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Runaway Rails's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio - Did the entry make good use of audio? | #2 | 3.818 | 3.818 |
| Overall | #3 | 3.833 | 3.833 |
| Haptics - Did the entry make good use of haptics? | #3 | 2.545 | 2.545 |
| Originality - How original was the entry. | #4 | 4.182 | 4.182 |
| Fun factor - How much fun was the entry to play. | #4 | 4.091 | 4.091 |
| User experience - How well was the user interaction implemented. | #5 | 3.818 | 3.818 |
| Theme incorporation - How well did the entry fit the theme. | #5 | 4.545 | 4.545 |
Ranked from 11 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Godot version used
4.5rc2
Required OpenXR features
passthrough where available, still works wihtout it though
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Comments
Played again today with a friend on PC. I started two applications at the same time, one in VR and one on the PC. After a lot of trial and error we managed to get 104. We had a lot of fun! Did not get a good recording though.
Awesome!
Nice entry, and good take on the theme.
What a great entry! Loved it!
This was plenty fun. For now I have only played with the CPU but I am trying to get some friends over this weekend to play some of these games that needs two players.
I read your other reply to Matt and I understand that I should follow the rhytm more but almost everytime I tried to place a piece it did not get placed and I had to quickly place another one. Having the cpu player only being able to place straight got me to lose a few times but I guess that makes the most sense and if you want to get the best score you should play with a friend as well.
For me the table was a bit too far when I started the game so I had to reorient myself a few times but the game started after a certain amount of time. An easy quality of life fix for this would be that the game starts when you place the first track piece (or maybe when pulling the train whistle.
How is you game randomized? I feel like sometimes it was really hard in the beginning and sometimes it was almost no obstacles at all. I also got one really hard section where I had to turn both down and then up straight after. I guess that is impossible solving when playing with the cpu.
I don’t think I tried but can you hold one piece in your hand to “save” it for a disaster? Edit: I booted up the game again and tried this myself instead of waiting for a reply haha. So the idea is that I use my left hand to store one of the turn pieces to faster react in an “emergency”. This helped a lot and I could look ahead when I felt that I had time and prepare a turn piece. For some reason I only wanted to hold the pieces that turned right/down in my right hand and left/up in my left haha. And then when holding that turn piece in one hand the other hand’s mission is just to place straight pieces. Felt like a decent strategy.
I vibed with the music and really liked that it got faster along with the game. It would be fun to incorporate the whistle somehow. Maybe an obstacle could be some animals in the way that you could whistle to get them to run away haha. A way to show the player whose turn it is could be to have some sort of outline for the piece and have it red when it would not accept being placed and blue when it is ready. Maybe this makes it too easy for the rhytm part though.
I saw that you recorded a video for a bunch of games here and I will try to record one myself(probably this weekend). Currently my high score is 70.
Thanks so much for the detailed feedback, it helps a lot! I recorded a little video to explain the rhythm seeing as the game doesn't do a great job of making it intuitive.
As you noticed the level generation and the CPU are incredibly simple, so yes the RNG can screw you over. I wanted to have hand crafted levels but they didn't make the cut in the one week jam period.
As for the table being too far, I did implement the recenter event so if you hit the recenter button it should bring you straight to the right place on the table.
Starting the game with the whistle is a great idea, I'm definitely putting that in post-jam! The plan was for some sort of obstacles that you need to clear with the whistle, e.g. cars at a level crossing, but that also had to get cut for now.
I'm away from my headset traveling interstate at the moment, but I'll definitely fire up your game and the others that I haven't got to yet when I get back home.
Nice idea, I only player single player but it was fun taking turns with the CPU. It was fun once it got going fast and not too difficult.
I wish that I could place pieces more ahead of time; it seemed to only work when the train was very close. And sometimes a piece didn't place at all which was frustrating. Also I kept getting confused about whose turn it was; I believe the little levers on the side indicate that but they're too hard to notice. Something more obvious that it's my turn would be good. And I'm not sure the passthrough adds much gameplay-wise but it is kind of cool having your train track in your living room.
I love that I can pull the whistle.
Thankyou for making a Pico version! That allowed me to play it with passthrough.
(I tried recording a video for you, to return the favour, and I did, but it didn't record my microphone so there was no point uploading it.)
Thanks for playing! Giving the player better feedback about when it is their turn to place a track and when it isn't, and also when and why their placement is denied is one of the things I have already started working on for a post-jam release.
The intention is that the music and the beat is the main cue for when to place tracks, along with the colours of the tracks in your hand matching the colour of the ground coming up next. Everything else in the game is synced to that rhythm and intended to reinforce it; the animation cycle of the CPU player, the track signals on the side that you noticed, the train's bouncing animation and the train's puff puff noises. But you aren't alone in finding it tricky, so I'm continuing to work on it more.
Allowing placement of extra tracks ahead of the beat timing would break the rhythmic and turn based nature of the game, so it would be a hard pivot to ditch those aspects entirely if I go that way.
Making a pico version was a given, the only headset I own is a pico!
Thanks for the detailed reply.
> Making a pico version was a given, the only headset I own is a pico!
I was wondering if I should go to the bother of learning how to make an APK but I figured I wouldn't be able to make a Quest build since I don't own a Quest (maybe it isn't too hard to do even if you can't test it - I see you also posted a Quest build) and nobody else would own a Pico so there'd be no point. Guess I was wrong on the second and maybe the first!
Very clever idea! I only tried the single player - nice to see that someone else attempted to tackle multiplayer too. :-) Great environment - cozy. Along with MikeFrom1974, I actually liked the music and thought it fit the game well.
This is a quite challenging game, though! I didn't manage to make it very far on any of my runs.
Great work!
I actually liked the music. I had trouble getting the tracks to place though (windows, steam vr, index).
Great, clever idea, and nice to see multiplayer being used.
If the tracks don't place it's most likely because you're dropping them on your partner's turn instead of yours. Unless therr is some kind of other bug. This isn't your fault, it's mine for not making the game communicate this idea strongly enough or giving you feedback when a piece fails to be placed.
As player one the light green area is yours and the dark green is your partner's. You can only place track on the beat of the music when a light green areas is next after the existing track. Sorry for the confusion.
This is great! I love the frantic looking down the lane while placing the tracks. I must agree with Effiayre that the music could be better, but it’s not bad and does it’s job well, it reminds me of RUSH E.
Pretty fun entry. I found myself trying to get a little higher in score each time. The game taught the player how to play well. The music could have been better though.
Glad you had fun! I wrote the song for it myself, RIP, guess I'd better stick to the game dev side of things 😅
Hey, the song does the job =).
Is there some kind of dynamic music right? Feels on place linked with the actions
Yep. Everything in the game is based off the music tempo and the beat.
It's midi so it can be sequenced and sped up or slowed down in a controlled way without audio glitches. Tempo starts at 66% of the original music speed and ends up at 300% if you make it far enough. The 66% is a little slow for the music but helps make the game easier at the start.
I wanted to add collectible power ups along the way which would show this off by instantly slowing down or speeding up when the train runs over them, but they had to be cut in favour of other things.
Nice! Thanks for the explanation, I'm looking forward to do something were music is integrated in the gameplay. I'm new with Godot and gamedev in general, so exploring a lot right now.
I was not able to experience 300% speed, but must be hilarous😄. One of those power-ups early on to taste top speed music for a moment would be interesting.
A co-operative game about keeping a train on track... by laying the track in front of it.
Rulez:
1. Take turns placing tracks in time with the music
2. Don’t crash!
Singleplayer works with a CPU buddy.
Alternatively multiplayer works on local networks (LAN / WIFI):