My absolute favourite thing about this game is the ability to just leap out of the train you're driving to "just check" things are all in order up ahead, before heroically leaping back into the cockpit through the front window. Realism!
There do appear to be some difficulty options that tame down my rather chaotic approach to playing the game into something more realistic and considered... but who doesn't love ghost riding a 500 ton whip full of flammable liquids?
This is by far one of my favorite games of the last decade. It is the perfect balance between a true simulator and a game (and I say this as someone who is very much into true simulators).
I feel like I’ve stumbled across a hidden gem with this channel, I’ve only seen one video of yours so far but this quality is deserving of a lot more subscribers, views, etc. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the nice review of a game I've been enjoying quite a lot lately, and your thoughtful commentary on what makes the game fun. As a professional railroader (in UK parlance, I'm qualified as both a guard and a signaller) I immediately went for the most-realistic mode, which limits teleportation, removes the exterior camera and keyboard shortcuts, increases cargo value but also damage liability, and extends the bonus time limit. After watching your video, I can't help but wonder if I've short-changed myself by taking away the silly challenges. The time limit extension in particular is too easy -- given a remote control so I can ride shoves and work the ground without trying to use the switch remote at long range or teleporting all over the yard, I can complete a 180-minute switching job in 25 minutes. I'm not even rushing, just working efficiently like I've done many times before, up against the clock of another train's arrival or my crew hitting our 12-hour duty limit. Maybe I should lean into the silliness of weak DE2s, exploding oil tankers, and frantic teleportation against an unrealistically short time limit, to make the game more fun and less like work. Also, you comment on pulling apart air hoses "correctly" by hand rather than letting the train do it. We actually let the train do it, because pulling the hoses apart by hand while they're still pressurized with residual air can cause back, eye, and ear injuries. There are also rules against bottling the air of unattended cars, so to drain the air systems -- again without potential eye and ear injuries of opening an angle cock by hand (plus bruised shins if you don't hold the hose tightly!) -- we often leave the angle cock open on the cars being left, so that when the hoses are separated it releases all the air in the brake pipe. This makes a lot of noise and kicks up quite a cloud of dust, so you always turn your head away to avoid eye injury. Work smarter, not harder!
Having played other train games like Train Simulator Classic and Train Sim World 3 the best part about Derail Valley is that, indeed, it _isn't_ a train simulator. I feel it's more like a model railway simulator. Imagine having a large model railway, completely decorated with villages, industry, bridges and scenery where you drive around with your train shunting cars in a yard, moving cars from one station to another, etc. That's what this game is like basically, and it involves you in every aspect of the railway experience without becoming tedious. As an aside, the fact that this game has been made with VR in mind is actually great as that's likely the reason for the teleport feature (walking around in VR usually leads to motion sickness), having seen several trains bugger off without me after having jumped off with no way to get back on in time in Train Sim World 3 I really appreciate the ability to teleport around quickly. :D
Some game designer once said to never put realism before fun. The devs managed to grip the essence of driving a train and everything around it without going over board like the other simulators. And of course with all the options you can customize your own difficulty. I have yet to find any train sim where it's so fun and engaging to actually control a steam locomotive.
I really like pushing things fast, and running along the roof of the train to get to the front to see whats ahead then running back. Mainly I like how its not just vast distances with nothing to do.
@@TimberwolfK To be the hero engineer/lone-ranger, defending my train against hordes of robbers, across the frontier would probably be my dream game :)
Is the game forever expanding or is it something that you can complete in a week & move on to other games, reason i ask is that i do not want to buy it & a VR set just to chuck it in the cupboard a week later after spending so much money for very little game play. Also is there an online live play where you see other gamer's?
It may sound weird but I appreciate the fact that (so far) you are the only person operating that whole system: some kind of Shining-like situation where you're the only employee needed to maintain a little independent "county" railway. 😂
Sold me on this random I didnt know existed game. Though I will wait for a sale. Overall a quality review. Only critique is I felt the video cut through scenes while in the middle of fun moments you are showing.
You really did get just the fun bits. If you'd seen the more than an hour long stretch of near-unusable footage I had to rip apart to show the game as it feels while playing...
I like it as a model railroad sim. Turn on the UI, external views, zoom out from above to disable fog, hover over the cars to ID and sort before starting the job. Super simmy and feels like work but interesting. I do everything, switches, brakes, coupling with the external UI.
Little tip if you want to continue that cavalier attitude to yard safety, when reversing train without the remote control, you can leave the throttle set to keep pushing the train backwards, not too high mind, and then jump onto the rear most car of the consist, allowing to to ride what is now the front of the train while you're reversing. This gives you a much better view of where you're actually going and means you can get at switches and stuff easier. How do you control speed I hear you ask? Well, with the throttle set you'll constantly be accelerating to a speed, if you get a bit fast, just look down and pop the angle cock on the end of the brake pipe open briefly to take a set of breaks. Once you close it the brake pipe will recharge and release the brakes since you left the brakes off in the cab. The trick is learning to judge speed, and judge your break sets in this manner based purely on how long you open the angle cock for to give you just the right amount of breaking. I find this is also very useful when coupling a train to another cut of cars.
Great video. Fantastic game, cant wait for the Foundation 4 uodate to be done, its shaping up to be an even bigger upsate than Simulator or overhauled.
to be quite honest i am unable to produce a quality comment by a quirk of my current mental state but i do appreciate that this video is very much deserving of more attention from the algo. however i am quite good at picking fights. i have autism please be patient
Hey, it's fine - one trick which can be useful (I have a few friends that way, possibly even a bit of it myself) is when someone seems obviously "wrong", trying to work backwards to the universe in which they could logically be correct and reasonable, often you end up seeing the cue you miss first time round. Although some of us are just wrong. Me, particularly often.
One thing I would recommend all players do once they start taking concurrent jobs is to arrange their train so that the highest paying job is on the tail of the train. You then break your train down to each of the orders after parking the job cars in the correct sidings, then before moving on, claim the job. That way, you have the highest chance to get the bonus payout on the highest paying job.
Ok while this might not be a quick review fit for the shorts/reels/TikTok generation I found you showed the game off, talked about gampky and progression. So the title is at least IMHO a bit misleading the only thing you left out is what most reviews youse as somthing of a punchline. The "is this game worth the full prize, or should ( the viewer) wait for a sale.. the bit with the sanwitch at the e End was jus so sweet, and it kind of meshed wery well with your repeated tea references throughout, for some reason I allways injouy such internal monologues spilling out
Really enjoying the game, but I wish I had understood the copay system earlier in the game! It's making the task of getting enough money to upgrade to a better loco a bit more of a challenge. I played the first few days in VR and it really is a fantastic experience. Unfortunately I get a really bad back when standing for long periods of time so I've had to switch back to the non-VR mode, but it's still just as much fun.
Also, I think the stopwatch has become pretty much useless in a recent update, unless I just haven't worked out how to use it properly. The dev claims that the job time bonuses are in-game time now rather than real time, but that doesn't appear to be true. They still show, e.g. 45 minutes, which is real time, while several hours can pass in-game, so you have to then know the sim-rate and convert real time to in-game time in order to be able to use the watch to time your job. You only seem to be able to set the alarm for on-the-hour too. From earlier videos of the game, it looked like the previous version of the watch was much more useful, being able to wind it forward to a number of real-time minutes and count down from there. I waste $5000 on a watch that I don't use.
Yep, I realised too late that you have to be very careful about your first few licence purchases to avoid stalling progress from fees exceeding income, and get manual service before the copay rises so much you pay full fees on nearly every job. (Although you don't have to pay all fees before taking a new job, meaning you can store up a few and get some help from copay when it's only just above the fee level)
I did wish I'd picked it up before the Simulator update price increase, but then on the other hand I don't begrudge more money going to a small developer.
it's a fun game, I like the whole contract system and needing to buy licences and pay off fees, also the trains all have limitations, and figuring out routes that don't have steep up hills helps... I listen to an audiobook while i play, very relaxing and laid back... you can also steal objects and stuff from the buildings, and customize your trains driver compartment.
You do have a point about the train sims sometimes not being stimulating enough. Perhaps they could use an addition of an occasional lad (or a lass) trying to game-end themselves by jumping in front of the train. Now that's some real stimulation. Besides, it wouldn't be much of a train simulator if it didn't include as many real-life aspects in it as possible, would it.
I really like Derail Valley because the speed limits are basically just a warning. You can go as fast as you want, and even experience your derailment without a window popping up saying "You've Failed."
Horrible admission time: what we keep in the Yorkshire Gold tin is actually Twining's Everyday. You can just about see the yellow box in the background.
I had this mayonnaise recently which I really liked, adds a nice subtle curry flavour without overwhelming things. Can't for the life of me remember which brand it was or what it was called, though.
Welcome to my laziness in relation to getting things which are currently in boxes out of said boxes. Besides, you don't want to watch a video presented by someone in some kind of space hat, do you?
My absolute favourite thing about this game is the ability to just leap out of the train you're driving to "just check" things are all in order up ahead, before heroically leaping back into the cockpit through the front window. Realism!
There do appear to be some difficulty options that tame down my rather chaotic approach to playing the game into something more realistic and considered... but who doesn't love ghost riding a 500 ton whip full of flammable liquids?
This is by far one of my favorite games of the last decade. It is the perfect balance between a true simulator and a game (and I say this as someone who is very much into true simulators).
I feel like I’ve stumbled across a hidden gem with this channel, I’ve only seen one video of yours so far but this quality is deserving of a lot more subscribers, views, etc. Keep up the good work!
Thanks for the nice review of a game I've been enjoying quite a lot lately, and your thoughtful commentary on what makes the game fun.
As a professional railroader (in UK parlance, I'm qualified as both a guard and a signaller) I immediately went for the most-realistic mode, which limits teleportation, removes the exterior camera and keyboard shortcuts, increases cargo value but also damage liability, and extends the bonus time limit. After watching your video, I can't help but wonder if I've short-changed myself by taking away the silly challenges. The time limit extension in particular is too easy -- given a remote control so I can ride shoves and work the ground without trying to use the switch remote at long range or teleporting all over the yard, I can complete a 180-minute switching job in 25 minutes. I'm not even rushing, just working efficiently like I've done many times before, up against the clock of another train's arrival or my crew hitting our 12-hour duty limit. Maybe I should lean into the silliness of weak DE2s, exploding oil tankers, and frantic teleportation against an unrealistically short time limit, to make the game more fun and less like work.
Also, you comment on pulling apart air hoses "correctly" by hand rather than letting the train do it. We actually let the train do it, because pulling the hoses apart by hand while they're still pressurized with residual air can cause back, eye, and ear injuries. There are also rules against bottling the air of unattended cars, so to drain the air systems -- again without potential eye and ear injuries of opening an angle cock by hand (plus bruised shins if you don't hold the hose tightly!) -- we often leave the angle cock open on the cars being left, so that when the hoses are separated it releases all the air in the brake pipe. This makes a lot of noise and kicks up quite a cloud of dust, so you always turn your head away to avoid eye injury. Work smarter, not harder!
That's quite cool! I did wonder even as I said it, "I bet this isn't actually the proper way". Thanks for the detailed explanation of why!
I'm playing the realistic mode and once I've fell off my locomotive. That was quite a chase trying to catch up the train and get back into the cabin.
Having played other train games like Train Simulator Classic and Train Sim World 3 the best part about Derail Valley is that, indeed, it _isn't_ a train simulator.
I feel it's more like a model railway simulator. Imagine having a large model railway, completely decorated with villages, industry, bridges and scenery where you drive around with your train shunting cars in a yard, moving cars from one station to another, etc. That's what this game is like basically, and it involves you in every aspect of the railway experience without becoming tedious.
As an aside, the fact that this game has been made with VR in mind is actually great as that's likely the reason for the teleport feature (walking around in VR usually leads to motion sickness), having seen several trains bugger off without me after having jumped off with no way to get back on in time in Train Sim World 3 I really appreciate the ability to teleport around quickly. :D
Some game designer once said to never put realism before fun. The devs managed to grip the essence of driving a train and everything around it without going over board like the other simulators. And of course with all the options you can customize your own difficulty. I have yet to find any train sim where it's so fun and engaging to actually control a steam locomotive.
I really like pushing things fast, and running along the roof of the train to get to the front to see whats ahead then running back. Mainly I like how its not just vast distances with nothing to do.
Ooh, I like the "classic action film" tactic. Maybe they should add some baddies to beat up along the way.
@@TimberwolfK To be the hero engineer/lone-ranger, defending my train against hordes of robbers, across the frontier would probably be my dream game :)
Is the game forever expanding or is it something that you can complete in a week & move on to other games, reason i ask is that i do not want to buy it & a VR set just to chuck it in the cupboard a week later after spending so much money for very little game play. Also is there an online live play where you see other gamer's?
It may sound weird but I appreciate the fact that (so far) you are the only person operating that whole system: some kind of Shining-like situation where you're the only employee needed to maintain a little independent "county" railway. 😂
Sold me on this random I didnt know existed game. Though I will wait for a sale. Overall a quality review. Only critique is I felt the video cut through scenes while in the middle of fun moments you are showing.
You really did get just the fun bits. If you'd seen the more than an hour long stretch of near-unusable footage I had to rip apart to show the game as it feels while playing...
@@TimberwolfK ah through the disco and tea haze. we got to see the true essence. lol
I was introduced to this channel via this video and Im very much enjoying it. Keep up the good work!
You deserve alot more attention, you're videos are Top Tier and the commentary is great too!
I like it as a model railroad sim. Turn on the UI, external views, zoom out from above to disable fog, hover over the cars to ID and sort before starting the job. Super simmy and feels like work but interesting. I do everything, switches, brakes, coupling with the external UI.
I love Derail Valley so much. But I honestly subbed due to the shear *Britishness* of this channel. Bravo and Cheerio good chap!
Little tip if you want to continue that cavalier attitude to yard safety, when reversing train without the remote control, you can leave the throttle set to keep pushing the train backwards, not too high mind, and then jump onto the rear most car of the consist, allowing to to ride what is now the front of the train while you're reversing. This gives you a much better view of where you're actually going and means you can get at switches and stuff easier. How do you control speed I hear you ask? Well, with the throttle set you'll constantly be accelerating to a speed, if you get a bit fast, just look down and pop the angle cock on the end of the brake pipe open briefly to take a set of breaks. Once you close it the brake pipe will recharge and release the brakes since you left the brakes off in the cab. The trick is learning to judge speed, and judge your break sets in this manner based purely on how long you open the angle cock for to give you just the right amount of breaking.
I find this is also very useful when coupling a train to another cut of cars.
I love that DV is enough of a sim that this is possible, and enough of a game that it doesn't try to stop you :D
@@TimberwolfK Hahaha yep, exactly. It lets you do it, then makes you deal with the consequences when it goes wrong.
Great review, love the humour. Not so sure about the mayo. I would love to see you try Railroader one day.
Great video. Fantastic game, cant wait for the Foundation 4 uodate to be done, its shaping up to be an even bigger upsate than Simulator or overhauled.
to be quite honest i am unable to produce a quality comment by a quirk of my current mental state but i do appreciate that this video is very much deserving of more attention from the algo. however i am quite good at picking fights. i have autism please be patient
Hey, it's fine - one trick which can be useful (I have a few friends that way, possibly even a bit of it myself) is when someone seems obviously "wrong", trying to work backwards to the universe in which they could logically be correct and reasonable, often you end up seeing the cue you miss first time round.
Although some of us are just wrong. Me, particularly often.
One thing I would recommend all players do once they start taking concurrent jobs is to arrange their train so that the highest paying job is on the tail of the train. You then break your train down to each of the orders after parking the job cars in the correct sidings, then before moving on, claim the job. That way, you have the highest chance to get the bonus payout on the highest paying job.
Ok while this might not be a quick review fit for the shorts/reels/TikTok generation I found you showed the game off, talked about gampky and progression. So the title is at least IMHO a bit misleading the only thing you left out is what most reviews youse as somthing of a punchline. The "is this game worth the full prize, or should ( the viewer) wait for a sale.. the bit with the sanwitch at the e
End was jus so sweet, and it kind of meshed wery well with your repeated tea references throughout, for some reason I allways injouy such internal monologues spilling out
Never saw such a realistic review! Full of irony on the good things in this game ;)
til locomotives use sand
09:20 reminds me of the German yard worker standing between two such waggons coupling as they ram together XD
Really enjoying the game, but I wish I had understood the copay system earlier in the game! It's making the task of getting enough money to upgrade to a better loco a bit more of a challenge.
I played the first few days in VR and it really is a fantastic experience. Unfortunately I get a really bad back when standing for long periods of time so I've had to switch back to the non-VR mode, but it's still just as much fun.
Also, I think the stopwatch has become pretty much useless in a recent update, unless I just haven't worked out how to use it properly. The dev claims that the job time bonuses are in-game time now rather than real time, but that doesn't appear to be true. They still show, e.g. 45 minutes, which is real time, while several hours can pass in-game, so you have to then know the sim-rate and convert real time to in-game time in order to be able to use the watch to time your job. You only seem to be able to set the alarm for on-the-hour too. From earlier videos of the game, it looked like the previous version of the watch was much more useful, being able to wind it forward to a number of real-time minutes and count down from there.
I waste $5000 on a watch that I don't use.
Yep, I realised too late that you have to be very careful about your first few licence purchases to avoid stalling progress from fees exceeding income, and get manual service before the copay rises so much you pay full fees on nearly every job.
(Although you don't have to pay all fees before taking a new job, meaning you can store up a few and get some help from copay when it's only just above the fee level)
I know someone who got his fingure chopped off from a train running over when he was standing between 2 trains
I do hope the final unlock in the game is a stalwart old nag called Luminous Bob 🐴
Been playing on pc without vr for a while, I’m very excited to derail in vr once I get back to my headset
Great video. I am probably going to have to pick this up at some point
I did wish I'd picked it up before the Simulator update price increase, but then on the other hand I don't begrudge more money going to a small developer.
it's a fun game, I like the whole contract system and needing to buy licences and pay off fees, also the trains all have limitations, and figuring out routes that don't have steep up hills helps... I listen to an audiobook while i play, very relaxing and laid back... you can also steal objects and stuff from the buildings, and customize your trains driver compartment.
I did find a room full of old tower PCs in one station and got *very* tempted to come over all light-fingered...
I enjoy you. You remind me of a friend I had as a child.
You do have a point about the train sims sometimes not being stimulating enough. Perhaps they could use an addition of an occasional lad (or a lass) trying to game-end themselves by jumping in front of the train. Now that's some real stimulation.
Besides, it wouldn't be much of a train simulator if it didn't include as many real-life aspects in it as possible, would it.
To the victor, the spoils! That was lovely, nice that there are failure states rather than instant GAME OVER.
I really like Derail Valley because the speed limits are basically just a warning. You can go as fast as you want, and even experience your derailment without a window popping up saying "You've Failed."
I do like that; you have this big disaster and then it's like, "OK, now fix it"
When you get the remote control and then stand on the rear truck if you have to reverse ;)
My most favourite train game!
Only a psychopath would brew tea in a Thermos!
Or a sociopath? Or, perhaps someone who can't even remember the words in their own script.
Hilariously interesting review!
Subbing for the Yorkshire Gold and absolutely no other reason.
Okay maybe one more reason -- clogged sinks.
Horrible admission time: what we keep in the Yorkshire Gold tin is actually Twining's Everyday. You can just about see the yellow box in the background.
Subscribed for more egg-mayonnaise sandwich videos!
Guess some folks prefer watching trains go off the rails while the rest of us are busy mastering the art of locomotion.
"Things are constantly on the verge of going wrong". Yes they are.... now what's this about a train game?
It is attempting to be a simulator, after all!
I'm back!
Now I just really want an egg sandwich.
I had this mayonnaise recently which I really liked, adds a nice subtle curry flavour without overwhelming things. Can't for the life of me remember which brand it was or what it was called, though.
v british idea, tbh the idea of egg + mayo maks me puke
ham n chese for life
Yorkshire Gold +++++ Egg mayonaise sandwich ----- 🤢
WTF? You should try it in VR. Why would you want to watch trains on TV instead of being IN the train for real?
Welcome to my laziness in relation to getting things which are currently in boxes out of said boxes. Besides, you don't want to watch a video presented by someone in some kind of space hat, do you?