If I had a nickel for every time I’ve played a roguelike deckbuilding game about trains, I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice. On my way to my preview appointment for Battle Train at PAX East earlier this month, I kept saying to myself, “Don’t sayMonster Train, don’t say Monster Train, don’t say Monster Train.” But then, as soon as I stepped intoBandai Namco’smeeting room I blurted out, “Hi, I’m here to see Monster Train.” The look on everyone’s face told me I wasn’t the first person to make this mistake.
Luckily, other than sharing a genre and theme, Battle Train is very different from Monster Train. Rather than protecting a towering train car from wave after wave of monsters, Battle Train is all about building tracks and then smashing your train into things to make them explode. It’sSlay The SpiremeetsTicket To Ridemeets Battleship if you feel like being reductive. The combination of deckbuilding and tactical strategy also makes it a bit likeMarvel’s Midnight Suns. Pipe Mania and the entire pipe mini-game genre is an obvious influence too. What I’m trying to say is that Battle Train is like a lot of other great games you’ve probably played, so you should play this one too.
All Aboard…To Die!
Battle Train takes itself as seriously as a game about smashing trains into stuff should. The titular Battle Train is a reality TV game show where various conductors with big personalities compete to build the ultimate train of ultimate destruction. You’ll get plenty of smack-talking from rival conductors and the show’s hosts, who provide colorful commentary to each turn. Cutscenes are animated in a very Venture Bros. or classic Hanna-Barbera style, with a tone somewhere in between. Think Cartoon Network edgy, not Adult Swim.
Gameplay is fairly straightforward. The battlefield is a grid-based arena with various obstacles, resources, and stations that have been strategically placed by the show to create maximum entertainment value. Your goal is to build a track that crosses into your opponent’s outpost, then launch your train into them to blow them up. If you can destroy all of the enemy’s outposts before they destroy yours, you win.
Your deck is made up of various track segments and special abilities. Most turns consist of placing track segments onto the battlefield to create routes for your train to travel. It’s classic pipe game gameplay with the added twist of deck building. But while your goal is to drive your train into the enemy’s outposts, the shortest route isn’t always the best one.
Outsmart and Outtrack Your Enemies
Collecting resources will let you use more cards each turn. Building your track over a piece of coal will increase your AP for the current turn, while building your track through a mine will permanently increase your AP - at least until your track gets blown up. Using the early turns to establish a network of tracks will help you prepare to take down your opponent quickly, and hopefully catch them off guard.
When a train explodes (or when you use a card that makes things explode), the explosion will take out everything surrounding the point of impact, including train tracks. So while building efficient tracks is important, sometimes you’ll find opportunities to sever the opponent’s track from their station and use it for yourself. In perfect game show fashion, Battle Train matches start slow but ramp up into exciting back-and-forth battles where every turn could be the last.
Battle Train has all the typical Roguelike stuff. After each battle, you’ll get to choose one of three cards to add to your deck, and you’ll occasionally visit vendors and other NPCs that can buff your cards or give you additional abilities. Some of the early upgraded cards I saw were things like the free track, which you can place on top of existing track to change them, and machine gun that will randomly fire bullets across the battlefield, peppering your opponent’s track and outposts with damage.
At the end of each run you’ll have the opportunity to spend earned currency on train upgrades. These upgrades are both cosmetic and functional, as they’ll add passive abilities that you can customize to create unique builds.
I am just describing how roguelike deckbuilders work, yes, but why fix an exploding train that ain’t broken? Battle Train isn’t doing anything particularly revolutionary for the genre, but it doesn’t need to. For a genre as compulsive as this one, just nailing the loop is enough. With just 30 minutes of hands-on time, I’m already jonesing for moreMonsterBattle Train.
There’s a demo available on Battle Train’s Steam Page if you want to get down on some locomotive carnage yourself.
