Service RY 01 · In development
Railyard
Sort the trains, clear the yard. A sliding-puzzle railway where every move is reversible and every board has an answer.
Sort the trains, clear the yard. A sliding-puzzle railway where every move is reversible and every board has an answer.
That is the whole control scheme. Everything difficult about the game comes from the yard being full, not from the input being clever.
A train moves when you move it — nothing departs on its own, and nothing moves while you are thinking.
Every train is a locomotive and at least one wagon, and it is looking for a siding in its own livery. Nine liveries, and no lone cars.
Later yards add junctions that set the road ahead and turntables that spin a whole train. One turntable is only ever one decision — never a guessing game.
Landslides, wrecks and the crane that lifts them. Every hazard can be dealt with; there is no wall you simply route around and resent.
Yards sit along a line that winds up the screen. Behind you they are brass and open; ahead they are locked. Every yard you have cleared can be played again, and a cleared siding carries a grade of one to three tickets, so there is a reason to go back to one you scraped through.
About two thirds of every board is occupied, on purpose. A sparse yard stops reading as a railway and starts reading as a grid with some sprites on it — and it stops being difficult at the same moment.
Cars are wide and shallow, so a train reads as one continuous run rather than a queue of blocks. That single rule is doing most of the visual work.
A single puzzle built from the date itself, the same one for everybody, sitting deliberately outside the main line. It costs nothing, it gives nothing, and the streak is the only thing riding on it.
It is there for the player who wants one puzzle with their coffee and then wants to be left alone.
A new yard every morning, a streak that survives a missed day badly, and absolutely nothing to buy to keep it going.
No energy, no lives, no timer that empties while you are not playing.
The only thing for sale is removing ads. Nothing you can buy solves a board for you.
No sign-up, no email, no name. Open it and play it.
com.railyard.game