Age is but a number, they say. That is until you are as excited as a 50-year-old child while playing with N-gauge trains in VR to solve puzzles for adorable little people. Something Random’s Toy Trains (VR – as the key art tacks on) is a puzzle title released earlier this month. It is focused on building a tiny toy train set in the loft while your cat sleeps and you make airplane noises. The same can be said of the in-game world of Toy Trains too.

Very short and unbelievably appealing in its art style, Toy Trains is nothing more than a puzzle-esque god game where you need to connect the rail line up to several buildings at once. Doing so creates adorable little dioramas on a table in front of you, lit by a bulb from B&Q that is advertised under their “Supernova” range. The rest of the room might be in darkness as you slap down rails and solve puzzles, but this table is lit like a Christmas tree. Or more aptly like the blindly white levels in SUPERHOT, which the team at Something Random would have worked on.

Sadly, the one thing Toy Trains doesn’t have is much movement, an integral part of the team’s prior title. If your VR space is rather small and encased in your monitors or walls, you might have to play around with the reset view buttons or fondle your monitors out of the way for a moment. It is player-specific, I know, but it does seem odd to me that a VR title such as this might not have any sort of locomotion; stick-based, teleport, slide, whatever works.

Out of all the things that could go wrong with a VR title, this alongside a lack of a noticeable options menu are the only gripes I’ve had throughout the ten levels. Only a few hours long, a couple of podcasts will get you through enjoyable puzzles that are broken up with little tutorial levels introducing each piece of your toy train set. All with a story that is certainly there: dealing with loneliness without your parents by helping these little people in your grandparent’s attic

I’ve described Toy Trains in conversation as nothing more than a blank piece of A4 paper. It is very useful at what it does and does it well, but it is difficult to talk about excitedly for that very reason. In 400 words, I’ve covered most of what is to be said about one of VR’s most delightful little experiences. I don’t think you need to be taken by the hand to understand that a model-railway building game might just have curved rails, bridges, little stilts that allow you to bridge larger gaps, and so on.

Though I must say, the way those later levels work out, as you need rails to crisscross themselves, a junction/switching point wouldn’t have gone a miss. Especially as you run multiple lines across the later maps/larger tables, with those later levels also requiring drastic elevation changes to make it especially difficult. The puzzles themselves aren’t the topic of “this is smart, I am dumb,” but certainly the mechanics feel limiting in how you may solve something. The option of rails is the limiting factor.

Between tight turns, zigzags, and other things you’d want to do, you have to suffice with long 90-degree turns, and slopes at a set degree. It isn’t completely a bad thing, but it leaves you saying “ok, now I need to rip up everything I’ve done because that doesn’t work.” I found myself quitting and playing something else in the meantime. Maybe in a sequel or whatever there could be more malleability to the track building. However, what is there works and that’s what I keep coming back to. Everything in Toy Trains skimmed the bar of what it needs to be and doesn’t clear it with ease all that much.

Outside of the lack of movement controls – aside from a height adjustment on X and Y – the only complaint I have is the lack of options. The music is lovely for Toy Trains, but it is a podcast game. There isn’t a fail state, there isn’t anything to worry about (aside from stepping on the cat), and it is made perfectly for sticking a podcast on and helping the little toy people of Toy Townsville.

Ultimately, Toy Trains is everything VR is all about. It is small, simple, does (almost) everything right, and doesn’t overstay its welcome. If only there was more to say about it from the word go, that’s my biggest fault outside of the aforementioned issue of not being able to move so you’re able to get around the table. A fantastic idea that could be built upon to greatly improve upon these foundations, but that’s what Toy Trains (VR) is, the stable foundations of something great for N-gauge model railway enthusiasts.

A Steam VR review copy of Toy Trains was provided by Something Random for this review.

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Toy Trains

7.5

Score

7.5/10

Pros

• An adorable art style.
• Simple and enjoyable gameplay that doesn't outstay its welcome.

Cons

• A lack of player movement, frustrating when playing in small places.
• A lack of real options to speak of.