Commotion Conductor by Auto

A game about controlling railway signals!
Direct trains to their desired destinations! But don't let your trains hit each other, or they might 'rapidly disassemble'.

- Design & Lead Programmer: @Auto
- Sound, Art & Programming: @lezzlebit
- Colors & Train Models: @yakiyuki
all of the assets were made by us! with exceptions: - The foliage is from PlantFactory, but made (using Blender) into pre-rendered 2D sprites with filters - Most of the sounds are mixed from many CC0 sounds from Freesound - The font for the UI is Fraunces
(The attached download is a build for Windows computers.)
Ratings
| Overall | 124th | 4⭐ | 24🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 139th | 3.833⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 319th | 3.548⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 134th | 4.214⭐ | 23🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 107th | 4.4⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 426th | 3.263⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 256th | 3.289⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 408th | 3.658⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 16🗳️ | 10🗨️ |
If I had to mention small improvements, the map is a bit too large for the screen. Especially in stage three, the three exits sit far off-screen, so I had to constantly drag the view to check directions and find levers, which felt a little awkward. It would also help to make signal lights more noticeable, since I often struggled to tell red and green states apart at a glance.
My first impression was confusion as it starts zoomed in too close to be able to see where the trains should be going.
Some way of knowing when a new train is about to spawn would be useful, the third level seemed more about learning the sequence and starting over than reacting to the trains as I was too late to redirect any of the trains going to C as the required junction is so close to the start.
You did a better job with a train signalling idea than I managed this jam.
Some indicators for off-screen trains would be great, because I had to swipe the map constantly to see if a train is coming.
Overall, the game seems very polished. Good job!
I do think the gameplay might need some tweaking, though. Especially on the last two levels, there doesn't seem to be much room for error. In order to get the trains to where they need to go, you need to direct them almost immediately as you see them, which seems unfair - doubly so since the whole map can't fit on the screen at once (at least, not on the HTML version). I think having slower overall trains, more time to react, and some more branches for last-minute saves would go a long way to improving the gamefeel.