Station to Station Review

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Fast Facts

All Aboard!

Station to Station is a voxel art puzzle game about developing an ecosystem of different trains to optimise revenues and minimise costs. The art style immediately hooked me, and I was excited to experiment with railroad management. Was my journey profitable? Find out in this Rapid Review.

To begin my journey, I set out onto the world map where I got to select my first level. There was not much of a story or plotline to follow; instead, I simply began learning how to play and was assigned objectives. While I think a simple storyline could have been nice, getting right into the action worked well, and I had no grievances with the lack of a story. I particularly enjoyed how the developers taught me the mechanics of the game.

Prepare to Train Your Brain

The concepts in Station to Station are simple. However, there are a lot of brief tutorials that helped me learn the concepts. These segments never overstayed their welcome. Additionally, even after receiving instructions on how things worked, many user interface components displayed valuable information that helped remind me of use cases. Though there is no story, Station to Station’s guiding presentation is great.

While it is great to have solid tutorials, to me, interestingly implementing those mechanics is significantly more important. Thankfully, I thoroughly enjoyed Station to Station’s feedback loop. For starters, the game is about moving goods from point A to point B. While this is not necessarily a revolutionary idea, connecting stations is fun. I enjoyed strategically determining which stations to connect first in order to optimise my revenue streams. I enjoyed the premise and core gameplay loop that Station to Station had to offer.

Importantly, Station to Station is a cosy adventure. As such, I went into the game anticipating relatively minimally challenging levels. In line with my expectations, the game-curated levels were easy enough to complete. None of the levels stumped me for a long time, at least, not if I was actively trying to complete them. However, in addition to the traditional objective of connecting resources, there are two optional objectives in each stage. These add a level of additional difficulty that makes optimising each level significantly more rewarding.

There are even optional dream levels which shake up the game’s traditional rules, adding even more ways to engage talented players. Due to the multiple levels of challenge, Station to Station presents stages with a low barrier to entry while engaging more well-versed fans with optional, more challenging puzzles.

Navigating a Supply Chain

Another thing that stood out about Station to Station was how many things I could do. In addition to the anticipated mechanics of placing tracks and configuring rail costs, the developers implemented cards that further enhanced my strategy, which was a surprise. Some of these cards were simple, such as making one rail line cost half what it used to, but others were more niche – such as providing bonuses for placing track on mountainous terrain.

Strategising with these resources added an enjoyable level of complexity to the game. Additionally, these cards forced me to learn new mechanics throughout my playthrough, which kept me engaged.

The developers constantly introduce new ideas throughout the game. Whether these innovations come in the form of new materials or the type of track you can use, they help to keep you engaged throughout Station to Station – just as I was. New mechanics are complimented nicely throughout by the different worlds. Approximately every seven levels, I changed worlds.

This meant the background was different, many of the resources were different, and usually, the core obstacles of the world were different. In some worlds, I navigated massive forests of trees whereas in others I manoeuvred around lakes. Having the puzzles differentiate themselves over time kept me engaged, and I never found the game feeling too stagnant or repetitive, despite the seemingly repetitive actions.

Presentation

An additional reason I enjoyed the new worlds so much was that the different assets looked both distinct and appealing. Seeing the trains traverse different landscapes was great, and seeing the different foods and assets in this voxel style was charming too. I particularly enjoyed how the world would be discoloured until items were shipped. As I completed more and more of each stage, I got to see the world in greater colour. It was a novel premise that worked well to keep me engaged. I thoroughly enjoyed the way Station to Station looked.

Moreover, the visual design was stunning, as was the included soundtrack. I would not have guessed that I would be humming so many of the backing songs as I was playing. Though they are simple background tracks, I found them quite catchy, and I thoroughly enjoyed them.

Overall, I am glad I played Station to Station. The levels are well-crafted experiences that are tailored to fans of all levels. I enjoyed pushing myself to optimise stages and felt adequately rewarded when I did, as I received in-game achievements. Additionally, despite being a resource management game, navigating my tools and options was made easy with a carefully crafted user interface. If you enjoy trains or resource management titles, or if you want to get into those sorts of games, I can easily recommend Station to Station.

Rapid Reviews Rating

4.5 out of 5

4.5

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