What Townscaper needed, apparently, was delightfully tiny trains

I love Townscaper. Oskar Stålberg’s delightful little island toy struck a real soft spot for the part of me that misses living in quaint little coastal towns, and it’s practically perfect in generating seaside villages. But gosh, wouldn’t it be nice if it also featured trains?

That’s the pitch of Islands & Trains, an upcoming game by Hungarian developer Akos Makovics and Fabi Smith that features, well, islands and trains. Softly lit locomotives chug their way across autumnal fields on grid-like isles, weaving through forests and between adorable little windmills and churches. 

Progress screenshots show a really broad range of things to dot on your island, from train tracks and forests to cliffs, houses, churches, fences and even teeny tiny animals. It’s not clear that there’s a ‘game’ to it all, per say, but I truly hope there isn’t. The most fun I got out of Townscaper was simply popping in every so often, building out a single town until it strained the very limits of the editor.

At that, it seems, Islands & Trains may be very promising indeed.

I’m happy to see more games pop up along the same lines as Townscaper, and Islands & Trains is more than lovingly inspired by Stålberg’s dioramic seasides. On the game’s Steam page, the duo acknowledge that their wee island sandbox is inspired by “wonderful games like Islanders, Dorfromantik and Townscaper”.

Islands & Trains is currently listed as “coming soon” on Steam and I reckon we’ll be keeping a close eye on this particular train schedule for a charming little island getaway.