Railbound
Ratings & Reviews
Editors’ Choice
Railbound’s tough puzzles are brilliantly focused. You’re given only a handful of rail tiles to guide train cars to the correct destinations in the correct order, and yet even with limited options the potential solutions feel limitless. Do you lay track so Car 4 goes through a tunnel and waits at a crossing gate for Cars 2 and 3 to pass? Do you create loops to delay Car 2? Do you ignore the crossing gate altogether? Few games make success feel like it’s always just within reach, even when it isn’t. A helpful hint system keeps the difficulty from going completely off the rails.
I historically gravitate toward puzzlers on mobile and I’m so glad I stumbled on this one. It may be one of the best I’ve ever played. Simple yet challenging and totally fun. I’m on world 4 after playing for one day. Each world has a new, different mechanic that keeps it interesting. The side challenges are quite difficult. I’ve only needed hints on two of them so far, which was after 15 min of trying each one. By the way, the hint system is perfect. The fact that hints can be activated is wonderful, which is why this game is leaps and bounds better than Cosmic Express. Plus getting a hint doesn’t really give the board away. It’s still challenging. Very well done Developer! Edit: I wrote this a little too soon. By world 5, similar to Cosmic Express, some levels get extremely difficult. The fun, quick puzzles turn into grinds of trial and error with large boards of ten+ pieces… guessing and checking with loops, passengers and train car timing. In several extra levels, I found myself googling the final solution, and realize I never would have gotten it. Most levels are quick, satisfying brain teasers. The large, complex ones aren’t so fun.
Developer ResponseThank you for your honest and detailed review! 🙂 If you ever find yourself stuck, you can always contact us at railbound@afterburn.games or on our Discord server (https://discord.gg/afterburn) for any guidance.
This is a great puzzle game with a healthy level of challenge. Enough to keep me engaged, thinking, and curious as to the next level, but challenging enough that I didn’t simply walk through every level. Most impressively, they actually got the colorblind support pretty spot on: it’s something that effects me and I’m picky about because for me it make a difference in how solvable or enjoyable a game is. In this day and age every game app developer should know how to do it right. These developers got it right. Thank you.
Developer ResponseThank you so much for your kind words and appreciation! We're happy to hear you enjoyed Railbound and our colorblind system was useful for you!
Great game! Starts off very easy but the side missions are great. The main levels are starting to get very clever and tricky, too. Controls are pretty amazing, I rarely ever tap the wrong thing. It really works as I intend.My 6 year old loves trains and loves the style of this game but he can only play the first few levels. There’s a serious lack of good train games on the App Store but he would LOVE it if he could just place tiles and make them go. I don’t know what it would take to implement that (maybe even a separate app?) but that would be amazing!
Developer ResponseHi! Thank you so much for your encouraging words! 😄 Following a recent update, Railbound does have a sandbox mode which you can find at the end of the Level Select screen (it’s World “#”). If you’d like to access it early you can toggle the option to Unlock All Levels in Settings > Accessibility.
Very fun, and beautiful design. Please allow players to examine a successful track layout before moving to the next puzzle. meaning, let me pause it after i find the successful layout and the little cars line up with the engine and chug off - so that i can try to learn more about why it worked. i don't want to just randomly try track arrangements - i want to learn patterns (like all humans, right?!). thanks for your great work here!
Developer ResponseThanks for playing Railbound! At the moment we don’t have plans for additional UI features like the one you described, but you can always re-visit finished levels to get another look at the finished layout of the level.
Just the right level of challenge and variety. Graphics and audio are basic, but aesthetically quite pleasing. The new cloud saves are great. I haven’t gotten to the new levels yet, though the ability to skip ahead is appreciated. One issue for me on an M1 iPad Pro is battery drain is VERY high, even compared with other seemingly more power hungry apps and games. Other than that very happy!
Developer ResponseThanks for the kind words. The new update also introduced 120FPS support for devices like the iPhone Pro and iPad Pro which might contribute to battery drain. If the battery drain is too intense, try modifying the Quality options (found in Settings > Display) or enable Battery Saver (Settings > Other) to reduce refresh rate and preserve battery when necessary :)
I have absolutely enjoyed this game. But I’m stuck on a couple of levels. Any chance you could provide solutions or hints? There are people out there much better at these types of puzzles than I am, and they can probably solve the levels without help. But I’ve been stuck for a while now and am ready to give up. Sad for me, but worse for the developers, as it limits the number of referrals and revenue.
Developer ResponseHi! Glad you’re enjoying our game. The game has a hint system that can be turned on in Settings > Accessibility! Though you can still contact us at railbound@afterburn.games or on our Discord server (https://discord.gg/afterburn) if you need any guidance directly 🙂