Pocket Trains - Enterprise Sim 1.5.14

Pick-up & deliver is a genre of games that is mostly encountered in physical form. It implies building a busyness out of transporting goods from one area to another. This type of games is fairly divisive in the board game world. Apparently it is hard to be indifferent on the matter. What say you?

Pocket Trains is a game in which you operate a network of railways, making money out of the jobs your engines pick up. As any playful tycoon, you will be also micromanaging every bit of business such as picking up the right carts and controlling each train's movements, as well as developing new routes and constructing new engines and fuel carts.

At first glance, Pocket Trains might appear a bit too complex, but it actually isn't. The sin that can be blamed for will be addressed shortly though. The main interaction occurs in stations that you have unlocked. There you can accept jobs and connect rail carts. Each job contains from one two five carts. Considering your starting engines can only handle up to eight, you will need to figure out which job is worth taking. The destination is also worth considering. Some jobs require a short ride to the next city, but others will need a coordinated effort between multiple rail lines in order to reach their destination. The good thing is that you won't need to calculate anything. Every job will show a number of coin icons depending on how profitable it is, so you will quickly spot the really valuable ones.

The money that you earn can be spent on a variety of things. Opening new routes will increase the number of job opportunities. Of course, you can either assign these routes as extensions to an existing engine's itinerary or come up with a new engine.

Engines come in a variety of colors and performance ratings. There is no steam engine shop though. These need to be crafted out of parts which can be mainly procured from crates. These crates appear as job requests. Once you transport a crate to its destination it will automatically be added to your collection. From there it needs to be cracked open. This costs "bux" (gem equivalent). The pretty neat part is that you can exchange coins for bux any time at a fairly reasonable rate. Anyway, out of each crate you will get an engine part. Once you collect enough parts you may then craft a new engine or fuel cart of the same type. Although they can be ignored for a while, fuel carts will eventually become necessary, as your rail road network develops. An engine spends fuel on each trip. If its range is not increased, then you might have to spend longer times to deliver jobs. Engines are slowly refueled while resting, and having an increased fuel capacity will extend their uptime.

Enough strategy, time to make some assessment. Although the gameplay is fairly engaging and doesn't require quick thinking (you can spend as much time as you want on every decision without any penalty), information is a bit obscure. You will need to constantly switch between trains to see what each one carries even when they rest at the same station. This makes handling long hauls harder since every train appears on a different screen and requires two taps on different areas of the screen to reach it.

Problems aside, the game allows you to develop your network as you see fit, which is certainly a plus compared to games where your business will look the same every time you play. This not only shows respect for the player's mind but also warrants a few repeated plays. Considering that you will eventually be able to expand all over the known world (excluding Antarctica for obvious reasons... it's not a continent).

Conclusion

Pocket Trains is a free lightweight tycoon game where the freemium aspect is not felt as strong as usual. The bux can be acquired in a variety of ways besides purchases and bux costs don't increase exponentially after a few hours of play. The graphics are adorable and the sound is well done. You will have fun directing your train network even if for a few minutes a day.