Train Valley 2

One of the most addictive puzzle games I've ever played

Cho Cho

short game sessions, very fun and not too time consuming

Quite fun.
relaxing <---- ⭐% caring ----> tense-inducing

peak train valley

Nice

Very fun puzzle game with trains. It is very easy begin playing but it can become very complicated in the hard levels or if you join the weekly let's play together challenges.

This is a fun train game

Amazing game

Train Valley 2 is a tricky puzzle and trickier management game in which you can either optimize production or watch your trains explode. As an efficiency junkie, I play this during lunch to get my fix.

Gameplay

The base game includes 50 levels, a level editor, and workshop support. You start each level with some trains and a fistful of cash, and must supply at least one City with at least one type of Resource before time runs out. Earn up to five (5) stars per level by meeting restrictive time limits and additional requirements like "don't place more than 110 tracks" or "don't build bridges."

The bulk of the game is tight resource and time management. Tracks, bridges, tunnels, and train upgrades are expensive, so you need to constantly ferry people and resources between stations to increase your income; but if you don't pay attention to switches or timing, trains will travel to the wrong stations or crash (detonating the trains, resources, and tracks). It's simultaneously hilarious and frustrating because you've just lost a bunch of resources and that clock is still tick-tick-ticking away.

What Works For Me

✅ Straightforward keyboard shortcuts allow you to easily switch between build modes.

✅ Ability to pause the timer to give yourself space to think, strategize, and also fight with track placement.

✅ Placing tracks.

✅ If you enjoyed making maps in Sim City 3000, the level editor is going to blow your mind.

✅ Love the train sounds.

What Doesn't Work For Me

❎ Achievements addicts beware: some of the 104 achievements are from DLC.

❎ Low poly map is great but, compared to the original Train Valley, it can be harder to see where you can and cannot place tracks. If you're colorblind or your monitor sucks, this could be an issue.

Final Thoughts

My villain origin story will probably involve missing a five-star rating by one second for the hundredth time. Other than that, I love TV2; it scratches that efficiency itch while the star system drives my inner perfectionist to insanity. There's something incredibly satisfying about watching trains and resources move across the map, managing supply chains and connecting different routes, and yes, I kinda do this for a living, but it's a lot more fun as a game.

I was initially concerned that it would only take a few hours to beat 50 levels, and maybe it does if you're a super-genius or don't care about getting five stars every time, but I've logged 26 hours and am still fighting my way through level 20 (seriously: one second shy of perfect, three times in a row). Levels take ~20-30 minutes if you abuse the pause button.

Side note: The hours logged and levels have changed four times since I started writing this review because I kept opening the game to "critically evaluate" it and getting hyper-focused on levels instead.

Recommendation

Train Valley 2 is perfect for anyone who enjoys puzzles, efficiency, and timers. It improves on the original in every way and, as levels get more complicated, it feels a bit like speed-running an automation game.

I do not recommend this if timers make you anxious or if you're a weirdo who hates trains.

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Train go VROOOM!!!! :D



but sometimes train go boom :(

A fun mini puzzle game with trains. The game is isometric with tiles. I do miss an option button to select device for output of the sound.

Surprisingly great game. Very simple rules to master, very hard to get everything perfect, yet easy to progress.

Excellent train-based puzzle/strategy game with great DLC that introduces new and interesting concepts!

A great casual game of scheduling trains, and runs well on light hardware.

(This is a revised version of my answer to a 3rd party survey.)

There are many reasons why I enjoy TV2 so much. It is a game that is simple to understand, with very clear rules. All the mechanism are easy to comprehend, at any point in time you know what is going on on the game map. But, even though the rules are simple to understand, the actual gameplay can become really complicated and difficult to manage. Especially in the lategame where you have many trains and need to manage to keep them from crashing, there is a lot to look out for at any moment.
This combination of easy rules but complicated gameplay is something I personally enjoy very much. In TV2, the amount of pure knowledge that you need is rather low, it is more about how you combine it to produce the best result.
This leads to the next reasons why I like TV2. For me, it is a game about optimisation, finding the perfect strategy and trying to execute it. When I open a new level, I spend a lot of time analysing it. There are a few aspects that you need to find in each level. The most important one is usually to identify the bottleneck, that is, the resource that will be the limiting factor of getting faster. This can be the train capacity, money to build tracks, train throughput to a critical factory, uptime of a factory, worker production and more. Then there can be additional constraints or challenges, like difficult topography, space constraints for building track layouts, or time constraints of some kind. Identifying these challenges, analysing them and finding a solution how to handle them is what makes TV2 so much fun to me.
I also really like the 5-star system together with the statistics overview when you beat a level. This tells you not only that you beat the level, but also how good your solution is. I think it is very suitable for a wide range of players. Starting from those who just want to beat the level, to those who want to get all 5 stars, to those (including me) who strive to maximise one or all of the statistics. I definitely spend most of my game time not on beating a level, but on getting a 100% (game time) rating in each level. This is where I get really competitive and try to do everything to reach my goal. It can be really frustrating to restart a level over and over again because even a small mistake can break your run. But it is all worth it, because for me the best part is to finally see the "100%" after trying to optimise a level for hours.
As a side note, it is really helping that there is little to no randomisation in the game, basically everything is deterministic. (Thinking about it, only the train order in the Passenger Flow DLC comes to mind as an exception of this.) This allows you to find an optimal solution that will work in each playthrough and can be refined or repeated. As a friend said once, "it is a puzzle game", and I really see it as such.
When thinking about longterm enjoyment or replayability of the game, there is a lot of variety in the levels. This can be through unique challenges or constraints as described above, but also through the different kind of goals. Particularly, some of them force you to play differently from your normal play patterns. Additionally, the DLCs bring in some new gameplay, but also reduce the simplicity I was praising earlier. So I have mixed opinions of them, but in general I enjoy the new elements they bring.

Some final thoughts that make me enjoy the game even more, even though they are not the most important points:
- It is well made, has very few bugs, cute simple graphics and a nice soundtrack.
- The key bindings are great, after playing TV2 for such a long time I do not need to think about them at all while I use them.
- In contrast to the simplicity of the game that I already talked about, there are a few lesser known mechanisms and techniques that are good to know or even neccessary to beat some of the advanced levels. I actually recently found quite some enjoyment in exploiting some of them to improve my solutions.

:)

Easy to pick up and play, with lots of optional challenges and engines to unlock. More of a puzzle game than a tycoon game, Train Valley 2 is something I play when I don't feel up to playing anything else, but don't want to just sit idle or fall asleep. Goes well with a nice cup of coffee and an hour or so of free-time.

Unplayable using a controller and by extension on a Steam Deck. Placing diagonal tracks is a nightmare and constantly place straight tracks instead.

You like trains and puzzle games? This game is for you!
You've more than 100 hours to spare? Go for all stars and all achievements.
You have little patience and are quickly frustrated? Move along; this game isn't for you.

Being more complex than Train Valley 1, I'd say it is better than its predecessor!
But I found it also to be more frustrating at moments (you've to figure out on your own how terrain works/block your tracks and that you've to fulfill all goals simultaneously in the minimum time to get all stars; you can no longer replay levels and only focus on 1 goal/star at a time).

great game

You'd think it'd be fun to build tracks and produce goods, but you'd be wrong in the case of Train Valley 2. The first game was smooth head scratching from the beginning to the end, but this one starts getting on your nerves after a couple of hours. The maps get complicated which is not the problem, but it's not fun anymore when you can't tell where you can build the tracks due to the graphics and the clutter in the maps. The cleverly programmed tunnel and bridge building modes highlighting every possibility disregarding whether it's even usable in the map doesn't help. There are also features to the map that the user needs to figure out by themselves like the ORDER of some goods that you need to return, while it's also not even clear which station you need to transport them into. At least they gave a warning about the Tesla coil that's gonna destroy your tracks before it happened in game though.

Soulslike

Its a great game to sit back and relax to. I recommend all the DLC too. Nothing to hard about this game just a great time killer. Trying to get 5 stars on all the maps can be tough to hit but all in all...this game is good fun.

The best Puzzle / Logistics / Time Management / game I ever played. It is just about "Multi Tasking" where you need to prepare things in advance and syncronize things while keeping track of everything.

Think of it like a Settlers game but instead of villagers carrying stuff to places, Its Trains hauling cargo and terrain, distance, cost and deadlines are the constraints.

Fun at short bursts but quickly becomes overwhelming if you spent too much time, not a game you can play to get mindless fun.

Its mindful fun.

TV2 changes mechanics from the first game and honestly I prefer this version. It just scratches that itch in my brain for train puzzles that are challenging without being annoying or incredibly simple (after first 3 levels or so that were an introduction)
The music is great again and graphics are simple but pleasant to look at. The game sometimes stutters without a clear reason but it doesn't bother me much
I've seen some people in the comments disliking this game and honesty the devs might have make it harder for themselves as they did revamped main game loop so some players coming fro TV1 expecting more of the same game loop ended up disappointed

Anyway trains go wroom I like it

This game was amazing. Well done! Some levels were very frustrating but satisfying to complete

A puzzle game about trains? Autism at its finest, a very fun and entertaining game

after 368 hours i can truly say that i have autism

Addictingly fun!

Good game.

Pretty decent game with lots of DLC.

Trains, moving trains, stations, tracks, all the best train related activities.

very fun

Challenging, fun and a fantastic variety of maps and puzzles available.

Fun and simple game. Easy to play.

Graphics
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS

Gameplay
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't

Audio
☐ Eargasm
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf

Audience
☑ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☑ Grandma

PC Requirements
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer

Game Size
☐ Floppy Disk
☑ Old Fashioned
☐ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data

Difficulty
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☑ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☐ Dark Souls

Grind
☐ Nothing to grind
☑ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☐ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding

Story
☑ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☐ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life

Game Time
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☐ Average
☑ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond

Price
☐ It's free!
☐ Worth the price
☑ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money

Bugs
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs

? / 10
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☑ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☐ 10

This is a fun logistics based game to play when I'm drunk.

similar to the first, simple but good

The puzzles have hooked me for hours. Simple but wicked.

deff good game better than 1st game

Just beat TV2 and it's really really good if you're into these types of games! Really addictive, enough challenge as the game goes on to be meaningful and interesting and the right combo of relaxing and stressful. I would definitely buy it again!

Around the halfway point new mechanics that go completely unexplained start getting added. Around then is also the point where complexity gets added to levels seemingly just for the sake of it rather than making the problems the level presents interesting.

Additionally, the game randomly refuses to run as well as it does normally.

With that said I've had a blast with the earlier levels and the core gameplay loop is so fun I doubt I won't keep coming back to this for a while. If Steam would let me I would definitely be giving this a neutral instead of a thumbs down review.

if you don't like this game it's cus you're too dumb to play it

Compelling. The vast number of user-added levels means the fun keeps coming.

Solid game go choo choo. Puzzle and problem solving is pretty straight forward, but it's really all about the optimization and figuring out the most efficient routes and train utilisation to get all of the time trophies. Also having better trains to unlock is a good carrot on a stick

train goes choochoo

Nice and relaxing

Choo choo choo! Brilliant game. Different to the first, but after a while starts to feel like an evolution to the first game.