Wishlist on Steam | Itch.io | Alpha Gameplay Trailer
DEMO OUT NOW ON STEAM AND ITCH.IO!
Freight Misconductor is a pixel art railroad switching train puzzle video game under development by myself (Luna Rose) and @msasterisk.
In Freight Misconductor, you operate South Lymer Railway's SLYM-11513, an Advanced Steam Locomotive on the alien planet Gymnome, to shunt train cars between siding tracks in increasingly convoluted rail yards, while minimizing your move count and time so as to hopefully keep your Engineer and Conductor-Brakegoo's spirits up.
More information, FAQ below the cut:
Freight Misconductor is a game based on model railway shunting puzzles like John Allen's Timesaver and Alan Wright's Inglenook Sidings. It has been under development since December 2024. What began as a simple prototype based on the Inglenook has evolved into a much bigger project that has pretty consistently exceeded our expectations. We're having a lot of fun developing it and our closed playtesters are having a lot of fun playing it.
Here are some fairly recent gameplay videos:
Some levels in Train Misconductor feature multiple playable locomotives. This level, based upon the classic Primitive Railroading puzzle, is
Here's a look at version Train Puzzle dot exe (title pending) 0.00, version 0.2, version 0.3, and the most recent milestone version, Train Misconductor (title no longer pending) version 0.4, to see how the game has progressed over time.
Here's some art of the game's Gymnomi Slime alien characters: The Conductor and the Engineer, as illustrated by MsAsterisk and myself, respectively:
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Who are the developers?
A: The development team is myself (whirligig-girl / Luna Rose) and my friend @msasterisk. I am the lead designer and the artist, MsAsterisk is the excellent programmer. In addition there is a closed playtesting group, a work in progress soundtrack being volunteered by SpockAndStep et al, and some additional scenery art assets being volunteered by @vivvy-of-the-lake.
Q: Didn't this used to be called Train Misconductor? I liked that name better!
A: A game developer who I do not want to bring attention to had a trademark dispute, and because we don't have the budget to fight a legal battle, the name had to be changed to Freight Misconductor. I am not happy about this either.
Q: What engine is it?
A: an advanced steam engine utilizing compound expansion of steam to--oh you mean the game engine? Oh. Ok. We're making the game in Godot.
Q: When will Freight Misconductor be released?
A: It depends on a whole lot of factors. We want to make sure it's good and ready before it comes out. Some fundamental features are still not yet implemented, and there is a lot more art left to do. It all depends upon how long a two person hobby indie dev team with no budget can go before getting burnt out. My cute little soundbyte is "if it comes out in 2025 or 2027, something will have gone wrong." But we just don't know.
Q: What platforms will Freight Misconductor be available for?
A: PC for sure, likely also Mac & Linux.
Q: Where will Freight Misconductor be released?
A: We intend to release on Steam and Itch.io.
Q: Is there a Steam page?
A: We're waiting until near the end of this development sprint to do so. at popular request, a steam page has been made, the link is at the top of the post.
Q: How can I keep up with development?
A: You can follow me on Tumblr or on Bluesky, or follow specifically the #Freight Misconductor tag on Tumblr or Bluesky. (note: historical posts before March 8th 2026 will be under the #Train Misconductor tag.) When the steam page goes up, we'll try to keep that up to date as well. There is also a Discord server.
Q: Is there a demo?
A: Not yet; though there will be a short free demo before the game is released.
Q: What will the game cost?
A: We expect to sell it in the roughly $20 (USD) range.
Q: Will there be track laying?
A: Freight Misconductor is a puzzle game that is premised on the restrictions given by a specific track plan, changing it on the fly would mess up the puzzle design.
Q: Will there be a level editor?
A: Though we'd like there to be modding support for custom levels to be made in the Godot editor, there will be no built-in level editor in-game.
Q: Ok I'll bite. What is an Advanced Steam Engine?
A: Historically, Gymnomi locomotives looked something like this: large articulated steam locomotives, garratts especially.
By the 2310s AD, planet Gymnome had largely phased out steam locomotives and switched to diesel-hydraulics.
In 2329 resulting from a regular shift in the planet's orbit as it encountered the coorbital giant planet Omen, a global oil crisis began, which led to steam engines being taken out of museums to run the railways again.
By the mid 2330s, brand new high efficiency steam locomotives with modern electronics were built. The SLYM-11513 is one of these new locomotives. These fictional engines are loosely based on real world concepts like the ACE 3000, LVM-800, and 5AT.
Q: Will there be a story?
A: There will be some character dialogue and narrative tied to the player's progression. More info to come later.
Q: How can I help?
A: If you're willing to volunteer your skills, contact me and we'll see what we can work out. In particular, additional scenery art assets and soundtrack are wanted. Also, a tip on my Ko-fi would be appreciated. Aside from that, please reblog, share this and other dev posts and keep talking about Freight Misconductor. Indie games live or die on word of mouth. I know it's cheesy to ask for engagement on a social media post, but hey, you read this far, may as well right?
Q: Can I playtest?
A: The playtest group is currently a closed group.
Q: Did you draw a bunch of angles or is it 3D?
A: Although Freight Misconductor is designed to resemble games that use prerendered sprites, we actually use 3D models rendered in real time with a pixel shader.
Q: Can I ask you a question?
A: Yeah sure go ahead. My asks are open, as are the comments on this post.
(looking for my pinned art commission sheet? It's been moved here)
Wishlist and download the demo on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4097480/Train_Misconductor/
At long last, Train Misconductor is finally ready to play! Or at least, a small part of it. The Demo consists of the first seven levels from the game's quick-play mode. We've been working on this game for a long time now and we're excited to finally put it into players' hands (or other grasping appendages.)
teaser for the next new feature being worked on. the basic functionality is finished, owing as always to @msasterisk's excellent work; the u.i. integration is pending.
(No, it's not (and never will be) multiplayer)
Also visible: the new ground shader by MsAsterisk--a field of clovers and flowers, which looks really nice. Variation in ground texture and altimetry is planned, as well as foliage and rock scatters.
At popular request, Train Misconductor now has a Steam page!
WISHLIST NOW ON STEAM
(also there's an itch.io page)
A tumblr post with more information can also be found here.
For those just joining us:
Train Misconductor is a pixel art railroad switching puzzle game under development by myself (Luna Rose) and @msasterisk, inspired by model railway shunting layouts like A. Wright's Inglenook Sidings and J. Allen's Timesaver.
In Train Misconductor, you operate South Lymer Railway's SLYM-11513, a modern Advanced Steam Locomotive on the alien planet Gymnome, to shunt train cars between siding tracks in increasingly convoluted rail yards, while minimizing your move count and time so as to hopefully keep your Engineer and Conductor-Brakegoo's spirits up.
i have included more variants on and discussion of the steam capsule art below the cut as an appendix:
The idea for the capsule art started here:
...with this sketch done in September. Of course, everyone online says "hire a capsule artist" but I 1) don't have a budget and 2) should posses or be able to learn the necessary skills myself and 3) am stubborn. But it was still difficult to find an idea that worked and looked good and would be legible at small sizes.
I began work again on October 7th.
After trialing a few different shots, this screenshot, taken in the Godot editor, served as the basis for the drawing:
I started with a basic traced sketch, and then worked on the tracks, which are in any train drawing one of the hardest things to get right.
Our game is too low res for switch tracks to have accurate frogs and points, but that's no excuse for my drawing to get it wrong! The tracks were drawn making use of a perspective snap tool in firealpaca and switching between various vanishing points.
The locomotive's front engine set has been artificially pivoted to give it a little more dynamic appearance and make it read more readily as a Mallet.
Next was the line art. The car models in game are designed to be seen at a very low resolution, but that doesn't mean I can't add some more interesting detail and variation to the drawing, just as I have done in the past for the steam engine.
The line-art for the cars was completed, then the buildings and forklift.
I like to do the background/scenery before I do the foreground elements (vehicles and people), because it makes it easier to color and render the scene.
The drawing was then colored, largely by color picking from the reference image.
And after a break, I finished the rendering. The shiny tanker and the graffiti boxcar were my favorites.
The lettering is traced-over impact with some of the shapes changed. The "MIS" in Misconductor was freehanded. The text is not in perspective with the rest of the image--if it was, the word would be pretty much illegible at all but maximum size--but I think it has a decent compromise between legibility and flowing into the scene.
The dark foliage at the left was introduced in an attempt to build an overall value gradient from lower left to upper right, as recommended by @msasterisk
Now the hope, of course, had been that this would look legible even at the smaller sizes specified by Steam's capsule art documentation.
That resulted in this. I think this is still pretty legible in terms of what the scene is depicting, while still giving plenty of space to a name that is quite difficult to fit in a small space legibly.
Well. I thought that. Then I looked at how it appears at smaller sizes:
well that's not. great. Put a pin in it.
The other variants of the art were a pretty straightforward matter of resizing the text and then resizing and cropping the rest of the image.
The small capsule art eluded me, until I realized that we already have a good solution for art that has to be legible at a small resolution... the game itself!
It's still pretty legible even at small size!
This might could still be improved upon, I'm all ears if you have any ideas, but it will do for now at least.
The functionality of Broad Gauge and Dual Gauge switches has been in the game for a few months now I think, but recently there has been some improvements made by the game's programmer @msasterisk to how dual gauge switches render in the switch highlighting system. Previously all rails would be highlighted in the direction the switch was lined, but now it takes into account that the narrow and broad gauge paths may diverge, and will always show the correct path for both narrow and broad gauge tracks.
This is a must-have now that the switch highlighting "always on" feature has been made the default.
Music is by one of Train Misconductor's musicians, ZEROlav.
Finally ready to start showing off the project we've been working on for a few weeks.
TRAIN PUZZLE (dot exe) (title pending)
me and @msasterisk are working on a switching puzzle game set on slimegirl astronaut Eaurp Guz's homeworld. You operate an Advanced Steam switcher to move cars around. The prototype implements a single level, a model railroad Inglenook layout, but there will be other original levels as well.
MsAsterisk has done all of the programming and game engine work, I've done the game design and art assets.
more screenshots and development photos below the cut:
Until the last couple of days, the game has used plain colored boxes for its cars. The first playable version, shown here, was just a pixel art train toy, with no actual game mechanics, but with an external list randomizer you could still run the inglenook game.
The physics was apparently a monumental undertaking to get working, but now it works great!
i don't remember what this was about. Truncated the vertices to the unit cube or something.
@thefallencomet's playtesting of the first prototype revealed a severe bug with couplers where switching cars coupled at a distance between three tracks at once would completely break physics. MsAsterisk fixed it by simply breaking couplers when they're too far apart.
car concept art
u.i. concept art. The tracks are bonafide pixel art here, but they've since been replaced with all 3D assets. The loco here is a pixelated render done in blender of the advanced steam tank engine model that i made about a month ago.
control stand model, WIP. We're not sure if we're going to go for this kind of detailed control stand. Why does a steam engine use a control stand that would look more at home on an EMD diesel? It's the magic of Advanced Steam Technology! The actual engine is controlled with actuators and microcontrollers, they're merely operated from the safety of the control cabin. The gauges are for brake cylinder, boiler pressure, steam chest, and speedometer--but no promises about whether these will be functional.
I made a big list of names for the project formerly called Train Puzzle dot exe (title pending) including various proposals from myself and some of the people who responded to my call soliciting names for the game. Thanks to all those on tumblr and various discord servers who contributed names. Then me and @msasterisk (and @wisdomsavingthrow too since you can't vote with a small even number of participants) ran through a double elimination tournament bracket, discussing each of the options.
The winning name is Railway Misconductor. (For the record, the runners-up were Shunt Everything!, Go Shunt Yourself, and Train Puzzle dot exe (title pending)).
For those just joining us, Railway Misconductor is a game under development by myself and @msasterisk, based on several model railroad switching layouts, including Inglenook Sidings and Timesaver, as well as various other inspirations and original puzzles. It takes place on Gymnome, an alien planet inhabited by amorphous agender bipeds, the Gymnomi Slimes, and more specifically, on the South Lymer Railroad (the SLYM). You operate SLYM No.11513, a modern Advanced Steam tank engine on various yard switching duties of increasing complexity.
There will be minimal story, but the characters--the orange Conductor, who relays the orders from dispatch or the yard manager to the player and has to go throw the switches, and the blue Engineer, who runs the locomotive itself--will have dialogue tying into the player's progression.
