One of our favorite mobile titles of recent months is Railbound, which was developed by Afterburn and is available for Android and iOS. You can also pick up a PC version for the game, but we really enjoyed being able to use a touch screen interface for this one – time for a closer look at this great little puzzler, which we played on an OPPO A77.
Railbound is a deceptively simple puzzle game in which you have to guide numbered train compartments around a track so that they move into the right order – though you get comfortable with the mechanics in levels with just a single carriage. As you can probably guess, it’s simple enough get a single one to its destination, but things become increasingly more complex as you only have a limited number of track pieces to place. There’s a tiered hint option that gradually gives away a few correct locations at a time, but with well designed puzzles it’s much more satisfying to keep trying by yourself first.
Over the course of its impressive 150+ levels, Railbound gradually introduces new mechanics, with different game worlds each offering their own level elements – nothing overstays its welcome, and it’s really exciting when you get to do things like pick up a few passengers. Everything gets introduced during the campaign, but there are also extra levels that can be accessed through the main menu. For it’s cheap price, there’s a ton of puzzle content here, scaling from easy and intuitive to some real head-scratchers near the end, where you find yourself trying to order up multiple carriages per puzzle.
And although Railbound can be quite challenging, there’s a delightful zen-like quality to the gameplay thanks to its gorgeous presentation. Using a cel-shaded visual style with tons of color, it really pops off the screen with its clean presentation style. With a relaxing soundtrack and an easy to use interface, it’s a great game to start up and play for a bit on a short break – though the layouts of later levels get larger and will benefit from a bigger screen size.
Full of charm, this is a puzzler that works great on mobile platforms thanks to its lovely presentation and gameplay that’s tailored well to touch mechanics.
Score: 8.0/10
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