Signals and Points by squimmy

[raw]
made by squimmy for Ludum Dare 59 (JAM)

You are the new owner of a burgeoning rail network!

screenshot.png

Build a railway empire! Use points and signals to direct your trains and prevent catastrophic crashes.

The "Inspect" tool is your key to victory: Inspect your train depot to build new locomotives, inspect locomotives to add wagons to them, inspect stations to see what they do, and inspect rivers and mountains to build spanning bridges or blast them to smithereens...

"Interact" mode allows you to toggle points and signals. (A signal pointing up means "stop" and a signal pointing down means "go".)

Deliver raw goods to processing stations to gather resources, and deliver gold nuggets to the bank to become fabulously wealthy and win the game!

Scroll around with right-mouse or wasd.

Most buttons have tooltips; If you're confused, try mousing-over things to see what they do.

The embedded version on ldjam.com doesn't seem to fit!! Please use the itch.io version instead!

The web version doesn't work very well. I recommend playing the Windows executable from itch.io if possible.

This game uses the font m5x7 by Daniel Linssen.

Godot was used to create the game. Art was drawn in Aseprite and music was composed in Bosca Ceoil.

Ratings

Overall 516th 3.456⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Fun 385th 3.441⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 526th 3.227⭐ 35🧑‍⚖️
Theme 279th 3.985⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 624th 3.265⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Audio 439th 3.235⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Humor 614th 2.148⭐ 29🧑‍⚖️
Mood 606th 3.309⭐ 36🧑‍⚖️
Given 32🗳️ 44🗨️

Feedback

jianghekai
Apr 21st · 03:07 UTC
amazing
MostLikely
Apr 21st · 04:09 UTC
Great game! Felt like Factorio in some ways, which is my favorite game. The building mechanics felt very robust, no bugs that I found, well made! For feedback, I think the tutorial could have been separated into parts over time, instead of just one lump sum at the beginning. That much text adds a bit of friction for new players. Also, I wasn't sure how to use the depots and play the core mechanic of the game. It felt really polished and had a great vibe overall, great job!
MountainGoose
Apr 21st · 06:12 UTC
I was also confused a bit on using the depots, but I really enjoyed the game overall! Well done!
msipp27
Apr 21st · 07:45 UTC
i liked it
GoogleFrog
Apr 21st · 10:02 UTC
Really great. The controls were a bit unclear at the start but I soon got the hang of it. The progression through the stages works well.
MtWhateverest
Apr 21st · 15:40 UTC
![Näyttökuva 2026-04-21 183705.png](///raw/255/72/z/72074.png)

Really good. Took a while to get the hang of it, but once you do it's a lot of fun! :)
GeraldFIngBurke
Apr 21st · 17:08 UTC
This was incredibly well done and polished. A 'nice-to-have' would have been a way to set up switch automation. Honestly, you might want to take this one beyond the jam. It scratches a very specific itch.
MajoMirez
Apr 21st · 17:49 UTC
I was confused at the start, but it's quite fun after I finally got it. It's like Factorio, but with manual signaling. I found some visual bugs like when inspecting something I would get the information of the last train I clicked
MajoMirez
Apr 21st · 17:49 UTC
I was confused at the start, but it's quite fun after I finally got it. It's like Factorio, but with manual signaling. I found some visual bugs like when inspecting something I would get the information of the last train I clicked
tweekus
Apr 22nd · 11:44 UTC
Could you explain how to collect materials? I tried to connect road with building but it didn't work
🎤 squimmy
Apr 22nd · 11:58 UTC
@mostlikely I really wished I'd had the time to add a proper tutorial but I'd already blown past the deadline for the compo and was fixing bugs right up to the jam deadline. As for the depot, it's the large brown building in the north-west of the starting area. Using "Inspect" on it will let you buy trains there.

@mtwhateverest I'm glad to see someone finishing this. I was half worried it would be to slow and tedious to be fun......

@geraldfingburke Thanks for your kind words. I feel like there's a lot more work that could have been done in tutorialising the way everything works, and the economy could definitely be developed to be more complex and engaging. I'll give some serious thought to continuing work on this once voting is over.

@tweekus: Sure. Start by placing a rail directly alongside a station that makes a raw material (e.g. iron ore, at the iron mine station) and then continue that railway until it runs directly alongside a station that _consumes_ that same raw material (so, for iron ore, that would be the iron refinery station). Once you do this, send a train along the tracks and it will stop at the raw material station to collect the materials, then deliver them to the consuming station, at which point you will be awarded the appropriate resource.
tweekus
Apr 22nd · 13:09 UTC
@squimmy got it, thanks!
illiteratelexicon
Apr 22nd · 20:29 UTC
pretty fun overall!, reminds me of openttd. Goodjob!
gil4
Apr 23rd · 09:18 UTC
Quite a challenging genre to pull off quickly, but you've managed really well, great job!
Mantaraygun
Apr 23rd · 15:52 UTC
I really like the retro graphics and audio, I think you did a lot of good work. It isn't my usual kind of game, so I admit I found it hard to get the hang of, but I think with a proper tutorial and some extra time this could scratch a certain itch for a lot of players.
Alex de la Cour
Apr 23rd · 21:04 UTC
Very addicting and satisfying watching all the routes come together and seeing those numbers going up! Definitely took me a minute to figure out (I had to come here and read through the comments to see how to collect resources), so could have done with some tutorialisation, but once I got the hang of it I had fun.
DavidTheRailfan
Apr 24th · 22:27 UTC
A really cool little strategy around railways, my favourite theme. Game mechanics are fun, basically a cute little tycoon themed around freight trains. Amazing background music using a good old FM synth and some really cool electronic drums. Sound-wise, maybe trains, junctions, and signals could have SFX, but that's just a little detail.
apt_prose7
Apr 26th · 08:27 UTC
A nice way to pass the time.
LDJam user 278146
Apr 26th · 08:44 UTC
Nice and relaxing :)

I was expecting the signals to be more complicated but it was also fun with simple "train stops when it's near an off signal" mechanics.

I had an issue a few times when adding a wagon spent my money but didn't seem to do anything.
LDJam user 407703
Apr 28th · 13:14 UTC
Great game and take on the theme! The screenshot was really helpful to show exactly how the building mechanic works.

I think theres a lot more potential in this idea. If I were you, I would definitely consider developing it further. Very well done!
evil23
Apr 29th · 20:18 UTC
Neat game, I like the color palette and the railroad theme. It wasn't really intuitive though. There was no way to tell what you can click on and what's just decoration. It could use some highlighting of which item is selected.

I couldn't make a train appear and also I couldn't connect the railway to the engine depot like in the screenshot? When I bought a locomotive, nothing happened, no visual feedback. Maybe a bug just me encountered.

The music was a bit unmotivated and too quick to repeat. At this point, it would have been better with no music at all as I turned it off after 30 seconds.
Right now it feels like claude-code + 30mins of ms paint. If you invested some time in artwork and polishing, it could make a decent game though!