Happy train
A game about being a train conductor
2025 July 30th - 2025 August 3rd
Project discription
This project was for the GMTK game jam 2025.
We had the theme 'Loop' and 5 days to make a game.
So I had the idea of making a train go all around your screen, but with what purpose?
The goal being is to check as many tickets as you can before the train gets back.
This was made in Unity with C#.
Project review
I enjoyed this so much that I did not do anything else for those five days.
Having done this also exites me for future projects/ game jams.
This project gave me a better vision on how to quickly come up with a simple project, and make it small enough to even complete it.
Another thing I loved was talking with other developers and getting tips from them.
Process
Concepting and brainstorming
The first day was spent thinking of what to make, asking other people at home to help brainstorm and talking in group chats in discord on what to do.
In the image above this on the right, you can read all the ideas I had tought of (with some dutch words).
Things like a rythm game or something like others have made: "a time loop game", but that did not feel original to me, so i kept thinking.
Then I came up with this idea. A train going all around the screen, which in the time that the train was going you needed to do something to keep the passengers happy which would get you money.
Even though this game isn't the most interesting, it was unique.
Visuals
I am a fan of pixel art, as you may have noticed.
So for this project I also went for pixel art, everyting you see is made by me.
For the conductor character I went mostly by feel, but I did search for train conductors as references, however I don't have these references saved anywhere.
The train from the outside was also done with a reference and the inside was fully done by my imagination.
The goal of the game is pretty simple: "walk, check tickets, buy compartments and loop". with a fun surprise whenever someone has an invalid ticket.
And finally the end scores. They were higher than i expected which was good