Hands-On Preview: Trainfort

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Trainfort is a game that requires some time to fully grasp its complexity, yet I believe this adds to its appeal. In this upcoming release, you’ll craft a dwarf character and find yourself in a challenging environment with only essential items – a tablet, backpack, and toolbelt – to start shaping the world into a livable space for you and your companions.

In other games of this survival, crafting, and sandbox genre, Trainfort stands out. It offers an advancement system in technology that starts with you making basic, primitive tools reminiscent of cavemen, but ultimately progresses to building engines and colossal structures as you advance.

After having a look at Trainfort, I must say that the demo left me quite optimistic. The cooperative gameplay experience for up to four players promises to create countless unforgettable (and possibly riotous) moments that you’ll be reminiscing over with your friends for years on end.

Let’s dig into what sets this survival-heavy base-building game apart from the others.

A Complicated World Of Resources And Survival

After designing my unique dwarf character through a character creation process, I found myself awakening in a wrecked train, completely bare. The game’s narrative immediately presented itself as flexible and free-flowing, offering me a tablet and a few initial goals to kickstart my adventure.

These tasks were as straightforward as choosing what to wear, making a tool like an axe, and determining how to heat water safely for drinking. This realization led me to acknowledge that my character would require various meters to monitor, such as health, stamina, thirst, and hunger, to survive in the world of Trainfort.

In a vast structure resembling a warehouse, where I found myself after waking up, I felt instinctively drawn to investigate the surroundings and search for useful items hidden within.

In a flash, I found another remarkable trait about Trainfort. The game employs a nearly virtual reality-style functionality. It seems like your hands are floating in front of you, and you need to stretch out and bend down to pick up items scattered around for their use. Moreover, the mouse wheel functions as a tool to move objects closer or farther away from you while holding them.

Apart from maintaining your usual health and energy levels, you’ll need to consider your hydration and nutrition needs as well to stay alive in the environment of Trainfort.

To accurately operate the buttons on the equipment, you’ll need to carefully position your hands. This includes maneuvering your large backpack, which serves both as a workbench and storage unit, among other things. The overall experience of Trainfort gives off a sensation that it’s a physics-based game at its core, providing an additional depth to the various activities taking place there.

In time, you’ll find yourself immersed in the vast, randomly generated universe of Trainfort, teeming with unexpected delights. From atop a nearby crane, I caught sight of an unusual tentacle-like structure off in the distance, hinting at a mystery that beckoned my curiosity.

In my bag, I found some blueprints for creating various items, which allowed me to collect materials around the starting area and start my journey toward becoming a resilient dwarf in this expansive environment. The game’s routine gradually became clearer as I gathered resources, crafted items, built structures, explored new locations, solved mysteries, and learned to survive on my own.

The Promise Of Chaotic Co-Op

In the demo of Trainfort that I played, there was no multiplayer interaction. However, based on what I saw, I can imagine that this mode would lead to a lively, thrilling experience. Collaborating on resource management and structure building with friends sounds promising, and it will be intriguing to observe the various base structures players create.

Adventuring alone, I’d stumble upon unexpected encounters, such as vicious wolves that would lunge at me, or placid pigs that I could dismantle using my homemade, rudimentary, yet effective axe for sustenance to keep myself alive and kicking.

However, the possible actions don’t end there. At the peculiar tentacle I mentioned before, I found myself startled to witness a group of zombies casually ambling around. Naturally, I moved towards them, but unfortunately, I was quickly dispatched by them since I lacked the necessary equipment to tackle such a horde without proper support.

As a gamer,

“I have no idea what secrets are hidden in Trainfort’s distant corners, but it’s thrilling to imagine that anything could be waiting for us there. The thought of exploring and discovering new things with my friends is what gets me pumped up about this game.

When you become deeply involved in creating and constructing projects, you might find yourself prepared to move on to new surroundings, as you can easily dismantle your current setup, transport it, and establish yourself elsewhere.

The win condition for Trainfort might not be apparent, but it offers a lot of enjoyable and unpredictable group action. It’s a game that seems highly engaging, to the point where you could find yourself investing plenty of hours, especially once you master the crafting and survival mechanics as you traverse its vast world.

Why I’m Excited For More

Building increasingly intricate tools and machines through technological advancement is quite fascinating. From the initial stages of making axes and simple utensils like water ladles, it’s hard to comprehend that someday we’d be capable of creating complex machinery such as steam engines, vehicles, and other advanced equipment.

Instead of other comparable games, this one offers an authentic, step-by-step progression system to help you measure your growth as you move on to more intricate constructions and innovations, unlike them where you essentially remain in the same technological era.

At first glance, the game appears somewhat intricate, but as you delve deeper, you’ll find that the design is remarkably original and user-friendly, revealing an immersive experience filled with a challenging environment, distinctive peculiarities, and innovative gameplay mechanics.

I find the concept of packing your backpack and tool belt with resources and items from the world to be quite fantastic. There’s an additional sense of fulfillment when you carry a bag full of plastic parts, place it into your spacious pouch, and actually observe the space it occupies in your backpack becoming more limited.

This game appears to offer an enjoyable single-player experience, but it’s likely to be most exciting when played with a group of three friends for some unpredictable escapades. It seems designed to spark conversations and swapping stories, much like some popular video games do around the water cooler.

Do you recall the incident when we were constructing our base, only for a swarm of zombies to appear and wipe us out completely? Indeed, those were the good old times.

To find out more about Trainfort, consider adding it to your wishlist on its Steam platform immediately. By doing so, you’ll be kept informed of any new developments or updates as the game moves towards its future launch.

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2025-05-27 20:09