HomeReviewsStation to Station
Station To Station review: all aboard the prettiest puzzle express, calling at fun junctionChoo choo!
Choo choo!
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Prismatika
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Prismatika
Station To Station is divided into different stages, which are sort of different biomes that feel train-y, and you move on to the next when you’ve completed enough levels in the previous stage. There are European-ish grasslands with rivers and big interrailing vibes, orange badlands with cities built around oases, and tricky mountains. They all have pre-placed points of production that you need to connect with your iron web, usually all leading back to the cities that squat in different corners of your map like big, increasingly fattening spiders.
The same level partially completed on the left, and completed on the right in full colour. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Prismatika
Because, you see, each individual level is also divided into stages. You might start with a dairy and a cheesery on opposite sides of the map, a grain farm and a mill in the third corner, and a city in the middle. So you need to connect all the necessary routes up until each supply chain is ‘completed’, and the buildings send out rings of golden light that bring the map into gorgeous voxel-y life, populating it with horses and putting leaves in the trees. But all the necessary networks must be linked up - the mill needs to be connected to a bakery or it won’t have fulfilled its purpose. Neither can a mill be connected to two bakeries; a mill produces 1 (one) unit of flour to make bread. A second mill must send its flour down a new track to a second bakery - and, for that matter, must receive grain from a different farm.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Prismatika
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Prismatika
It is, much like I imagine driving a steam engine in real life, part a delicately balanced machine dependent on planning, and part a matter of hot brute force. The maps are planned so that you’ll build yourself into a corner and have to get out of it again. Placing a station, which has four possible connection points, so that it’s at a disadvantageous angle of approach to another station, can cost you a lot of money in the long run. At the same time Galaxy Grove give you everything you need to succeed, and prod you to being more efficient. Each level has an optional budget target, and an optional bonus target that might be to keep to a maximum number of bridges, or find and click on a number of camels.
