A-Train
A-Train, known in
Japan as
A Ressha de Ikou (A列車で行"う), or
Take the A-Train, is a
1992 computer game, originally developed and published by
Japanese
game developer Artdink for Japan, and was later published by
Maxis for the
United States.
The game places players in command of a
railway company. There are no rival companies, the player controls the only one in the
city and the game is fairly open-ended.
A-Train uses a near-isometric
dimetric projection to present the city, similar to Maxis's
SimCity 2000.
There are two types of transport that the player's company can take: passengers or building materials. The former is more likely to be profitable, but building materials allow the city to grow.
Wherever the building materials are delivered, they can be taken and used to construct buildings for the city. These start with
houses, but eventually, as an area grows, roads, and shops and other buildings are built. These can provide extra revenue for a passenger service, but also allowing the city to develop and grow can be seen as a goal in itself.
As well as the buildings built by the computer, in response to the materials being present, the player can construct their own buildings, such as
ski resorts and
hotels, and make profits from them if the conditions are right.
The game was tremendously popular in
Japan, thus motivating Maxis to license it for
US distribution. Unfortunately for Maxis, aside from those spurred to purchase the game based on Maxis' then-stellar reputation (fresh from the successes of the early
SimCity games), very few copies were purchased in the US. Some suspect that US gamers were not interested in the level of detail and
micro-management that captivated the Japanese audience. The fact that it is a game about managing a train system cannot be the reason it sold poorly, as
Microprose's
Railroad Tycoon remains one of the bestselling game series of all time in the US. Even the release of an add-on pack for the game failed to stir up any real support amongst the gaming community. The game was the first major failure from Maxis.
A-Train for DOS, Macintosh and Amiga was based on
Artdink's
AIII, the third game in the series. It was released in October, 1992. In spite of the PC version's commercial failure in the US,
Maxis later released a
PlayStation version in
1996, based on
Artdink's
AIV: Evolution Global. The PlayStation was a relatively new platform at that point and the game suffered many limitations, such as requiring an entire
memory card (expensive at the time) to store a single map. Like the PC version, it proved unsuccessful.
In later years, development of the series continued on both
console and
PC platforms.
A5, released for PlayStation and PC in 1997, introduced a totally 3D environment.
A6, the first game in the series for
PlayStation 2, was released in Japan in
2000 and later translated to English and released in Europe as
A6: A-Train 6 by
Midas Interactive Entertainment in
2004.
A Ressha de Gyoukou 2001, a new version of
A6 with online support, was released for PS2 in
2001 and followed by several
expansion packs.
The most recently released game of the series,
A7, was released in 2005 for
Windows-based PCs in
Japanese only.
A7 is advertised as an homage to the 10th anniversary of
AIV and uses a
trimetric interface, instead of the open 3D interface of
A5 and
A6.
A-Train X is to be released on the
Xbox 360 in
2006.
*
Ocean Software*
A7, official
Japanese language website for the most recent game in the series
*
Free Train, a Japanese open source game based on
A-Train*
A-Train English, a Yahoo group for English speaking fans of the
A-Train series
