In Oracle's original thread about making a train game, I think I said something like "there are already a lot of train games, so it will be hard to original", which of course, created a challenge for me to try to cook up something original.
I'll first point out that I haven't played many, if any, train games, but it seems that many/most involve things like track laying and/or stock speculation. So to be original, I want to do something that doesn't include either of those.
The board, then, will be a preexisting network of train routes, owned by various companies, and players must in some way gain access to those routes to do something; presumably to transport commodities to get payoffs.
Question: are there any games that already do this? I'm sure there are, I just want to know what they are so I can see how similar they may or may not be to the more specific set of ideas I'm working on. My guess is that to the extent I've described it here, my idea is so far a fairly standard "pick up and deliver" game, but I think with some good mechanics, there could be room for something original here, as long as I stay away from track laying and stock speculation.
Any train games you know of that don't use either of these, but do feature "using pre-existing tracks to deliver goods", would be most useful. I'm aware of Rail Baron, but that seems different because players are trying to gain control of specific routes, which is basically like track-laying, in the sense that the players will have routes that are "theirs" and other routes that are "other peoples". I'm looking to do a game with no track ownership. (the routes are owned by "companies" who are NPCs, in a sense)
Thanks for any help you can provide!
-Jeff
You could do a Train Heist game, with players starting on horseback, catching up to the train, and ending with a brawl atop the moving train... object is to either be the last man ON the train (thereby getting all the loot yourself)- or just get the most loot...
Another idea is something like the movie Speed... some out of control train where you have to keep the speed up and make sure the junctions are switched properly.
- Seth
Hey, not bad! But maybe I should have been more specific. I am, indeed, looking to be "original" in the sense of not just creating the same train game that everyone else has created. But, I would still like to build on the structure and feel of those other games. I want the game to be an economic game; I want you to feel like you need to get something to some other location, and must use the right trains/routes to get your goods to where they need to go. But I don't want a major component of this to be "laying track" or "buying shares in companies". There's more in my head than I'm fleshing out here, but already up to this point, I think there's enough that if there's an overt similarity to another game, someone should be able to spot it if they happen to have played whatever that game is...
I think your Speed idea sounds neat, although I have no idea how you'd make it into a game. I'm sure it can be done...