Train sim created by just one person is being called the best ever made

https://kotaku.com/a-train-sim-created-by-just-one-person-is-being-called-the-best-ever-made-2000699429

by oumua_don17 • 18 days ago

861 352 18 days ago

kotaku.com

https://store.steampowered.com/app/4630570/RUNNING_TRAIN/

dyauspitr• 13 days ago

It’s beautiful. I wonder how much an LLM was involved if at all.

therobots9275• 13 days ago

I’m wondering the same thing. I’ve been thinking about getting into solo LLM game dev. I don’t know the first thing about it

blipvert• 13 days ago

You’re all set!

markdown• 13 days ago

Step 1: acquire land for datacenter.

Schiendelman3• 13 days ago

I'd be happy to help you! I'm working on a game myself.

My first piece of advice is: Pick one mechanic or idea, and ship it all the way to a player (a friend) to see if it's legible or fun.

bitwize2• 13 days ago

If the Touhou games or Cave Story were released today, all of Hackernews would be like "dude, I wonder what their LLM workflow is like!" Japanese solo hikikomori devs have been putting out insane stuff since long before LLMs emerged.

Ferret7446• 13 days ago

Not really, those games are very simple code wise. A high schooler could do it (source me).

You could make a bullet hell game engine as a project in an intro CS course.

The hard part is the content in the game, and ZUN was already a composer. That just leaves the code which is easy, and the bullet patterns, which ZUN clearly improved at through his earlier games. (and the art, which is famously bad though endearing)

PpEY4fu85hkQpn• 13 days ago

This place has become an AI-focused hellscape. It really is sad.

m463• 13 days ago

the (physical) zuiki mascon seems like a labor of love too.

dang2• 13 days ago

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

"Don't be snarky."

"Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community." It's reliably a marker of bad comments and worse threads.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dash2• 13 days ago

including support for the Zuiki MASCON, a bespoke peripheral for train driving sims.

This just makes me feel so glad to be alive today!

busfahrer• 13 days ago

I'm on the fence because I have a TSC-X controller and it's unclear if it's supported. Somebody on the forums posted a tool that converts generic joystick axes to keypresses, but not sure how well that works.

lightedman• 13 days ago

"Somebody on the forums posted a tool that converts generic joystick axes to keypresses, but not sure how well that works."

Joy2Key has been a staple for many a gamer for a while, and reliable. I've used it to control my mouse, even, from my gamepad.

danielbarla• 12 days ago

Somebody on the forums posted a tool that converts generic joystick axes to keypresses, but not sure how well that works.

I don't have a TSC-X, but did frown a little bit that there wasn't a generic support for controllers with plain axes. I have a VKB STECS, and basically a 85% of train sims need a workaround.

The good news: Claude Code threw together a working prototype for me in a few minutes that had me mapping the two axes (power / brakes) perfectly. It's really a low barrier to entry these days. Can confirm that this game is amazing with it.

theatrus2• 13 days ago

Yeah, love that is just works.

I'm working on a bit of a hobby project to rebuild a beefier Mascon. Mainly inspired by how much I enjoyed Running Train

derdi• 13 days ago

The game in question is https://store.steampowered.com/app/4630570/RUNNING_TRAIN/

dang2• 13 days ago

Link added to toptext. Thanks!

wolvoleo5• 13 days ago

I wonder if it's got VR. There's not many train Sims that do even though the sim community in general has really embraced VR.

LollipopYakuza6• 13 days ago

Not yet. It's been asked but since the original dev is doing all the work, he has to prioritize the backlog.

wolvoleo5• 13 days ago

Oh ok I'll still try it out though. But hopefully it'll come one day

daviding• 13 days ago

It works great with UEVR, there's a discussion post in the steam forum on how to set that up. It plays really nicely in VR.

Insanity3• 13 days ago

I never got the appeal for these sim games. From the screenshots, it looks like a beautiful game and I guess I could enjoy the visuals for an hour or 2.

But I don't see how it'd entertain me for hours on end. If someone here is into these sim games, what's the reason you keep going back to them?

fragmede4• 13 days ago

Escapism fun. Being able to do the fun parts of something without the bullshit of doing it for real.

wizzwizz4• 13 days ago

If you fall asleep while playing Truck Simulator, nobody dies.

LollipopYakuza6• 13 days ago

I have never played any train sim, but I read video game press that this one hits different.

A lot of train sim are about building the rail network, where Running Train focuses on driving. The scenery (dozens of kilometers of japanese railway) is beautiful and it reproduces the japanese railway system realistically.

aidenn0• 13 days ago

Japan has a history of train-driving sims: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_simulator#Driving_simula...

youngNed2• 13 days ago

for me its the abilty to 'switch off'

I play Euro Truck Simulator 2 (ets) and its my happy place, its just zen, Sometimes i will have a plugin that will get me local radio stations and i will cruise through italy and greece listening to talk shows in languages i don't understand, sometimes i will do it listening to the rumble of the truck, and i switch off, and allow my thoughts to run free.

I've recently started getting into flight sims, and i'm looking for the same sort of thing with that (the only problem with ets is the graphics still looks like a 2013 game) and i think i will get there, its just i'm at the 'learning to fly' stage, and thats kinda difficult. Well, actually flying is surprisingly easy, landing is the tricky bit ;-)

ColdStream7• 13 days ago

I never thought of mixing that with local radio. That sounds wonderful.

Monotoko• 13 days ago

If you're flying a larger passenger plane into basically any major airport, ILS should get you most of the way down - you just need to control speed (you're looking for landing speed +10 by the end)

Depending where you're flying, some arrivals have gaps which threw me off massively when I first started - it's because IRL there's ATC there to guide you to the final intersection for the runway, usually 10NM out... so aim for that and capture ILS, it's quite a wide margin for capture.

If you're going manually, 10nm out you want to start descending at around 600-700fpm from ~3000ft and you should have visual on the runway at this point

nesarkvechnep• 13 days ago

After school I played countless hours of Euro Truck Simulator. It was an awesome escapism. Being a truck driver, driving through sun and snow, in different parts of Europe. Crazy drivers at night, needed to think quick in difficult situations.

modriano• 13 days ago

Have you ever wanted to try flying a plane or running a city or being a tycoon of roller coasters without having to invest much time, money, and energy to take flight lessons, run for political office, or work your way up through an amusement park company? Sim games let you play with these complex systems easily and walk away when you get bored.

esikich• 13 days ago

I get the impression he's not saying all sim games, but "drive the vehicle" sims in general. I have to agree. There's just nothing engaging about it imo.

ColdStream7• 13 days ago

I have often said that for many people that want to change the world (for the greater negative), they need to get addicted to Sim games. They will end up doing a lot less harm in that situation.

The real question is, how do you determine who is going to do negative or positive gains. A debate that is millennia old.

denkmoon• 13 days ago

The simple pleasure of a job well done, even if the job is completely imaginary, because my real job is complex and stupid.

Driving the train is a little technical, but not overwhelmingly so. You need to pay attention to the gradient, speed, train weight and rail slipperiness to brake with perfect accuracy every time you come to a station. Signalling is not overly complex but you can benefit from tabbing over to a reference sheet every so often (Ah, double flashing yellow means we’re on a diverging route ahead with a reduced turnout speed so I must brake soon). Learning the german safety systems (PZB and LZB) was interesting. Guiding a 3000t freight train down a mountain isn’t something that can be rushed, it forces you to slow down and be patient.

So relaxation mostly. I can launch the game, drive something somewhere for an hour or two, get some endorphins because I did it all right, etc.

a34729t• 13 days ago

Imagine if we can replace all the locomotive drivers with pensions with retired software engineers who literally will pay to do the job remotely? Even better if there is a prediction market and twitch stream on top with bets for the most mundane things.

edit: This actually sounds awesome

hananova2• 13 days ago

These Japanese style train sims are quite a bit less realistic, including fewer signals you need to know (Densha de GO!! essentially only has speed limits, g-forces, train load, and weather modeling.) and simplifying the controls to essentially a single handle that goes from full brake when pushed all the way forward to full traction when pulled toward you, with a switch you need to press to be able to pull it past neutral.

But in return they add very technically difficult tasks, such as stopping within a millimeter of the stopping point within a second of the time in the timetable without re-braking or making passengers uncomfortable, or stuff such as pointing at signals. They even add completely unrealistic stuff just for the sake of gameplay such as bonus zones where you need to stay at an exact speed, sounding the horn for overpasses and level crossings, or dimming the lights for oncoming trains.

They "feel" very different to games like Train Sim World, but I like them both regardless.

ColdStream7• 13 days ago

It hits that mid point between complexity and simplicity. You can kind of chill out but without the process becoming too mundane.

wccrawford2• 13 days ago

I started playing Farm Simulator 2025 recently because a friend wanted me to. Even now, I really long for a proper game with progression, etc. But it's really just a way to drive machines.

And I find myself wanting to do that, even without the progression I crave from a game. But then I also feel like I'm massively wasting my time, and I could be playing other games, getting stuff done around the house, or just reading a book. Instead of driving a tractor for no freaking reason. But I still want to do it.

matthewfcarlson• 13 days ago

What would progression look like in a farming simulator? I tried it a few times but have had a similar feeling.

ColdStream7• 13 days ago

Maybe that is the lesson. No matter how much we wish to progress, we just have to accept the stasis of the world. There will always be more to do.

altairprime2• 13 days ago

For the same reason that the Vegas attraction “dig a bunch of holes with industrial diggers” was so popular: people want to do jobs they think are cool without years of training cost up front, and this is a way for them to do so.

Farming simulator and Car mechanic simulator are both in my todo list, because those are hobbies I’m truly interested in pursuing and I’d like to know what it’s like to do them as a sim first. Most other live sims like this are deeply uninteresting to me, even if they have lovely visuals. Meanwhile I’ve seriously considered buying a Renesas SH-2A simulator for nearly $3k so that I can develop better car software!

Is there some job you’ve always wanted to do that requires extensive training that you can’t / won’t complete at this time? That would be a use case for sims that’s less game and more hobby for you (but that’s always a blurry line for all of us so don’t take that as criticism).

dudul2• 13 days ago

"I could enjoy", "How it'd entertain me" - have you even tried a few?

Insanity3• 13 days ago

I tried a “cleaning sim”. I already forgot the name but it was just like doing chores with a pressure cleaner.

Have not tried the train / driving sim though.

modeless• 13 days ago

An hour or two of entertainment for $19.99 isn't outrageous these days. A trip to the movie theater can easily cost more.

Insanity3• 13 days ago

I like this comparison. That’s a good way to think about it.

_carbyau_• 13 days ago

Similar to you, I don't see the attraction of these sims.

I have a theory it is a mindfulness thing like many hobbies.

Think knitting or crochet or even building and running a model train set in the garage. These things aren't terribly hard once you learn the basics but you have to pay attention to various details over time and it allows you to tune out from the rest of the world when you want to.

But I really don't know.

sdfsfdsdfs3d• 13 days ago

A mind is slightly different from a body in that it really does not understand the concept of "off". It is movement by its very nature. Even its relaxation is expressed through activity. Simple repetition and continuous low-level positive feedback is a way for it to rest while moving.

At least, that's my working model of it.

hananova2• 13 days ago

A lot of these train simulator games are a mix between job simulation and arcadey fun. To give a big example of the latter, in the Densha de GO!! games, the goal is to follow all the speed limits, brake gently without allowing the G-forces to exceed a certain amount, and to arrive at the station exactly on time while stopping at the exact right spot to the millimeter.

For some people, just the fact that it's a simulation is enough to make it fun. But to many others, the challenge (and I can promise you it is quite difficult) is what makes it a fun game.

I've been playing these games for half a decade now, and I've only managed a zero zero once (meaning that you come to a stop exactly on time to the second and stop within 0.0cm of the marker.)

mikeaskew42• 13 days ago

To crash the [train, plane, automobile] of course.

arjie2• 13 days ago

This is a 1 person job?! It looks practically photorealistic. That's absolutely wild.

smusamashah2• 13 days ago

Not to dismiss the effort by dev, but all Unreal engine games look photoreal these days. My point is that photorealism does not show effort these days.

Sharlin• 13 days ago

No engine in the world can make bad assets look good.

arjie2• 13 days ago

Oh wow, I didn't know engines provided that much functionality. Thank you.

rcoveson• 13 days ago

Most of the review is about the art assets, and I doubt the big ones (e.g. the trains themselves) are off-the-rack Unreal assets. An engine like Unreal 5 will cast your assets in harsh relief. Which is to say, if your game's assets look custom and look good in Unreal 5, it does indeed demonstrate effort and skill.

chii• 13 days ago

It looks practically photorealistic.

what has improved a lot recently is the physically based rendering - specifically, the lighting. Looking at the steam page, this train game has that type of lighting.

Another game that uses similarly realistic lighting is https://store.steampowered.com/app/2406770/Bodycam/

chaostheory3• 12 days ago

When the dev for BodyCam posted his initial streams, I thought it was fake. Also was a solo dev though I think he either has a partner or a team now

oxonia• 13 days ago

Windows only? :-(

nomel3• 13 days ago

2026 Steam hardware survey [1]:

    Windows: 94.10%
    Linux: 3.68%
    macOS: 2.21%

[1] Click the "OS Version" row to expand the table, https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...

simondotau2• 13 days ago

Something of a self-reinforcing statistic. Steam is rarely installed on Mac because there’s hardly any point doing so.

f3408fh3• 13 days ago

Nowadays most games will run on Linux thanks to Valve's Proton compatibility layer.

9999000009993• 13 days ago

"most" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

Multiplayer games generally don't.

Haven't tried this one yet, but in my experience it's like 90% of single player games work and the remaining 10% will never work.

rjh29• 13 days ago

Windows versions running on Linux over Proton tend to be more stable than any native Linux version would be.

hyperific• 13 days ago

And oh my goodness, it’s so pretty.

Am I the only one that thinks the word "pretty" is overused to describe the visual quality and artistry of games? I see this word thrown around often and it feels so low-effort.

anyfoo• 13 days ago

It's a simple word that does the job. No need to overthink it.

f3408fh3• 13 days ago

I always wonder how a solo developer can source high quality assets like these, plus develop a full game with them. In this case did the dev create the assets or did they purchase them from a freelancer? How much would purchasing this many assets cost?

Jhsto• 13 days ago

Anecdote, but I recall my friend saying he worked on freelancing assets to some train game and showed me some pictures of the said game. Unless there are more of these in existence, I think it was this.

altairprime2• 13 days ago

Please tell him thank you from us all :)

n6242• 13 days ago

Well, there are 864 other train sim games on Steam right now, so there are quite a few others in existence.

jamesfinlayson• 13 days ago

I thought it was kind of commoditised these days - there's an Unreal asset store I think? Probably one for Unity as well.

topgrain2• 13 days ago

Almost every time I see a halfway polished “solo developer” game, they did not do all the work themselves. Especially, they usually hire out the music, maybe other sounds, and much of the artwork. Sometimes they also have freelancers doing marketing and such. Sometimes even some paid help writing the software.

I highlight this not to bring those developers down, but because I think it’s important people understand how these things actually come to be, so they aren’t discouraged to try themselves by thinking they ought to actually be doing 100% of the work solo. That’s pretty rare.

AmVess• 13 days ago

Solo developer just means they developed the game themselves, not made it all themselves. I'm not sure how you could write what you wrote without that occurring to you.

RobRivera• 13 days ago

I would never view a truth-teller in a negative light.

stateoff2• 13 days ago

I depends on the background. I'm 2 years into solo developing a game and all programming, artwork and animation is my own. I had to invest into quite some learning to make it possible, but I figured it's a worthwhile investment. I do work with a composer, though.

Point being, it depends on which skills you bring to the table, which ones you are willing to learn and which ones are worth collaborating on.

I still think the term Solo-developer is justified in any case. The one who soley carries the burden of bringing the game from idea to the finish line is the solo developer, IMHO.

shit_game• 13 days ago

The perception of what a polymath is is changing incredibly fast, as both the floor and ceiling for being passable or outstanding in any field is rising exponentially. For the last 50-oddish years, it's been the case that being proficient with a single piece of software can make you an invaluable asset in industry; understanding the concepts behind the software and the problems it solves even moreso. Rather recently, we've reached a point where software ergonomics, freely available education and information, and even AI assistance in development or usage have lowered this floor in terms of cost, knowledge, effort, and skill. For example, it's trivially easier today to create a 3d animation than it was 5, 10, or 20 years ago, and the visual quality of it would be similarly disproportionately better.

The domains of different crafts are ever-expanding, including all of their history and all new developments, of which new developments seem to be coming at an ever-increasing pace as populations grow, internet access grows, and the free time of populations spent doing things other than merely surviving grows. There is a larger and broader base of knowledge necessary for a person to be considered competent in the current state of anything, and the number of disciplines is also increasing. Two decades ago, having a person specializing in frontend development for a specific web browser would have been unthinkable.

All of this work is built upon the backs of other people. Game engines, 3d modeling and texturing and animating, language design and implementation, audio software and sound design, graphics libraries, runtime optimizations, operating system APIs, networking improvements, distribution networks, etc. etc.. To think that any one person could possibly create everything they use to then create these final products, no matter the scale they are, is ignorant.

21asdffdsa122• 13 days ago

Not lately, loads of sub-jobs going to LLMs..

streetfighter645• 13 days ago

Yes, solo developer does not mean "solo developer, composer, artist, etc."

oalae5niMiel7qu4• 13 days ago

If that's how it was developed, then it wasn't made by a solo developer. What you're describing is called a team.

3form• 13 days ago

Even the famously brought up cases of solo projects often end up hiring help once they become popular. Stardew Valley and Dwarf Fortress come to mind.

I think for the later stages it's common to contract someone for other platforms, especially mobile.

chaostheory3• 12 days ago

The Stardew Valley dev did do everything himself though

a_bonobo2• 13 days ago

It wouldn't surprise me if Japan has its own market for train assets. There's a big community of train simulators! Go to the Kyoto or Tokyo train museums, they have dozens where you step into a replica of a train cab and then drive a photorealistic simulation (sometimes also just film) - the ex-keyboarder for Casiopeia runs a train simulation game company that makes those since the 90s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoru_Mukaiya). There are some Nintendo Switch train simulators like Densha de GO that are only available in Japan.

I'm sure there's a treasure trove of already-built high-quality assets of Japanese trains.

dhosek2• 13 days ago

I was looking at the controller support and apparently there are game controllers designed to follow the layout of a train operations controller with the same two levers that you can see in game.

nokeya• 12 days ago

You can buy them overseas from online secondhand stores like mandarake and play on your switch, because there is no region lock. Interface will still be in Japanese, but it is pretty obvious what to to and how.

aussieguy1234• 13 days ago

Nowadays a solo developer could use AI to generate some of these assets.

BloondAndDoom• 13 days ago

There are lots of assets to purchase or even for free. majority of small devs will buy them, if they have money then will freelance. It’s very rare for one dev to do everything but do exist.

Assets are generally cheap, unity asset store itch.io

Unless you commission someone for work 1-2K would cover many small games easily.

somenameforme2• 13 days ago

It's not so much about the assets as the framing, lighting, positioning and blending it all in a compelling way. For instance in the trailer I recognize the large brick building at 0:14 from a cheap/free asset pack, though I don't recall which. And look at it - it's super generic copy/paste layering with some slight variations, and seemingly baked on lighting given the identical shading per floor/layer. But put in a well lit scene with appropriate framing, and suddenly you're here thinking it's a high end custom built asset.

Now a days you can also get basically endless assets for free. Unreal gives away a new pack every few weeks or so on Fab (and has been doing this for years), KitBash3D gives occasionally gives away some amazing assets, and many more. But again none of this matters without some serious artistic and style sense. Given I recognize at least one asset there, I'd imagine a good chunk of his assets are from stuff like this. But you're not going to be able to clone anything comparable even if you had the exact assets he used. Placement and such is way more of an artistic thing than you might expect.

whywhywhywhy• 13 days ago

Game looks amazing from a solo dev but this article is terrible, like the journo didn't even play the game they just watched the game.

dmix• 13 days ago

All journalism is terrible these days. They just want a catchy headline for the ad view and nothing else matters, including whether the headline is true or not.

AdamN• 13 days ago

Paid journalism is still often good (Bloomberg, FT). But yeah if you're just going to free sites it's the same as the free newspapers they used to give out for free in the subway - a few salacious articles, one or two ostensibly 'real news' pieces, and a bunch of ads.

Jtarii• 13 days ago

There is like 1 or 2 actual "video game journalists" everyone else is just a glorified blogger.

mikeaskew42• 13 days ago

Yeah, it’s a classic bystander’s assessment.

akimbostrawman• 13 days ago

like the journo didn't even play the game

That is industry standard

frakkingcylons• 13 days ago

You make it sound like they didn’t even buy and run the game, but that’s not accurate.

While the game encourages you to master the reasonably simple controls of its range of perfectly crafted engines, you can also just set it to play itself and then take over the free camera as it does.

That seems like a perfectly valid way to experience the game to me.

monadgonad• 13 days ago

The author is "not exactly a train enthusiast" as they say, and nor are the vast majority of the audience . Yet the article presents the game in a way that sounds appealing to such an audience, potentially exposing it to more people than just the train fan niche. I think that alone makes it better than "terrible"

casey2• 12 days ago

The job of a games journalists isn't to play games or explain games to gamers. It's to explain the social context of a game to a general audience.

If you want a review service or consumer guide then pay for it.

epx2• 13 days ago

Another notable, if old, train simulator from Japan is OpenBVE. It was easy to model railroads on it. Many short Brazilian routes were/are modeled in OpenBVE. It is particularly convincing since it simulates well the typical lateral wobbling that metric trains are known for.

culi2• 13 days ago

Do you mean actual Brazilian railway track engineers used this game to plan/develop actual routes? Or just that you can play Brazilian routes in the game?

epx2• 13 days ago

Just to play the routes.

iggldiggl• 12 days ago

openBVE's not directly Japanese, it's an open-source re-implementation of the original BVE 2 and 4, which is.

ofjcihen• 13 days ago

I have almost no appreciation for trains and I’m incredibly interested in trying this.

freetime22• 13 days ago

Looks beautiful and I am filled with an instant sense of nostalgia looking at the screenshots.

Personally if I were going to adopt a nerdy train hobby, I would tend more toward train photography. Recently train photographers have been in the news for mostly bad reasons [1], but I have also seen train photographers setting up in rural locations and the scenery looks stunning and also totally chill. The problems arise when people gather en masse to get the "iconic" shots that have been probably been photographed a million times before.

Or just go out and actually ride a bunch of different routes. It's been a long time since I've done it, but just riding a local or express train through a scenic area is delightful.

Of course there's no reason that true train afficianados can't do all of the above, as well as building model trains!

[1] https://petapixel.com/2025/12/15/japanese-railway-pleads-wit...

Loughla• 13 days ago

The one thing that is keeping me from riding the routes that I believe would be the must fun/scenic is the OBSCENE cost of those tickets. Granted, these aren't commuter tickets.

I would love a trip across the high plains and through the mountains by train. Just like I would love to take a cruise from the bottom of the Mississippi to the top.

But them tickets is too high.

freetime22• 13 days ago

In Japan it's quite reasonable to ride local trains. I've been meaning to do a trip along the recently re-opened Tadami Line [1], for example. The one way cost for the full 4-hour, 135km trip is only ¥2,750 ($17).

Though when you add in the costs of getting to the start/end of the line, overnight accomodations, and potentially the cost of getting to Japan first - it gets quite a bit more expensive. But staying at a little guesthouse along the way is also part of the charm.

[1] https://fukushima.travel/blogs/tadami-line-5-sights-you-shou...

WangComputers• 13 days ago

I read the title and assumed this was going to be about Transport Tycoon.

culi2• 13 days ago

The dev is a person from Indonesia (Rizky Nova) who's device has 16GB of ram.

Being able to use the Unreal Engine for free to develop this is awesome. This couldn't have happened 10 years ago.

101008• 13 days ago

I think this is incredible, and I am so happy for him, he deserves all the praise he gets (and maybe more).

I will sin and make this about me, briefly, but just to say that when I was a kid/teenager with a really slow computer, a) I enjoyed coding much more, b) I think I was a way better programmer. Constraints make you better, you have to be smarter. I miss those times.

ffsm82• 13 days ago

Well, nothing is easier then adding constraints. Removing them is what's difficult - so why don't you add them back if it makes you a better programmer and you enjoy doing it more?

Personally, I think the reason you enjoyed it more as a teenager is just down to the fact you were fully in control of what to do and had no external pressure to earn money etc, so if anything you had less constraints - at least from my point of view

21asdffdsa122• 13 days ago

And that is why gamedevs do not get machine-upgrades

patates• 13 days ago

I will sin and make this about me (continues to make an awesome, general point about engineering)

Cthulhu_3• 13 days ago

I enjoy going back to basics every once in a while; do Arduino / embedded programming on a shitty netbook (it came with Windows but it has only 32GB of storage so it couldn't even update), build games / stuff in Pico-8, start a new Go project with just the main toolkit, etc.

arizen• 13 days ago

Yes, true creativity usually or mostly comes from real constraints, in my experience.

As, if there are no constraints in some specific area, there is no kinda "survival need" to improve there, hence brain is not working as hard/smart/deep as it could.

haritha-j• 13 days ago

I feel exactly the same way. Though one extra factor is that I feel like my time was so pure back then. Now, with multiple degrees, I keep thinking about weird concepts like 'opportunity cost'. There was no opportunity cost when I was a kid. There was just time. Bucketloads of it!

lou1306• 13 days ago

Re: making things about me (but also kind of related), I am working on a project that requires sending encrypted telemetry data from a Crazyflie drone (so, STM32) and it's such a fun experience. Each telemetry payload is just 26B so I had to get creative, write down packet diagrams and then make it work in C. An AI agent helps a bit with some stuff but you're mostly on your own.

In general I highly recommend going the embedded/IoT way if you look for challenges and constraints.

bdickason• 13 days ago

Very cool to see an Indonesian dev on the homepage of HN!

ShinyLeftPad23• 13 days ago

Being able to use the Unreal Engine for free to develop this is awesome

... and paying Epic 5% of all lifetime profit is a blessing too (if he makes money appropriate for "the best train sim ever made")

klntsky• 13 days ago

That is fair for something that makes the game possible in the first place.

mouse-5346• 13 days ago

I mean, if he makes a boatload of money then it's fine if a fraction of it goes to the engine. When his immediate needs are met, he can choose to either stay with unreal or move to an alternative later on without cost pressures.

pjmlp4• 13 days ago

Unreal devs have bills to pay as well.

We already know what happens in Nebraska.

Barbing2• 13 days ago

Can’t tell if you mean it (that it’s fair) or you would’ve preferred a different pricing structure?

somenameforme2• 13 days ago

Unreal is completely free for up to $1 million in revenue. And at that point, the 5% royalty is very much a happy problem.

ColdStream7• 13 days ago

I have said it for a few years now. If Epic ever decided to go public on the stock market, I would throw a significant amount of my savings at them. Their technology is astounding.

Yes, some games have some issues but it really seems like that is a problem of developers not knowing when to say 'No!' to the giant tool kit they have been provided.

Cthulhu_3• 13 days ago

I'm not sure myself, as there's Epic the ligitous games company that wants more money from Fortnite, Epic the attempted digital games platform whose main userbase just claims a free game once every two weeks, and Epic the engine company.

I have more faith in Epic the engine company than the other Epics.

hackable_sand• 12 days ago

That sets off alarm bells for me.

csande17• 13 days ago

Unreal Engine's been free for just over 11 years now: https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/ue4-is-free

rob743• 13 days ago

If you think about how much time a single developer has to invest to create all the assets for such a massive game, 11 years doesn't sound like a lot of time...

(assuming he did all the assets himself and didn't use AI, which might be a bit naive)

ianbooker• 13 days ago

This couldn't have happened 10 years ago.

I agree. Something similar could have happened 30 years ago, and it did, see Transport Tycoon (or a lot of early games). But from 2000 to 2020?

p-e-w• 13 days ago

The difference between today and 30 years ago is that if you are an individual developer, you are at the complete mercy of a single company (Valve), who can force you to do essentially anything they want for the privilege of publishing on their platform, with no meaningful alternative, and zero recourse if they say “no”.

josefx• 13 days ago

How is Minecraft doing these days?

KellyCriterion4• 12 days ago

a) Transport Tycoon does not have that detail grade, actually its a "comic sim"

b) Chris Sawyer had a team of graphic artists etc, IIRC

c) TT is not about a "train sim", but a business sim

hjkl0• 13 days ago

Out of curiosity, what is the significance of the 16GB of RAM?

high_priest• 13 days ago

In development, you don't have the privilege of using optimised culling and LODs. For rapid development, very little code is compiled & there are extra IDE tools running.

When you consider that 16GB has become the minimum requirement for modern A+ titles (with the Windows OS & background tasks squating on 4-6GB). Creating such a title might be difficult on memory limited machine.

Unreal had made some improvements in this regard recently, with direct from storage assets loading & stuff.

pelagicAustral• 13 days ago

I can tell you right now, from an M5 with 16 GB of RAM, I'd be hard pressed to squeeze a bit of ram for a game of sodoku if I'm already running an Android emulator plus a few IDEs and 10 tabs in Chrome... Being able to produce something of note, especially in the gaming space, with 16 GB of ram IS a feat in and of itself

inigyou2• 12 days ago

Wouldn't they have used Unity 10 years ago?

wolvoleo5• 12 days ago

Oh not even from Japan? I just assumed he's from there because that's what the game is about

declan_roberts• 13 days ago

So is it fun to play or just fun to look at? I'm getting "Mixtape" vibes from the article (not good!)

ZiiS• 13 days ago

'Gameplay' isn't what this is about. The is literally an option to turn it off. For some it will be thousands of hours of fun.

lwkl• 12 days ago

You probably won't enjoy it because it's a sim game and not fun in the same way Super Mario Bros is. But it's probably more interactive than Mixtape since you are operating a train.

I personally probably won't play Mixtape or this game but both look like good experiences to me if you are in the respective target audience.

kleiba2• 13 days ago

one-person development team

small_model4• 13 days ago

Looks very realistic, however I have to question the whole premise of a train sim, trains seem to be the most boring vehicle to choose here, they run in tracks so not much freedom, basically accelerate and brake.

alt2272• 13 days ago

Then you know nothing about trains and the track networks they run on, which is probably why you dont find them interesting. Thats fine, just realise there is much more to trains than accelerate and brake :)

small_model4• 13 days ago

Just my experience from being on trains, they accelerate, cruise, slow down and stop am I missing anything? They must be ripe for automation.

rob743• 13 days ago

Well TBF OP is more or less correct, and I say this as a person who is pretty much into trains (although not train sims specifically). All a conductor can do is accelerate and brake - respect speed limits, brake in time so you don't overrun the platform at the next station (for passenger trains), be on the lookout for people/vehicles crossing the tracks illegally (and hope that they get out of the way fast enough, because once you see them, it's usually too late to stop in time, unless the train is really slow), be careful (especially when you have a freight train) not to be too slow before an incline, otherwise you might not make it all the way up etc. etc. Where you go is not your decision, the points are set remotely.

fragmede4• 13 days ago

Railroad Tycoon hints at a world outside of accelerate and brake.

small_model4• 13 days ago

Ah yes that's wider than driving a train, if thats what this games I misunderstood.

pjc502• 13 days ago

You're correct for train driving sims, but they hit a very particular niche of people who really like trains.

tjpnz2• 13 days ago

They're insanely popular in Japan.

davedx• 13 days ago

This YouTube is a pretty good walk through of the gameplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxGEMOzWt8w

benny_s• 13 days ago

Looks great. Too bad that steam deck isn’t supported, I hope they’ll add it.

astrobe_• 13 days ago

is in fact set in a fictional region of Japan, but is created so lovingly that you’ll believe it’s real life.

This is actually a major cheat. Realism is expensive, and exposes your creation to the equivalent of the "uncanny valley" for vehicle simulation - the simulated world is never accurate enough and you can't help but notice the differences with reality. E.g. if you see generic buildings ("autogen") near a location you know IRL, the simulation feels immediately sloppy.

Yet, as long as I'm not interested in visiting real places, I would go for a vehicle simulation in a fictional world any day. I wouldn't mind if the vehicles were also fictional, as long as they require some technique to drive them. What matters in games is challenge and mastery, but not what you master; your RTS, FPS or chess skills have very little value IRL.

Zoom out far enough—and for some reason it will let you—and you see the tiles, the roads that don’t line up, and the various tricks and techniques that allow it to look so realistic from low down. But don’t do that! That’s silly. This is a train sim, not a plane sim, you’ve no business in the sky.

OpenBVE one-upped BVE train sim with external cameras, and as a result you see all this too. In my eyes, they sort of miss the point of a train simulation: the view point is normally attached to the driver, so one can use all sorts of tricks to avoid having to "paint the entire wall" - which is quite important if you count on a community of fan modders who have limited resources.

ImJasonH• 13 days ago

I fell down a YouTube hole and watched all of these Derail Valley playthroughs: https://youtu.be/JSONttyEJ4o

Highly recommend if you like having something interesting on in the background.

vim-guru• 12 days ago

Very impressive! Well done

mlok• 12 days ago

I like this one, too : https://alexanderperrin.com.au/paper/shorttrip/

notjustanymike• 12 days ago

I own it and played it. It's good, very pretty, but highly repetitive. It's one 40km track, two trains, and most of the scenery is the same. It is one step above a Unreal Engine tech demo (e.g. the matrix demo from a few years back).

For one person it's impressive, but it won't knock the major players down any time soon.

chaostheory3• 12 days ago

Unreal 5 is amazing with photo realism. Bodycam uses this feature well too

Aachen• 12 days ago

The article says the game should cost 18$ (should be ~15.74€), but it's actually showing as 19.50€ aka 22.29 USD. Does anyone know what's going on there? Is Stream charging more due to refund laws or something?

I can't find a website for the developer, also nothing listed in the Indonesian Wikipedia article. Sadly no way to buy it directly and give them 100% of the money in their currency

Cuuugi• 12 days ago

Different regions have different pricing unfortunately.

https://partner.steamgames.com/pricing/explorer?l=english&ut...

srjek• 12 days ago

Article was published close to the game's Steam release, and there was a 10% discount on launch. https://steamdb.info/app/4630570/. It's 20 USD now, and I assume the remaining difference is simply due to specifics around setting prices on steam and currency conversion.

Tade0• 12 days ago

In my region of the world this title (and also the title of being "the worst ever made") was reserved for the unnecessarily detailed electric locomotive simulator MaSzyna:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1033030/MaSzyna/

Turns out that such a vehicle, even though simple in principle, has quite the startup procedure and a layman would have trouble making it go.

zdc1• 12 days ago

Reminds me of when I was younger and tried the F1 cars in Live for Speed racing simulator. Turns out it's actually really, really hard to keep an F1 car on the tracks.

ku1ik• 9 days ago

From the screenshots MaSzyna looks much better than I’d expect from a game released in 2001!

nsxwolf• 12 days ago

Microsoft used to have "Microsoft Train Simulator". It was being shown off at E3 in 2001 in a dark little corner, by this older gentlemen who for I know may have been the producer or main developer.

I'm not into trains, but I felt bad for this guy so I spent 15 minutes at his booth and let him show me everything. It seemed to have made his day.

natas• 12 days ago

I bought it yesterday, not too hard to get running on linux, and played for an hour, it's immense fun.

globular-toast• 12 days ago

What do you have to do to get it working on Linux? Is there a way to signal my hatred of Windows when I buy it?

Rebelgecko• 12 days ago

Using the steam deck flavor of Linux, literally just buy the game, download it, and hit play. Runs pretty well

kaycey2022• 11 days ago

Just install steam on Linux. I think nearly every windows game is playable now. Gaming was the only thing keeping me in windows. The irony is I think Linux gaming us only feasible because of the win32 target. Otherwise the user space in Linux afaik is still a poop show.

zftnb666• 12 days ago

One person made the best train sim. Meanwhile AAA studios need 400 people to make the same game twice.

KellyCriterion4• 12 days ago

including patches to make "it stable", and do not forget DLC additional updates!

faizshah• 12 days ago

I think Elder Scrolls Oblivion was like 80 person core team and 4 years of development and New Vegas was like 70 person dev team and 2 years of development.

But starfield, which was widely criticized by fans, was over 100 people and 8 years development. With the most common criticism from former devs being about the additional management structure and difficulty of communication.

I can’t help but feel there is a lesson there for tech companies where engineering orgs for products are 200+ people when a 20-30 person startup is your top competitor in the vertical.

samspot• 12 days ago

You can also reduce team size by employing insane, life-destroying crunch time.

derr1• 12 days ago

This game is fantastic, it seems that Japanese train arcade / sims are having a renaissance at the moment.

It works brilliantly with the Zuiki Mascon controller.

KellyCriterion4• 12 days ago

Q to the video in the middle of the article:

Is THIS the in-game graphics of the game??

If Yes - just WOW!!

How much AI did the person use?

Train sim created by just one person is being called the best ever made

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