Trackline Express

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Gather scarce desert resources and keep a little train rolling through raids and wildfires.

Every day: A Daily Challenge: each day a new randomly generated map, the same one for every player, played for a score you can measure against your friends. New puzzle: Not stated; a new map each day.

Play Trackline Express on store.steampowered.com

Trackline Express on Steam Trackline Express official site

Trackline Express is a train-building roguelite from Bubblebird Studio. You gather wood, stone, ore and coal along the line, craft wagons and defences, and keep your passengers alive as the train crosses a desert full of raiders and fires. Its Daily Challenge hands everyone the same generated map each day.

About Trackline Express

Trackline Express is a cartoon train builder set in a dry, hostile desert. Bubblebird Studio, the French team behind Haven Park, made and published it, and it came out on Steam for Windows, Mac and Linux on 18 April 2024, with a Nintendo Switch version after.

A run is a slow trip from station to station. The train moves on by itself while your little conductor walks the land beside it, chopping trees, breaking rocks and mining ore and coal. Coins unlock blueprints, and once a blueprint is yours you can build from it freely: mines, wells, extra wagons, water tanks and the gear to fight back. Barbarian raids, heatwaves and wildfires come more often the further you go, so you are always choosing between feeding the engine, saving passengers and getting ready for the next threat.

Besides a campaign of about five hours and free runs on random or player-made maps, the game has a Daily Challenge mode. Each day it generates one new map, and because the generator is deterministic, every player gets the same route, the same resources and the same dangers. That makes a day's score something you can compare with friends, and a run is short enough for a break.

It suits players who like resource management with some pressure on it, and who would rather plan a train than fight with fast reflexes. Up to four players can share a run online or over a local network on the Steam version.

How to play Trackline Express

Open Trackline Express on Steam and choose the Daily Challenge from the game modes.
Walk beside the moving train and gather wood, stone, ore and coal from the land along the line.
Spend coins to unlock blueprints, then build wagons, mines, wells and defences from them.
Keep the engine fed with coal and the water tank full so the train keeps rolling.
Fight off raiders and put out fires to keep your passengers alive until the next station.
Reach as far as you can for your score, then compare it with friends who played the same map today.

Screenshots

Trackline Express: raiders attack a long train of passenger wagons with explosions and countdown markers

Trackline Express: a heatwave sets the grass on fire around the train as the locomotive takes damage

Tips

Plan your first coin spends: a blueprint stays unlocked for the rest of the run, so pick the ones you will build again and again.
Keep a stock of water before a heatwave arrives, since fires spread quickly through dry grass.
Automate coal and water supply early so you have time to defend when attacks grow more frequent.