I don't usually review early access(2016-7-19), but for Bounty Train, I figured I may as well

Bounty Train is a game about running a train through the not-so-wild eastern coast of the USA right in during the civil war, trading in the cities and ferrying small amounts of passengers around. It has several ways to make money, and plenty more ways to lose it. But in the end every part of it works great on its own, but is still not really working together as a single whole game just yet.

You can trade, you can customise your train with carriages and historical locomotives, you can do combat when the bandits try to take your money, you can level up, and you can have a chase scene almost straight from a western. It is already entertaining and a pleasant experience, with the base gameplay being solid and simple enough to understand even for someone new to the game. At the same time it allows you enough control to remain interesting after you learn the basics.

The graphics and sound are pleasant, with the world map being a well made stylised view. That is where my first complaint lies. Specifically, with the transition between your train view to the world map. Every single time you do this you get a loading screen, which slows down the game by a lot as anyone who doesn't know US geography will need to go check the world map every time they see a place name to see where it is, and even those who do know will need to check it regularly to see if there is an indian camp or army position at the track they plan to take. This is quite harsh on the flow of the game, especially if you need to switch back and forth multiple time before actually moving your train.

Other negatives are balance issues. As it is early access, I'm not weighing them as much since they are mainly numbers that need tweaking, or things in need of more explaining. For example, the ability to escape from bandits is fun to have, with the chase being interesting and very good at engaging you as you have to control your train. But what it doesn't say is that you have only old trains, and you are not going to go fast enough to escape from anything at all unless you've left most of your wagons at the station. Any train that has enough cargo to make a profit is better off just stopping and shooting the bandits until they stop coming, simply because of the weight of your cargo slowing you down enough to make escape impossible.
At a similar note, often you do not get a chance to escape at all. When the army engages you(Which they will, both north and south will en up hating you for no particular reason other than you existing) you are only given the option to attack them, with no way to escape until time on their barricade runs out. The barricade they have lasts long enough for them to completely destroy your train before you can move on, which will feel like the game just said "Okay, you encounter this event. You lose", rather than it being your fault for your loss until the late game where you can defend against a small army group.

Another balance issue is the weaponry, some of them are just plain better than others, and when the bandits attacking you have these stronger guns and you don't, you do not have a good chance. What is worse is that you can not loot their weaponry; Loot is randomly generated after combat is already over.

While Bounty Train has a lot of potential, it is still unfinished as the Early Access tag says. Even then it is certainly worth keeping an eye on for when they tweak the gameplay and finish adding the rest of it. The price is a bit steep for what is in it at this point, but there is a promise for more, and if you are sceptical about that then there will be a sale for it at some point.

If you're looking for a neat idea done poorly, you've found your game.

In lieu of strategy and tactics, you've got a ton of random events. Even whether or not something functions seems to be completely random.

EG, you pull the train whistle during attempted robberies to scare the bad guys' horses - only there's no telling whether it will work or not, and I've literally never seen it scare all of the horses while it rarely scares more than one. So a major defensive choice you can make is utterly random. It might as well just randomly have horses shy instead of even giving you the illusion that you are participating in this aspect of the game.

A lot of UI elements break regularly. A lot of the UI is inconsistent. Space bar pauses in fights, no where else. You get a button to go immediately to the map screen from town, unless you're in the depot. The little "x" for closing the failed/completed missions is at the right most edge of the bubble, so it's constantly moving, meaning it takes about 4 times as long to close them all as it should (and why isn't there a button to close all failed/completed mission bubbles?). If you fail a combat scene, you can retry - but you cannot retry until you fail; in other words, if someone dies early in the scene, you have to sit there trying to lose faster to retry instead of simply retrying.

The sheer number of random events is so high that the pretense of playing a game about trading and building your business should simply be removed. At times you will hit four or five random events between two nearby towns on a single stretch of rail track. It can be amazinlgy obnoxious, but it also can mean that you are in 2 or 3 combats in a row - forcing you to save-scum by saving every time you leave a town and then simply reloading if you get a bad string of luck.

I'm all for the train robbery mini game, I like it, but being forced into it over and over and never being able to heal up or save up money is obnoxious and defeats the supposed purpose of the game.

This game is simply not ready for release. It needs a lot of tweaking. It needs a lot of bug fixes. It needs the UI to be consistent and improved. The idea that they are selling DLC already is hilariously arrogant.

Until it is improved, do not buy it.

The recent patches have made the game not as fun in my opinion. They nerfed healing and repair skills, and removed driving the train when the battle is over. Cannons and gatlin guns are cometely useless. The game doesnt have much replay value either.
Cannot recommend this game to anyone in ts current state.

I had previously posted a negative review during the earlier stages of the game's development, noting a number of game-breaking bugs. In the months since then, the game's developers have worked hard to improve it, with occasional but comprehensive updates happening every few months. The devs were very responsive to feedback and addressed the issues that players had been bringing up. The game has really gone up in quality since it was released, and I'd highly recommend it.

I decided to give this game a try since I happened upon it on the release date and I enjoy simulations like this. I must say, I'm very impressed so far.

You're given a nice storyline to begin with and continue from there. The tutorial will get you familiar with the basic aspect of the game, but from there you're on your own and I like it. This game is definitely challenging right off the bat and that is something I was looking for.

If you enjoy simulations and having to plan out almost every move from the very beginning, you should give this a try. It looks quite promising for the future assuming the devs can keep providing updates.

Some personal thoughts/experiences:
- I feel as though the combat is almost too difficult at the start. I found myself struggling even on the first couple of tracks out of the first town. After a few tries I was able to figure out what needed to be done, but it was very challenging.
- I don't think you are given enough money to begin with and/or aren't rewarded enough for completing missions. I was struggling for cash to even afford the licenses needed to get to the first few cities.
- Hardcore mode is turned on by default; I think it should be turned off
- Dialog windows could use some work, maybe separate chat boxes instead?
- After you select a target and give it a command, you need to reselect the target. I think if you select a target it should stay selected until you escape out and/or select somewhere in the field
- Reload times are way too long
- The Perks are an interesting aspect to the game, though I think some of the power-ups need better descriptions (i.e. What does Willpower do?)

I will be playing this game again and look forward to what the devs have in store for the future. For now, I think maybe turning DOWN the diffuculty of the battles would be a good idea in order to explore more of the game and allow for a bit more income in the early game.

Bounty Train is an Early Access game with amazing gameplay that combines elements from multiple genres perfectly to create a well rounded enjoyable game.

Early Access
Bounty Train is currently in Early Access but I’ve found more than enough content to keep me happy (I want to note that others who I know who have played the game have said they wanted more content which i found a little surprising). The developers seem active with updates coming every few months fixing minor issues usually like bugs or adding small features. I am unsure on just how complete the game is as I have been unable to find a roadmap but there are features they plan to implement that aren’t there yet so I imagine there is still some development due.

Story
The story is rather simple. Your father has died and left you his train and shares in his railway company but the other investors want to change the company. You must embark on a quest to find your siblings and convince them to see things your way as with their shares you are majority shareholder. The story isn’t massively fleshed out but it does it’s job of giving you a reason for the gameplay. I do hope a little more is added to the story or at least the main quest because currently I have very little feeling or care towards anyone i’ve met, even my own family members…
It seems the story is there to act as a tutorial and not too much else.

General Gameplay
The gameplay of Bounty Train is absolutely fantastic. You start with a basic steam train and just yourself, from there you must travel from city to city delivering cargo and passengers, helping strangers, importing and smuggling goods hiring crew and making money to build up your train.
Your train starts with the basics a locomotive for travel, a passenger carriage, cargo carriage and crew carriage. You’ll need at least one of each of these even as you customize your train and buy new parts. If you find yourself short of funds you can always leave a nonessential part of your train behind to pick up later or just sell it if you feel you no longer need it. Every part of your train can be replaced or upgraded adding a fantastic amount of customization and allowing you to focus on whatever you feel makes money faster (smuggling goods, transporting passengers, raiding camps).
You travel from city to city along your railway routes paying to unlock new routes as you travel and running into random encounters, new side quests and meeting new factions and groups of people, sometimes traders, sometimes people looking for help and others who need work. Most of the games events are randomized so you never really know what’s coming leading you to always be prepared for anything.
Aside from the side quests you’ll find like taking passengers from city to city or traporting goods you also have the ability to take advantage of the everchanging economy.by utilizing the market. There will often be shortages of various goods in other cities and buying them out of your own pocket and delivering them is a fantastic way to earn money, though often overlooked.
Along your route you’ll find yourself able to earn reputation at the various cities you pass through making trading cheaper there but sometimes opening other opportunities too. Cities are not the only places you can earn reputation though, there are different ‘factions’ you’ll encounter and the way you handle yourself in various situations and quests will define/influence the way you are treated by these people when you encounter them next. Once again this can hugely impact just how successful you are in the game.
Different cities you travel to will have different resources and amenities. Some will have a hospital so injured crew can rest whilst others will have saloons for the more shady quests, or banks so you can deposit money to gain interest like a good little saver! Each town sells different goods at the market and some will even sell guns when guns are prohibited in other cities. Each city depot will also supply different parts of your train so travelling around a lot is highly recommended for the best gameplay experience as every town is a little different to the last.

Sound and Graphics
The graphics are lovely on my desktop and the game runs really smoothly. I love seeing my train coursing along the track, steam billowing from the engines as I outrun the bandits. The towns are clean and rather beautiful to look at, even if there isn’t too much going on.
The sound is great also, you’ll feel like you are really driving your own train which the chuckachuckachucka of your train moving along the tracks, the loud train horn to spook the horses who are chasing you down and the bandits gunfire. The towns and cities are full of people murmuring and going about their everyday life. The sound is just wonderfully immersive. I would appreciate a little more of a soundtrack but that’s personal preference and it doesn’t NEED it at all.
Start menu tracks are fantastic. I love the ‘My country, tis of thee’ which uses the tune of ‘God save the Queen’ which is delightfully amusing in my opinion considering it just makes me think of England.

Pros
--- Vast train customization and upgrades.
--- Side quests that you can choose and play at your own pace.
--- Historically accurate (for the most part).
--- Randomized events, passengers and side quests allowing for masses of replayability.
--- Different crew members with a nicely refined leveling system.
--- ‘Factions’ and reputation that changes as you play depending on how you interact with people.
--- Lots of control over your train, your staff, where you go and what you do.
--- In game economywith a brilliant trading system.

Cons
--- Starting a new game wiped my previous game for some reason. I inadvertently wiped three hours of gameplay whilst trying to show my friend the start of the game.
--- Combat is a little difficult and at times redundant. It’s a lot more fun to avoid combat entirely and if you can’t I advise you pick ‘escape’ over ‘attack’.
--- Randomized events + passengers can make or break your run. If no-one wants to go to a city you’re headed to you’ll go bankrupt very quickly.
--- Repairs + healing take a long time. (Will be fixed in next update)
--- No ability to see the map whilst in town so you cannot plan your routes properly or choose which passengers you want to take without opening and closing your map. This is a huge issue because if you are smuggling weapons it counts and leaving the town and re-entering meaning you have a chance of getting caught AGAIN. Please fix this, it’s so tedious and jumping back and forth between screens is so annoying. (Another thing that the devs are fixing)
--- DLC on sale before full release. Sorry devs, i’ll always have an issue with this and there’s nothing that’ll change my mind on this negative fact. Don’t sell part of your game, sell it all or don’t bother. I have no issue with soundtrack and artbook being sold seperately, I would have bought them, but if this game is going to be a DLC spawner from the start then this review won’t stay positive for long.

Summary
Overall I am loving Bounty Train and I know this will be a game I play to finish over and over. The blending of simulation style games with strategy and implementing some fantastic historical events makes Bounty Train feel like a refreshing addition to Steam. Despite the combat being a tad repetitive every other element of the game holds itself well and the gameplay is ridiculously addictive. There is a lot of content already with the general gameplay feeling mostly complete and very, very fun. The price may be steep for some people but for those who really enjoy this style of gameplay it’s worth every single penny, and if that’s not enough to push your hand, grab it in a sale, you won’t be disappointed.

[Early Quick Look] This is trains on the PC like we don't usually get. I've had a blast so far! The one-liner here could read "FTL on Rails" which would fit to various degrees. Take control of your train and chart your own course! I always thought it would be cool to have your own train and take it anywhere you wanted whenever you wanted, and this essentially is that... only back in time... and not for real... Anyway, I've enjoyed it so far!

Here's a video in which I take a quick look at the various features of the game!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHVBF5QRdZs

Roguelikeish simulation, like sorta?

Like:
*A decent amount of mechanics that keeps you on edge without feeling overwhelming
*Plenty of quests to do
*Clear goals
*Train customization
*Reputations
*Optional history lessons

Want:
*More quest types (transport important documents, trigger ambushes)
*More advanced reputation system (competing cities, gain or lose reputation when doing quests for certain cities etc)
*Combat needs some polishing (controls needs to be improved and/or add pause for optimal min-maxing)
*More/better information (a lot of stuff has tooltips but not everything. a game like this pretty much needs info on everything BEFORE purchase/recruitment etc)

Overall a good game. I do recommend it even in its current state.

You’ll feel like you’ve walked into a mid 1800’s train station with historically accurate firing pieces, and the old Iron Horse engines themselves. This game is still in early access, and much is yet to be rolled out, but much fun is already on the line for those who want to get in early on a price that may not remain past ea. I received this game free for review purposes, in exchange for an honest review, but bought the dlc myself after having a look at all Bounty Train has to offer.

Mechanics:
The game operates much like many of the pirate sims; with a dual view between the map and the train station. When in the map view, you purchase licenses to unlock sections of the track, click on cities you choose to travel to, and deal with bandits, Native Americans, and soldiers who try to relieve you of everything from your cargo, your money, to your life. You may fight, flee, or pay bribe money to dispatch these rascals.

If you fight, you switch to an actual view of your train on the track, where you may direct your hired hands to discharge the bandits with longarms, pistols, or even explosives. Meanwhile you have to extinguish fires, heal your wounded crew, and protect your train. When your train reaches a town, you have a loading screen into the train station view, and each city has its own unique station, and buildings. You may click on the people standing around the station platform to accept fares for other cities, cargo to carry down the line, or letters, messages, or other missions to carry out for love or money. This requires careful planning, as you have a time limit on delivering from point A to point B. So, choose based on the cities you plan to visit next. Certain aspects couldn’t be deciphered like whether my brother was on board or not. I hadn’t had an empty seat when I met him, then I was unable to complete that mission. This has been addressed in an earlier patch for Sam Archer, though apparently it’s still an issue, just with a different brother, as I had the problem with Robert.


Narrative Rich
Bounty Train has a bountiful story, with immersive missions that will carry you from your inheritance of this train after your Father’s untimely death, all the way to a face to face with Mr. Lincoln himself. If you choose to start with the tutorial, you are given this info in the first town when you return from Europe. You’re instructed to go to the next town to meet with the Lawyer for further instructions. If you skip the tutorial, you begin in the 2nd city with the lawyer. Either way, you take your thousand dollar starting purse, and travel from city to city in search of your siblings, so you can convince them to pool their influence from your combined 55% of the railroad’s stock to convince the company to take the shorter route and spare the Indians in the process of finishing up this train business faster, so you can take the money and run. There is a Sandbox mode in the menu as well, with the time restraints removed to give you unlimited time to complete missions.

Graphics, Music, & DLC:
If you love historically accurate gaming, this sim’s for you. Everything from the design of the people, the trains, and the buildings, to the 19th century Civil War music is history. The card art includes the various engines. The emoticons includes cowboy hats, Indian headdresses, and caps for the Northern and the Southern soldiers. Whichever faction you choose to ally with, you will find yourself immersed in a time that is rich in industrial legend. The graphics are simple, but pleasing because of the historical feel. And, what can I say? There are all the neat train cars of a forgotten time.

Pros:
*Historical quality
*Trains
*Immersive story quest
*Fun combat
*Day/Night Cycle


Cons:
*Minor bugs and glitches which are being patched
*Incomplete tutorial teaches (fun) aspect of driving train which you rarely use again for some reason
*DLC is not released yet, except for the extra engine (but it’s a great one)
*Unspecified wait on the art book and sound track, as well

Updates:
Edited to reflect changes in my understanding/ representation of Sandbox mode

Look for great things to come from this early release game. But, if you are ready and willing to jump into the early access, it already has much to offer.

Bounty Train is a game that mixes strategy, simulation, real-time combat and trading elements into a pretty neat package which I believe has never been done like this in any other game. The game akes place in the 19th century during the American Civil War and puts you in charge of a train and its crew, as you make your way down the coast of the USA while trying to make a profit.


Despite the fact that the tutorial is somewhat short, it teachs you, or at least gives you some slight insight, on pretty much all the basic things you should know before you first play the game. You can choose to play the normal sandbox mode or hardcore mode, which doesn’t let you save, meaning there is no going back once you mess up. After completing the tutorial I found that while the tutorial does teach you how to properly control the train, I rarely found myself controlling the train in that very same way as I played the game when completing missions and whatnot. I feel like you don’t have that much of control over your train as I’d hope for.

As you travel through the railroad system, and you need to purchase access to new railroads in order to use them, you’ll eventually come across bandits or other factions which you’ll engage on combat depending on how you decide to approach them. Combat is real-time, with the option to pause, and everytime you’re in combat your objective is to defend your train until you defeat all foes. However, each individual wagon has its own life bar and if one of your wagons keeps getting damaged it will eventually slow you down. That said, during combat not only you have to keep an eye for that, but you also have to make sure that your train doesn’t get on fire, which is done by sending one of your crew members to put the first signs of fire off before it spreads along the train. Controlling your units during combat is pretty basic, just select the unit and then click where you want it to move or attack. Usually they will attack any enemy on their line of sight, but when there are multiple enemies you might want to issue orders yourself and focus on a single target.

One thing that actually bothers me is that when you’re ambushed the objective of the enemy always looks like it is to destroy you not rob you of your cargo as you’d might expect. It would be nice if there were different types of combat encounters which forced you to protect your cargo while bandits try to take it away for example. The game offers some degree of challenge not only in terms of combat, but also in the way that you have to carefully plan what missions you will take, which town you’ll visit next, what wagons will you take and things like that. Failing a mission will make you lose reputation with 1 of the 4 factions or with the city you were doing that mission for, and you’ll also have to play a fee.

Towns play a huge role in the game and as time passes, they will change from one side of the fight to another of the American Civil War conflict and that will affect the prices of various products. In towns you can buy various different goods, which you can sell at other towns for a profit, you can hire new crew members, you can upgrade your train by buying better parts and customize it with different types of wagons (passenger wagons, cargo wagons, etc) while designing your own train the way you want to be, still more wagons will make you go slower and consume more coal so you have to be mindful about it. In towns you can also buy new weapons and sell your old ones, accept quests like getting a certain amount of resources or transporting someone to another city, you can also heal your characters and repair your train but in order to do so you’ll have to wait a few hours (in game). You can also buy turrets for your train and choose different stats for your characters when they level up.


Overall, despite the fact that it is in Early Access, Bounty Train is lot of fun to play but after playing it for a few hours I feel like it needs more content such as random encounters to vary things up or more towns, just something that extends and adds more variety to the experience. Still, I feel like that the asking price is a bit high for what it offers, at least at the moment, I’d say that you should only grab it right now if you’re one of those people that likes playing the same game over and over which, in a game like this, everytime you play is probably going to be a different experience given the fact that it is not a linear story driven game. Personally I’d recommend waiting for a sale or a price drop.