Any Chance for a Demo?

[BobbyBullets]

I'd really like to try this one before I buy it, as I'm hoping for a Transport Tycoon-like experience, but I don't know much about this one.

Is there a plan for a demo eventually?

[SlimNasty™]

Isn't there a thing on Steam where if you buy it and only play it a couple of hours you can return it, you might want to check that out first as I doubt there will be a demo, to many cases of people making hacks to unlock them and also this is a very small team of developers, doubt they'll have time.

[jtrucker.jt]

There is no demo and no plans for demo. Sorry
And yes, there is steam feature - you buy a game and if you play it for less than 2 hours, you can return it for full refund, no questions asked. So feel free to try it, just set your alarm clock so you do not miss the steam cutoff time. .
But if you like building rail networks and playing with trains, you will love Mashinky for sure. And there is no similar game with better graphics.

[bohemak2]

It is pity that there is no demo version. 2 hours try for strategic game is not enough time. I played around 5 hours of Cities, 10 hours of Train Fever, 5 hours Crusader Kings... after I could decide that game mechanisms are or aren't suitable for me.

I would really like to try Mashinky, but appr. 23€ is too much for a game where I can hypothetically decide not to play.

[Limmin]

Originally posted by bohemak2:

It is pity that there is no demo version. 2 hours try for strategic game is not enough time. I played around 5 hours of Cities, 10 hours of Train Fever, 5 hours Crusader Kings... after I could decide that game mechanisms are or aren't suitable for me.

I would really like to try Mashinky, but appr. 23€ is too much for a game where I can hypothetically decide not to play.

FWIW I like Mashinky because it includes a lot of "quality of life" features that I like a lot. Examples:

1. Adding tracks and signals, and removing them, is quite easy. Hassle factor is minimal.

2. Train pathfinding is quite good. When there are errors, it's almost always your fault, not the game's having a bug. There are so many ways to setup a track network, and some of them are, like my first setup, really bad!

3. You can add, then delete, track as much as you want until you get it right, and are charged only for the final layout. There was another, similar game that I won't mention here, that was difficult to get the track right...and if you deleted anything you didn't get any money back. I thought, what good is a computer tool if it doesn't help you figure out the right design, but penalizes you while you try and learn how to use it? Mashinky gets this key feature right.

4. The game jumps in complexity, but only when you want it to. That is, you must deliberately pay to advance to the next "era" where new trains, industries and product are available. If you like your optimized setup as it is, then you can just let it run for a while, and you can marvel at how efficiently and nicely it works.

5. You can seamlessly (yes, really) jump from "build" view to "scenic" view, and watch a train from any angle. Even from inside the locomotive, or the cars. The artwork style looks...arty, kind of like an oil painting. Pretty, naturalistic.

6. Doesn't stutter or pause. Doesn't make my video card overheat, either.

Outside of these, I'm not sure what you'd be looking for in a RTS. They've maximized the good...fun trains, feeling of satisfaction when you set things up, and when you accomplish missions, etc. They've minimized the silly hassles and even managed to make the time pressures not hurt that much. (I am almost always pausing RTS games in that I feel like I'll miss something if I don't, or I don't have enough time to get everything done. Somehow, that concern is not present here.) Frankly, I think the game designer is a genius.

ETA: I usually avoid games that deal in complexity because of the various kinds of hassles that arise...I've been playing video games since DOOM in 1994. Civ II was my first RTS game with compounding complexity. These days, I usually just avoid RTS games because of the hassles from bad design, balance, etc. So it might be saying something that I feel that I can manage the complexity of this game without too much effort. For me this is a rare treat.

OK, I'm done. ;)

[J.O.D.]

Having demo before the game is finished...

[jtrucker.jt]

Limmin - wow, thanks for really nice review, I love Mashinky too. Since I bought this game last summer, I play hardly anything else.

I just have to make one tiny correction for your point # 4.:
The game behaves as you described IF YOU CHOOSE SO. It is in the main setting (before starting a new game/new map - it cannot be changed in saved game) - you can select whether you'd like to move from era to era by paying the tokens (aka financing the research) OR by time. If you choose "time", the game will jump to next era at predetermined dates.

I strongly suggest to select "tokens", which is obviously what you have done. I just feel that I should point it out for a possible new player so he is aware of that...


--------------------

As for the demo - in these days is it so very easy to hack a demo and have full game for free, and for this developer - it is one man show. He doesn't have big company backing him up. So a few hacks of a demo and he is broke and we'll lose awesome game.
The game is written as open source - practically everything is modable - hacking the demo would be so easy that even myself (trucker, not programmer) would be able to figure that out.

[Limmin]

Thanks jtrucker!

[bohemak2]

Thanks both of you for rich description. I am not sure, but sometimes Steam used to have free games for wekend (not sure if it is still working). That could be also an opportunity to spread the game among new gamers... And anyway, the game is on warez sites now. But that is no way for me and I feel that many players are getting used to think similarly.