished and shiny and funny that it's hard to even miss them.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have a train to catch, just as soon as I'm done deciding what cargo goes in it.
NOTE: This game was played and reviewed on the LG Optimus L9. Game was available in the North American market at the time of publication, but may not be available in other territories. Please see individual app market pages for purchasing info.
Walkthrough Guide
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Pocket Trains strategy guide
Note: this guide is a work in progress; please feel free to add your own tips and tricks in the comments!
General Information
The Train Station Screen
You start with access to only a few cities; go to the station that has your first train to begin. You'll see your engine and anything attached to it on this screen; there are also lots of buttons. Feel free to drag back and forth on your train to get a good look at its cargo!
The button on the top left indcates your level, tap it to show more details about how many XP you need to advance.
The arrows next to your train name let you go quickly between trains, or you can tap the button on the top right to see a list of your railroads and other information about the trains (location, arrival times, fuel information, etc.). The number on the top right button indicates how many lines are currently idle at stations.
The meter below the train's name indicates the train's fuel level. Idle trains refill with time.
The "Jobs" button on the lower left is rather important; the number on the button indicates the number of jobs available for you to take in the city you're in. More information on this in the next section.
The "Station" button gives you information about the station; you can upgrade your stockyard capacity from here, or buy crates if they're for sale.
The "Train" button gives you information about your train. From here you can add an engine or a fuel car (if you have one in your yard, and if you haven't reached the maximum number of cars for the train). You can also swap the engine for something else in your yard, rename or shut down the line, or change the line's color on the map.
The "Map" button goes to the map; from here you can add new tracks and generally get a sweeping view of where your trains are and what they're up to.
The "Menu" button takes you to the menu, where you can do a whole lot of things, most of which are covered in later sections of this guide.
The Jobs Screen
Tapping the "Jobs" button from any train station takes you to the Jobs screen. Shocking and unexpected, I know.
The Jobs screen has a small version of your map, a listing of jobs you can pick up, and some information on the train you're using and the station you're in.
Jobs Page Screenshot (Yes, I'm naming my trains after Crayola colors. Hush.)
Tap any of the jobs on the right to attach them to your engine. If you can't attach it for whatever reason, it'll flash red for a moment and nothing else will happen. If the job attaches successfully, its background will turn green.
Tap any job you've loaded to unload it. If there isn't room in the station's stockyard, you'll be prompted to upgrade the station for Bux.
Color coding is important in the job listing pane.
Names of cities you can deliver directly to (without claiming a section of track) are the same color as the line you're loading cars onto. All other cities are white.
The names of jobs that qualify for events are light blue.
The names of jobs that give Bux are green.
The names of jobs that give crates are yellow.
The number of coins or Bux displayed under each job—next to the total amount you'll earn for delivering that job—indicates how good a deal it is. If you have a choice, go for the jobs with higher numbers of coins/Bux. It's ultimately a better indication of value than the raw income you'll earn, because each job has a different size.
Each train is its own line; trains cannot share pieces of track. The first time you have a train go over a section of track, you will be prompted to pay coins to "claim" that track for that train's line. You can change this later by taking another train over the same section of track, but you'll have to pay again, so it pays to plan carefully!
Tracks that are in use (or that will soon be in use as another train moves) are shown in bold on the map; you can't claim them.
Cities that are the center of an event are marked with a yellow dot with an exclamation point instead of the standard red dot.
Cities receiving cargo from your train have yellow names on the map.
The more you upgrade a train station, the bigger its dot is on the map.
Making all your train lines the same color doesn't let you deliver everywhere. (I tried it; don't bother.)
Once your train is all loaded up and you've set your route, tap the "Depart" button to go!
The Care and Feeding of Trains
Each of your trains is made up of train parts that you can get out of crates. There are a few ways to earn Crates: you can deliver them, buy them in stations, complete missions, or catch them in midair while you're watching your train move. It costs 10 Bux to open a crate.
You can see what parts you have by tapping the "Menu" and "Craft" buttons and selecting the "Parts" button.
There are also special crates that give you parts to special trains (one looks like a Chinese dragon!).
When you have enough parts from one kind of train, you can make a new car by selecting the green "Craft" button next to that train. You'll use up some parts, but otherwise it's free.
The train cars you make go into your Yard (which is also accessible from the "Craft" screen).
The cars you create can either be engines or fuel cars.
Adding engines to a train increases the number of cars you can carry at once, but the engines have to match.
Adding fuel cars to a train increases the train's fuel capacity, but again, the cars have to match. You can't add a Cherry Steamer fuel car to an Emerald Steamer engine!
Do keep some spare parts for any trains you have in service. They're useful to have around when things break down. (You can repair your broken trains using coins as well, but if you have a part on hand and you're not saving it for anything special, use the spare part instead.)
Trains need fuel to go places. Thankfully, these ones refuel automatically, and you don't even have to pay for it! You do have to wait, though.
You can travel without being fully fueled, but if you try to go farther than your current fuel level will allow, you'll be prompted to find another route, or pay Bux to refuel instantly.
If you want to see what a moving train is carrying, tap any of its cars for a detailed readout of the train's contents.
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The Menu Button (and the things it contains)
Options: Exactly what it says on the tin. Toggle sound and music, connect your game to Google Play Games, or delete all your progress from here. This is also where you find your gift code if you want people to give you train parts.
New RR: Create a new railroad with one of the engines you have stored in your yard. Costs you coins.
Licenses: Lets you open up other continents for 50,000 coins each. It seems like a lot at first, but once you've conquered Europe, you'll be making that kind of money.
Stats: All your statistics. Want to know how far you've travelled, or how many events you've completed? This is where you go.
Event: This is where you find information on the daily event.
Each event changes daily; if you deliver the set amount of jobs you earn Bux and a special train crate. Keep in mind that unlike Pocket Planes, events can have you deliver cars from places as well, and the description doesn't always make that obvious. So if you're not getting special blue deliveries to a city, try sending a train there and looking at the jobs that are leaving it.
Craft: Where you open crates, build new engines and fuel cars, and store parts you're not using.
Shop: You can buy Bux or crates here. There's also an option to let you watch a short video for 2 Bux.
Bank: Exchange Bux for coins here. The exchange rate fluctuates daily.
Awards: Where you can see your awards. Tap on any award to see what you have to do to get it.
More Games: You don't need me to describe this. ;)
Basic Strategy/Hints
There's one piece of strategy that's important enough to make it into the in-game tutorial: Always try to have at least four stops on a train line. It drastically increases your chances of getting rare items.
Conversely, don't make your lines overly long. It's much more economical to just start a new line than it is to have a single huge one going from San Francisco to Saint Petersburg to Sydney.
In Pocket Trains, you don't have to pay for fuel, and you don't get a bonus for sending a full train to one city, so keeping your train full isn't as paramount here as keeping your plane full is in Pocket Planes. Nevertheless, it's still a very good idea. So if you're in London, and you have cargo bound for Paris and Munich, you're generally better off just taking everything to Paris and seeing what other jobs are there.
It costs coins to open a new section of track, and it costs coins to claim it, so keep that in mind when expanding. It's better to expand piece by piece than it is to buy OMG ALL THE TRACK at once.
Most of your stations should be served by more than one line. This isn't going to be possible for all the stations, of course, but it greatly speeds things up if there's more than one way to get to a city. Especially if that city is a central one.
I said it earlier in this post, and it merits repeating: Pay more attention to the number of coin or Bux symbols next to a job than to what you'll actually be paid. It's always more worthwhile to take a 1-car job for 200 coins than it is to take a 5-car job for the same amount.
That said, if you have 7 out of 8 cars attached to your train, and there's a low-rating job that's just one car going to somewhere near where you're already heading, then by all means add it! That's 20 coins you wouldn't be earning otherwise.
If at all possible, take jobs that pay in Bux, even if you have to drop the cars in a stockyard. Ditto for crates.
When you upgrade stations, focus on the ones that are served by more than one line. You'll be using the stockyards there a lot, and it's a much better investment to upgrade those stations than it is to upgrade, say, Dublin (which only has one way in or out).
If you have the fuel to spare and you'll be away from the game for a while, it can be worthwhile to make an extra stop after offloading all your cargo, and come to a stop somewhere central, so you have more chances at better jobs when you return. (If you know you'll be back at the game in half an hour, it's a waste of fuel. If you're playing just before you go to bed, then it's definitely worth it.)
That's pretty much it for now; there's certain to be more advanced strategy as people advance futher. Again, feel free to chime in with any helpful tips you might have. Also feel free to comment with your gift code (found in the "options" section of the menu) to organize trades and such.
Thanks to HopefulNebula for the strategy guide!
Posted by: Mike
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September 28, 2013 10:49 PM