Q&A: Rails Across America

GameSpot recently talked with executive producer Paul Canniff of Flying Lab Software about the studio's upcoming railroad strategy game, Rails Across America. Canniff shared some information about the game's features, how it will differ from other railroad management games, and the variety of trains that will be available.

GameSpot: First, tell us a little bit about Flying Lab Software. When was the company founded, and what other games has it developed? What kind of experience did the founders have?

Paul Canniff: Russell Williams and I started kicking around game ideas in 1995, but we didn't found the company until late 1997. We met at Microsoft, where we worked on the same project in 1993. My background is programming (networks and e-mail), and his is design, including the Microsoft Golf series. We got off to a slow start on a nearly zero budget. Once we settled on the specific project that became Rails Across America, things began to pick up speed. This is Flying Lab's first game project, but all of our senior staff have shipped a game before. Except me! I'm the novice this time around.

GS: How will Rails Across America differ from other railroad management games like Railroad Tycoon 2?

PC: Scale. Rails Across America is a high-level game. We've been trying very hard to make sure that you can play the game at the normal speed, in multiplayer, and not feel like you're drowning. That means you need to be able to manage your money, lay out one or two major track expansions, keep an eye on your competitors, maintain your existing rail network, and think about using influence to open up new markets. And it means we don't give you direct control over each train.

GS: Will players have the option to micromanage if they choose?

PC: Yes, definitely. By running at a slower pace, they will have time to tweak tracks individually, assign locomotives individually, and maximize their railroad's performance. It can feel like a very different game, and of course it takes a lot longer to build and manage a continent-spanning railroad with that attention to detail. I expect that micromanaging will be more popular in single-player than multiplayer for that reason.

GS: Is the game being designed to be a historically accurate?

PC: The timescale of our game ensures that much of history will be rewritten by the players' actions. The game sets goals that are historically based, such as building the transcontinental railroad, but as soon as players enter the game, history begins to diverge from the actual events. Small touches keep the game grounded in the real world: The computer opponents are represented by historical figures, the new locomotives become available, the cities grow and change as they really did, the news tidbits give a glimpse into the attitudes and events of the period...but the players make railroad history.

GS: How will the development of technology be addressed in the game?

PC: There are three main technological improvements. The most obvious is new locomotives--newer models can offer advantages, but it is too expensive to upgrade all your locomotives every time a new one appears. We also have new signal systems that allow more trains to run on a given track, better tunnel building that allows bigger mountain ranges to be conquered, and the ability to electrify track.

GS: Can you tell us a little about the different trains that will appear in the game?

PC: We include representative locomotives from every period of North American railroading, from the tiny John Bull to the most modern diesel-electrics, and each new design represents a choice for the player. Some designs are great mountain locomotives. Others are fast but pull shorter trains. By the 1920s, you can deploy some of the best, most efficient locomotives ever designed, like the magnificent GG-1 electric, but it costs a ton of money to build and maintain the electrification of a track. We left out locomotives that tended to overlap other designs. A personal favorite of mine, the Pennsylvania Railroad's duplex T-1, didn't make the cut for that reason. But maybe we'll be able to include a few of these extra locomotives in a future version. SP cab-forward mallets, anyone?

GS: What kind of single- and multiplayer modes will the game have?

PC: Single-player will include a configurable basic game, where the player can set the starting year and cash and such, and some challenging scenarios with specific goals and obstacles. Multiplayer supports eight people on a LAN or on the Internet via GameSpy, with control over the starting conditions and end time. We will also have multiplayer scenarios.

GS: How far along is the game at this point? When can we expect to see the game in stores?

PC: We're fairly close to done. We play multiplayer games every week, and we're very pleased with the stability and balance. Expect to see us out in August.

GS: What's been the most challenging part of development so far?

PC: People! As clichéd as it sounds, building the team was our biggest hurdle. We have made better and better progress as the project has matured. Technically, our biggest challenge has been keeping our memory overhead under control. Our design team favors a very rich set of textures, and every piece of art takes RAM. We want to run well on a moderately priced machine.

GS: What's the next big milestone the team has to reach?

PC: We're a few days away from our demo milestone, which will be the build we show at E3 and, in restricted form, the build we provide as our public prerelease demo. The demo build will be nearly complete, including multiplayer. We have scenarios working, but we need to write and tune a few more. After that we have one more push to fix bugs, tune gameplay, and finish our postgame features like "replay," which lets you watch a replay of all the railroads expanding across a grand overview of the map.

GS: Is there anything else you'd like to add?

PC: I know that a lot of railroad fans around the world enjoy North American railroads, but there's no place like home, and we hope to cover other regions in future titles.

GS: Thanks, Paul.

PC: You're welcome!

For more information, take a look at our previous coverage of the game.