Railroads & Catacombs

Review

After selecting to start a new game from the main menu screen, you will choose a game save file; there are six empty files for your games to be saved. The game is saved automatically so you won’t have to worry about making sure you save your progress. You will then find yourself standing beside some rail tracks with a pathway leading away.

In the bottom right of the screen is the map of your current area. As you make your way down the path from the train tracks, you will enter a new area, which will show your position on the map. There are several things that can be found in each of the areas you visit, and you can see what they are by checking the map legend. You will find bare land, as well as areas that contain something mysterious or something of value such as statues or resources like wood, metal or booze. However, not everything in the areas is there to benefit you, there are enemies and Bosses waiting for you in most of the areas.

As you move from area to area you will lose your Sanity and this is something that you must always keep an eye on. There are three states of Sanity, and they will affect your combat and exploration. Firstly there’s Lucid, which is your normal state; you want to stay lucid if possible. This will allow you to have first turn in combat and select your starting position on the battlefield. You can also see what is in the adjoining areas on the mini map so that you can decide which way to proceed.

The next state of Sanity is Paranoid.  In this state, the mini map will not show you what lies in the adjacent areas and while you will still have first turn in combat, the starting positions for you and the enemy are random. The third and final state of sanity is Hysterical.  In an Hysterical state, you lose the opportunity to go first in battle, you start with Minus One Stamina in battle, and you cannot select your starting position. You also have a limited mini map.

Losing all your sanity won’t kill you right away, but the longer you go without sorting your sanity out, the more your Health Points will dwindle. To replenish your sanity, you must take a rest, and to rest you must have six Wood. This will allow you to set up camp and get five minutes of beauty sleep, returning your Sanity to normal. The icon for Rest is a Tent which is found in the bottom centre of the screen below your Health Points and Sanity bar.

At the side of the Tent is a Tankard (Supplies); using the Tankard will replenish your Health Points, although you will need nine supplies before you can replenish your health. The resources you collect can be found in the bottom left of the screen. Along with the Wood and Tankard you also have Coal, Tongues and Iron. All five types of resources can be used away from the battlefield onboard your train once you have unlocked and created the relevant train carriages.

Combat takes place over a battlefield of 4x3 tiled layout. You will use cards to perform actions and attack your enemy. Each card will cost you some Stamina points.  If all is well with you and you are lucid, then you will start with five stamina points. You can start with less depending on your sanity and possibly other factors.

Your objective for victory will vary; sometimes you are required to Kill the Champion which is identified by a purple teardrop icon on the champion. Other times you will have to cause a specified amount of damage to become victorious.

Somewhere within one of the areas there is a Boss waiting for you. Just like when fighting the lower enemies, defeating a boss may require that you perform certain objectives. There’s one level where you have two bosses, and you must defeat both in the same turn. So, you need to work their health points down low enough that you can attack and kill them in the same turn. However, if you only kill one of them in a turn then that boss will respawn with its full health. Some bosses are harder than others and you may just have to be patient and play it slow and steady instead of trying to rush straight in. Find their weakness.

Upon defeating an enemy, you will have the chance to choose one of three resources that are offered to you, including Coal, Wood, Iron etcetera. If you defeat a boss, you will earn extra coal. However, if you fail to beat the boss then it could be game over for that character. However, if you are lucky, then your character won’t have died but instead just have some degree of injury. Whether you win or lose you will have a status screen which shows what card upgrades you collected, the resources you collected, your most used cards and the condition of your character.

You may come across some statues scattered around various areas; these will offer you an upgrade and allow you to customise one of your cards. However, the card is required to have an open upgrade slot.  Each card can have a total of four upgrade slots, but you will have to unlock any locked slots through the Workshop back on your train once it, too, has been unlocked. You will also find resources on the ground in some of the areas so keep your mince pies open as you will need plenty of all these resources.

After you have visited the boss, you head back to your train. Here you can use your resources to unlock new carriages to expand your train. There are a total of ten carriages which can be upgraded four times and another carriage which can be upgraded three times. You have the following: carriages Engineering Cabin, Void Portal, Railmancer Cabin, Workshop, Recruiting Barracks, Infirmary, Cabala Library, Training Room, Wake Room, Cantina and Hall of Memory.

The Engineering cabin will allow you to build the other cabins, the Void portal allows you to recruit new crew members, and the Infirmary allows you to hopefully heal the injured and sick (sometimes you can make them worse off). Not all carriages are available to you right away and you will need to unlock them through the Cabala Library. Unlocking and upgrading the carriages’ levels through the library will also allow you to spend less resources on using the carriages. So, you won’t need as much Iron to build a carriage using the engineer's cabin or it will take less coal to have a doctor heal one of your crew.

There are five types of crew members that you can recruit to your train and send out to take on the enemy. You have the Engineer, Railmancer, Scholar, Soldier and Doctor. Each has its own benefits and cards, and although they can vary from crew member to crew member, the basic health etcetera is the same for each crew type.

You will use these characters to leave the train and visit various locations as you unlock them by defeating the previous location’s boss. Each location will increase its level each time you defeat the boss, increasing the location’s difficulty each time. Your crew members cannot enter a location if they are not strong enough or don’t have enough starting health points, but you can upgrade your crew members through the workshop.

The artwork is awesome and the game runs very well. I haven’t had any problems playing. You will play the same locations over and over as you level up your characters, and requiring resources to heal, rest etcetera can be a bit annoying, but it’s not as bad as some rogue-like games I’ve played.

The game is in Early Access so there are always going to be some problems along the line and things may change as time goes by, so keep that in mind. However, the game is looking pretty good so far.

I did notice one spelling mistake and I hate to call the Grammar Police; however, it is not that big of a deal at the end of the day, it doesn’t break the game. The spelling mistake should say “Which” but instead says “Wich” on the Sanity explanation screens.

There’s not a lot in the way of settings; there’s Master and Music Volume Sliders and Language (English, Chinese, French, German, Spanish and Korean). And that’s your lot.

Review written by Piston Smashed™ for Zeepond.com

Railroads & Catacombs Steam Store page