Track Switching

Interesting idea as once trains are on a track the only way is forward! I seem to be able to get a negative score though, so not sure if I am meant to, but is a cool reaction game. Well Done!

Nice game ! Well done !

Man, I really wish this had some cool train sounds. Anyway, I immediately grasped the concept, so nice work keeping it simple. It is obvious how this can rapidly ramp up in difficulty. I think remapping the switch inputs to match their order on a keyboard might help. For example, the left most switch should correspond to the left most number (1).

Cool game, and congratulations on your first Ludum Dare! Really solid game I like the idea

I didn't read the instructions and immediately figured it out the goal and how to go about achieving it, so kudos on making things intuitive. I was missing like, a third of the screen on the right and bottom for some reason, so it was impossible to redirect some of the trains, but otherwise it was great!

I really love the idea, however as more trains come it becomes reall difficult to sort things out, and the random spawner works really well in my opinion however sometimes it does spawn two trains consecutively

My high score was 80, at about 7.5 minutes, when I couldn't concentrate on it anymore =). I got to a score of 53 before realizing I could let a train enter into the wrong station for a penalty ^_^.

That was pretty neat. A little sound would be good. It started at just the right pace to get the hang of things. A little more increase to the speed at which trains came to speed the game to its end would have been nice though. Maybe some additional options in the track (there seemed to be only exactly 1 way to get from almost any source to almost any other sink, so usually had no real options, just had to have the right switches set) would be nice - so you could route a train around to avoid colliding or something.

After playing as much as I did, I have to ask... is losing actually inevitable? Or does it always generate trains that are guaranteed not to crash?

Really well done game, elegant in its simplicity!

@jimbly Wow, looks like you are really good at the game! (:

I need to ask: Have you played with mouse/touch or with the keyboard? I would like to know which input method leads to such a good score.

You are correct, there could be more options on routing the trains. I mean there are some options, e.g. you can route the trains from the upper-most track down and then up again, but not really different strategies. I thought about adding signals, but did not have time for that.

The game always spawns trains that can reach their correct destination without crashing with any other trains, assuming that you always route the trains perfectly with the shortest available route. I feel making a fatal mistake at some point is actually inevitable :P
I guess, if there would be the possibility to loose just because there wasn't any guaranteed solution, then the game would feel a bit pointless.

Really good game. Was completely engaged in it as the difficulty increased. I wish there were sound effects and some background music.

@sinus I was playing with keyboard - number pad only. I'm pretty terrible with a mouse these days, using my off-hand since my dominant hand has some lingering injuries from clicking too much in other games, so I avoid clicking if it's an option ^_^. I could imagine this working well with touch tough. I definitely got into a zen pattern of just look at the next train coming out, visually follow it's path and make sure all the switches are right (waiting for existing trains to pass, if they're on the same path), and then move on to the next one, and that seemed to work. Until an inevitable mistake is made, as you say =). I'm usually not particularly good at time-sensitive video games, and thinking about this one, I think it's weirdly actually musical sight-reading (which I do a lot of) that maps to the skillset here - sight reading is all about juggling "What note am I singing right now? Remember what notes are coming next. What's the bass line doing? What words are coming up?" which is really similar to "What switch do I need to switch right now? Remember which switches after that. What's the next train doing?" =)

(Edit: LOL, thanks a bunch for bringing me back to this page with a comment, apparently I was so engrossed in leaving my feedback and playing that I forgot to actually rate! I don't _think_ I do that very often... but now I'm worried...)

Really fun one ! This is a very good concept, and the game balance is very good as it starts slowly and easy to go to crazy rhythm.
Also, technically, it's neat to see a game that load instantly.
Sound effects would have been awesome, but of course, it needs time.
This is clearly a good game to do an october challenge with it ;-).

This might be my favorite game of the compo! Such a simple concept but you executed so well. Giving the upcoming train colors with a countdown on the right side really removed any excuses for my poorly-timed switching. I played a few times and I never really got an "unfair" combination where 2 trains *had* to be on the same track at the same time, so it felt like it was always my fault when I died (which is a good thing). Not sure how you managed that. Great game!

I liked the difficulty curve on this, definitely got into the 'zone' as it got harder. Thanks for the game!

This is such a novel and fun game, great job! This game would really benefit from some sound, I think that's the only major thing holding it back. Also, some sort of an explosion effect would be great for when the trains crash. It was a bit of a letdown to crash two trains into each other and get nothing but a "you lose" while they sit motionless on the tracks, no debris or fireworks to be had. These are minor complaints, though, the core product here is fantastic.

This is really nicely put together, particularly for a Compo entry AND a first Ludum Dare good job overall. There's definitely a great sort of feel to the difficulty increase. Starts off nice and simple and gets more complex at a pace that is satisfying but also boosts the tension effectively.

Fun game! The chaos really fits with the theme.

Some notes: The -4 score penalty feels a little too high. It makes it really hard to get a non-negative score. Also, the yellow and green trains are a bit difficult to tell apart for colorblind people.

I quite liked this one though.