- The humans are dead (sorry humans), but animals have formed a society
- You must connect animal communities in a timely, efficient manner
- Remain eco-friendly to avoid flood risks and ballooning industrial districts
Hello and welcome to Ahead of the Game, a series where we tell you all about an upcoming game that, despite not being out yet, is available for you to play at the time of publishing. Through this series, you can grab a chance to play games well ahead of their release date, be that through Soft Launch, Open Beta, Demos, or more.
Cowleyfornia Studios, creators of We’ll Always Have Paris (which we gave a Gold Award in 2022) have announced their next project: Iron Roads. It’s a train-network simulation strategy game all about carefully laying out train tracks and routes, maintaining (and optimising) an evergrowing railroad network.
Now, that might all sound pretty straightforward, or even familiar – perhaps too close to Mini Metro for your liking – but there are a couple of twists that set it well apart from its contemporaries.
For a start, I bet you assumed that it was human passengers that you’d be ferrying (err, train-er-ry-ing?) about. You’d be wrong in which case, it’s actually animals. Humans do play a role here, although it’s a purely cautionary one as they’re all dead as a result of messing up the world (well done).
Various animals did survive and seem to have some sort of enhanced intelligence now, although they’ve been keeping themselves to themselves, living in their own communities and not heading out into the wider world. That ends now, though, as you take on the role of a kind of Amtrak Champion and connect up the towns and factories.
But, but, but. The clear environmental warnings in the story do tie into the game. Iron Roads’ world reacts to the choices that you make and the shortcuts that you take. If you rely too heavily on fossil fuels or focus on factories, then waters will claim more of the world or those factory districts will swell, filling up the map and limiting your choices.
There, you go, that actually sounds quite different from what you were thinking about right?
There are three different modes planned for Iron Roads: Scenarios, Endless and Challenges, however, it’s still in active development and not fully complete at this moment.
So, how do you get to play Iron Roads?
There are a few options right now. Firstly, there’s a demo available on the developer’s website. Secondly, you can sign up for a TestFlight version of the iOS build. Finally, you can join the developer’s Discord, which is the best way to go about getting early Android access for testing.