Fear Equation

I was excited to try this game out, especially with the mysterious nature of the fog and the train. It seemed to promise tough decisions about bringing aboard passengers, and striking a balance between resource management and people management. In the end, the idea was interesting for a little while, but I quickly found it to be extremely tedious. One of the game mechanics is fast-forwarding through the majority of each day, which ended up working against the game. A few minutes spent doing something... Fast forward. Do another task for a few seconds... Fast forward. In no way did I feel connected to the game environment, which is a shame. I kept playing hoping for something interesting to happen. Unfortunately, I got more enjoyment from uninstalling it. Pros + Scavenging missions are fun the first few times + Navigating the map (which is randomized each game) can bring up interesting dilemmas Cons - Everything feels unnecessarily tedious after less than an hour of play - The lottery is an odd mechanic (I felt this always had to be rigged) - Carriage management is less complex than it's made out to be - Navigating around the conductor's cabin can be annoying, particularly if you run into some glitches - The beeping during missions is awful (And once you understand how long you have, it doesn't create any tension) - Once you have a few carriages of people, they're more like data points than individuals you want to help - The dream attacks are not scary because you're not directly affected by them (It's more of a "Darn it!" moment) - There are so many incoming messages once your radio is upgraded that you barely pay attention to most of them - The ending - Not enough train sounds! (Not actually a legitimate con, but I was hoping for more than screeching brakes and monotonous chugging) I really wanted to like this game, but it fell very short for me. Maybe others will enjoy it, and I hope there are some who have a better gaming experience than I did!

I thought it might be a deep dive into psychology and dreams but its just a boring game, in my opinion. You have 4 different dream types which can "attack" your crew and you can defend against them. You have some Resource Management included because in the underground they are scarce, people get sick, you have to upgrade stuff/your defenses etc. Also some Politics involved because of Ideologies of your passengers. Maybe i didnt get the game but it just didnt catch me. It holds nice ideas, though.

I have to agree that in the long time perspective the game gets boring. BUT: It was a nice buy , ,its something completely different from other standard games, it had trains (always a plus for me!) and the totally isolated athmosphere in that locomotive with the four time phases that determine what you do. This feeling is something you dont experience quite often in other games. Yet anyone in a commanding or management job will realize that thats the way things work in real life, too. I would love to see more games like these, especially mixed with classics like Transarctica.

The concept of the game is really cool, but the interface is bad (mission planning is particularily terrible. I end up automating it just to avoid dealing with it). The game itself is rather tedious, as others have pointed out. It just feels too much like a chore to go over the menus again and again. Which is a pity, because, as I said before, the concept (train-survival management) is really alluring.