Thanks for the feedback! This is all really helpful because of how detailed you are with the points. I can answer a lot of your suggestions:
- I originally considered mapping turning around to right-click, but wondered if not having a button made it less obvious. That being said I'll definitely implement right-click turnaround, and probably provide a menu option for de/activating the UI buttons.
- I also noticed the express trains could hit the backs of freight / locals since they're faster. I'll either slow them down in general, or make them go slower if there's a train right in front of them.
- The pause menu thing is a bug lol
- I can probably rename the locals to something like "the 8 o' clock local", but the issue should also be easier to avoid in the final game because there'll be an analog clock instead that starts at 11:50.
- Real signal boxes do allow you to look at the tracks out the window. I don't know how feasible it would be to implement and still keep the one-click turnaround option, but I'll look into it!
- I've made new 3D models for the different trains, so telling freight from passenger trains should be easier. But if two trains arrive of the same type (i.e. two local passengers), they can only be told apart by their direction. This is sort of on purpose, since I actually do want to make the players pay really close attention to the train announcements (which will be done over the phone in the final version).
- I will eventually make player to pass two trains in the same direction at once, i.e. stopping one train, then stopping another, both requiring a third to go by before they can go. I might even make then stop a fourth train in the other direction if I'm feeling evil >:)
- I wanted to implement the signals on the rail diagram as arrows, but ran out of pixels lol. Redrawing it should be easy though.
- The crash popup screen was ABSOLUTELY added last-minute (as was the entire scoring system, or any of the screens at all). Telling where it happened should be easy, given each piece of track has its own ID of sorts.
- As for an in-game notepad - I'd had an idea for an in-game log for departing trains, but that idea is actually really cool, letting the player type whatever they want onto a pad for note-keeping. I like it!
Also, thanks for the positive notes! I'm having a ton of fun making this game and every piece of feedback is great!