Now that I have a VR headset, and have been playing Derail Valley, I must say it's incredible what these devs have accomplished VS what DTG has done with TSW or 10 years of TS. This seems to be the only train sim with a working ecomony system, good physics and actual punishments for driving badly. It's really cool how making deliveries progresses the worlds economy, all industries are linked (i.e taking coal and ore to steel mill, then more steel hauling jobs become available). It really has shown me the future of train sims is in games like Derail Valley, and with the "Overhauled" update due out really soon, I think all my time in train sims will likely be moving to this fun little game. It's also worth noting just how terrifying derailing a train is in VR, it's certainly made me more cautious driving.
The dev Altfuture posted this on the steam forums (the devs are super active on steam and discord too, which is nice), and I think it sums up my sentiments quite well and shows how passionate these guys are for this game.
It's interesting to read this. Idea to create Derail Valley actually came from realizing that there's no train simulator out there with decent physics, game play and business strategy. I'm glad it's now used as a measure of what the genre should include.
Couldn't agree more on the aspect that no danger = no fun. Really the purpose of derailing in our game is to give your good driving value. You avoid derailing because there are consequences, and that fear is something that train drivers deal with too, on a daily basis. It must be simulated in a train simulator, how can something that important be neglected just because "it never happens"? Let us understand and appreciate why it never happens.
I remember being amazed by MSTS back around 2002. Later that same year Trainz blew my mind. It was just unbelievably good. And then nothing new happened... for nearly two decades.
Since then I'd been growing as a game developer, and somewhere around 2014 have been developing my first standalone game Switchcars, when a couple of friends and I decided to try out one of the latest train simulators. We played and concluded that it was so bad, we could make a better one ourselves. Mind you, at this point we had no money and were random three people somewhere in Serbia. At the same time Dovetail and N3V were making millions.
It's insane what these companies could have accomplished with their resources, if they cared to do anything useful.
In 2016, when Switchcars was released and VR happened, we gave the next-gen train sim idea a second thought. It made a lot of sense and we just started doing it.
We started literally from nothing, and I'm proud of what we were able to accomplish. Can't wait to get Overhauled out there.
https://steamcommunity.com/games/588030/announcements/detail/1602644212174485168
Here is a post by the Devs talking about the "Overhauled" update, and some really cool gifs showing some of the new features. Also worth noting, the game can be played fine without VR.
Anyway, just my thoughts on this brilliant game. If you haven't heard of this game or have been contemplating it, I strongly urge you to give it a try. It's 20 bucks, so at the same price as one loco in TS, you can get this game.
