I was almost scared to open up Steam's Next Fest tab earlier this week. There are simply too many demos of too many good games going around; how would I even know where to start? Thankfully, Steam instantly made a very helpful suggestion: maybe try this demo first, since it's for a game you already have wishlisted.
That game is called Islands And Trains, and between the name and the screenshots you can probably tell where this is going. If you can't, here is perhaps the best elevator pitch for a video game I have ever seen:
Craft tiny railway dioramas in a stress-free island sandbox. No rules or timers - just design, build, and enjoy.
I don't know about you, but I love little trains. I hate stress, I love islands, I dig sandbox creation games. I hate rules and timers, and I really enjoy designing, building and...enjoying. So I smashed that install button, and 100MB later I was playing.
Turns out, in a rare W for truth in advertising, Islands And Trains is everything it says it is! Imagine the free-form construction of "Islanders, Dorfromantik and Townscaper"--and I'm not being reductive here, those are three games the developers list as their primary inspiration on their own Steam page--but here you also build a little rail network and get to watch little trains toot around towns, through tunnels and under waterfalls.
The sandbox toolkit is snappy, the cosmetic options are plentiful (if restricted, since this is a demo) and everything looks gorgeous. I really appreciate the depth you can get to here; you're responsible for shaping everything, from the terrain of the island itself to its hills, forests and waterways, so even if you hate trains (though how could you?), I think you could still find joy just building an island with a town and some rivers and farms on it.
Though by doing that you'd miss out on the game's best part: after building a little train, you get to control the train with a little throttle on the right of the screen, which is such a tiny flourish. As a model train diorama enjoyer, it’s been a delight every time I'd nudged it to start, then nudged it to stop perfectly outside of a little train station that doesn't even have any people on it, but which I imagine has people on it, because I also built them little streets and a little school and a little football pitch behind the school that looks out over the ocean.
Islands And Trains' release date is TBA, but being a sandbox game this demo lets you mess around with most of it; it's just the variety of options that are limited, so most of the stuff you can do here is the same as the full release, you just don't get as many buildings, terrain, climate or train options as you will when it's finally out.
