Your journey gets better and better... but how?

[chorchoun]

I played Unrailed and it was fun, but it wasn't much rewarding. There is nothing to unlock except the character skins. That's why this looks much cooler to me and now I am tempted to buy it. "Permanently upgrade your character and engine..." they say, but I cannot find any comprehensive information about what exactly that means in this particular case.

I watched few videos on YT, so I got that you can unlock new engines, new biomes and some cartridges with skills, plus you can buy lots of cosmetics, but I didn't see any way of permanent upgrade. Because when you say permanent upgrade of your character, I imagine something like you can run faster, harvest faster, carry more items, dash more often or longer distance... engine upgrades like it goes slower, the speed increases slower, or the train can have more wagons... etc., but I didn't see such things there.

So can anyone explain me what exactly you can permanently upgrade and how it works altogether? What things you can unlock, how you unlock it, and how it changes your game experience? I would rather know, what to expect, before I buy it and then will regret it when I realize there is nothing of those things I expected. Thanks... 🙂

[Indoor Astronaut]

Oh see that might not be well explained on our page. Let me try to give you an overview of permanent progress:

Cartridges (player upgrades)
You can buy start cartridge slots (up to 3 but you start with 0) in which you can pre-equip cartridges that you unlocked (and then bought) in the main menu. Cartridges are those player abilities you find during a run, usually after boss battles or extreme maps, sometimes in chests. Once you find and use a cartridge within a run, you unlock it such that you can buy it permanently in the main menu and pre-equip it to the slots mentioned above.
Over time, you can start with for instance more carrying capacity, throwing, faster running etc.

Engines, Cosmetics
Next to this mechanic, there are engines and cosmetics as you already found out. Engines change the difficulty and slightly the gameplay, cosmetics are only visual.

Biomes
I'd also like to mention that the biome progression is now permanent and thus allows for a different play-style compared to Unrailed 1. Once you beat a boss and choose the next biome, you'll be able to start from this biome when starting a new run. Later biomes tend to me more difficult such that the permanent player upgrades become more important.
We hope that many more players can see the end-game content compared to Unrailed 1.

Let me know if that clarifies your point.

[chorchoun]

Originally posted by Indoor Astronaut:

Oh see that might not be well explained on our page. Let me try to give you an overview of permanent progress:

Cartridges (player upgrades)
You can buy start cartridge slots (up to 3 but you start with 0) in which you can pre-equip cartridges that you unlocked (and then bought) in the main menu. Cartridges are those player abilities you find during a run, usually after boss battles or extreme maps, sometimes in chests. Once you find and use a cartridge within a run, you unlock it such that you can buy it permanently in the main menu and pre-equip it to the slots mentioned above.
Over time, you can start with for instance more carrying capacity, throwing, faster running etc.

Engines, Cosmetics
Next to this mechanic, there are engines and cosmetics as you already found out. Engines change the difficulty and slightly the gameplay, cosmetics are only visual.

Biomes
I'd also like to mention that the biome progression is now permanent and thus allows for a different play-style compared to Unrailed 1. Once you beat a boss and choose the next biome, you'll be able to start from this biome when starting a new run. Later biomes tend to me more difficult such that the permanent player upgrades become more important.
We hope that many more players can see the end-game content compared to Unrailed 1.

Let me know if that clarifies your point.

Thank you very much for clarification. 👍

So there is no permanent bonuses for character, but instead you have a growing library of abilities and bonuses (on cartridges) from wich you can chose up to there (depending on unlocked slots) to start new game with?

New engines only change difficulty? Like you can have more wagons but go faster? Or how?

Once you get to new biome in one game, you can start new game directly from that biome next time, I get it.

There is just one more thing. While playing local co-op on one device, is the progress shared or there is some sort of saved profile for each player with separate progress? Like if I unlock some cartridges in two player co-op and we buy first cartridge slot, and then we wish to start a new game with third player, has the new player already one slot unlocked and access to previously unlocked cartridges? Or he starts with nothing and only gets what is unlocked in games where he participated?

[Stencil]

I would say the permanent character bonuses are the Up to* 3 Cartridge Slots themselves but the special abilities you chose to situate yourself with for that run can vary. In a sense, the special abilities can be permanent player upgrades if you always start a run with those same Cartridges.

For example, the Toy Engine we have allows every station to be a checkpoint but you lose 1 Wagon slot. Engines can vary a number of values including water capacity, # of Wagon slots and the speed of your locomotive. There will be more Engines in the future so stay tuned.

Progression is adapted locally for all players hence the reason it is called "Split Input." It wouldn't really make sense when you're all earning the same number of Hexnuts (in-game currency for Engines, Cartridges and Cosmetics) anyway.