How did the idea to create SimRail come about?

[m61]

 

[Bremen]

Thank you.

Looking at the not textured Blender objects shown in the video was reassuring. The "overall" triangle budget is quite high.

Edited February 11, 2023 by Bremen

[Schyrsivochter]

I know barely any Polish so I didn’t really get any of what the developers said in the video. Anyone here who understands the video and can tell us the important parts?

[weezzah]

 

English translation with Google Translate:

Interviewer: Railway enthusiasts of all ages dream of driving a train themselves, be it freight or passenger. Over the years, numerous railway simulators available as computer games have tried to fulfill such dreams. In January 2023, to a wide range of players. Sim was able to play a railway simulator with Polish trains and Polish routes. One of the destinations that can be reached by train in Sim Rail is Katowice. It is there that the creators of the game are based. We decided to visit them. Sim Rail became a hit on the Steam platform for a reason and not only because of the popularity of this game among Polish railway enthusiasts. The game is already translated into many languages, including Chinese, and there is no shortage of players from all over the world on foreign language servers, and it's no wonder. This is because it is the first railway simulator that accurately reflects many activities required to start and drive a vehicle. It is also the first game in the world that gives you the opportunity to play the role of a traffic controller at stations or traffic posts in Silesia and at the Central Railway Main Line connecting the south of Poland with Warsaw. Enough of our talking. Let's hear what the creators of this hit production, our company, have to say?

Szot: Our company also creates professional training simulators. And that would be the beginning of our activities. In 2020, the idea arose that the software we use for training purposes should also be used for entertainment purposes. There was a very big boom on Gaming back then. So we contacted Play, which is a kind of business angel. When it comes to computer games, and the idea of creating such a railway simulator was very popular in play. Well, that's how it started. Many of the people who are involved in the creation of the game had or still have professional dealings with railways. Engineers on duty train managers since the game's release.

Interviewer: Since its release, the game has been downloaded by 20,000 people. This number, as well as the number of positive reviews, is constantly growing. Users contribute a lot to the work on improving the game. 

Kajzer: Feedback comes instantly on all news channels, both on Facebook and on the Steam website. On our forum, where we get a lot of submissions, simran is an early access game, so some glitches and bugs still happen. But basically every week we release a big patch that fixes the issues. Largely reported by users.

Interviewer: How many kilometers and on what routes can you currently drive in the game?

Szot: At the moment, we have nearly 500 km of routes, this is the route from Katowice to Warsaw via the Central Railway Main Line. There you can try your hand both in older vehicles and develop a speed of up to 200 km/h in the Pendolino. For lovers of such routes of a more older climate, we have a line. I can see it, Sędziszów, including local lines in Silesia. And there we already have such lower speeds of 40 60 100 km/h and here it is interesting.

Interviewer: And here's an interesting fact: the work on creating the EU 0 7 locomotive in virtual reality lasted several months, and this is only one of the elements of the game. The thirty-strong Sim Rail team does a really painstaking job to recreate the routes and vehicles and their physics.

Dragon: We search a lot on the Internet, of course we don't go to physical libraries, we rather focus on such a virtual, virtual world, because everything is there, but a large part of our work is just looking for information, looking for photos. If we are at a dead end, fortunately we have colleagues at work who are professionally active on the railways, so we can always use their knowledge.

Interviewer: And what was the biggest challenge in developing Sim Rail?

Skwara: One of the biggest challenges we faced was implementing the ETCS level 1 and level 2 system and making it available in singleplayer so that players could drive trains at speeds over 160 km/h.

Interviewer: The game has gained popularity not only among railway enthusiasts, but also among railway workers. Sim Rail is an evening entertainment for employees of, among others, the Lower Silesian railways, and they play games that plan timetables.

Henszel: I really got to know it at the stage when its first version came out, still as a prologue as a demo version. Even then I felt that this simulator would be something really good. Something that has a chance to become something that can conquer the market suits me very well here. First of all, I really like the fact that, apart from the ride itself, there is also this envelope of exiting the machine, going around the composition of the passage on the platforms. This is so unusual in driving simulators.

Interviewer: When you play Sim Rail in virtual space, you can also meet drivers of the Lower Silesian Railways.

Szymkow: The phenomenon of this game. It's just a multiplayer game. I'm meeting friends. And we can have various random situations here, which usually don't happen to us during an ordinary day at work. We can test it here. We have contact with other players here, we can play as a traffic controller, so we can also see this railway from another side. The only downside is that there are no trains of the Lower Silesian Railways here. What I really hope will change eventually.

Interviewer: Exactly, is there a chance that the white and yellow trains of the Lower Silesian Railways and the routes of our region will go to virtual world?

Szot: Simulators are very popular in Germany. So we are considering the possibility of simply combining the Polish and German tours. And perhaps it will be located partly in Lower Silesia. Your trains run through the border crossing in Gerlic. As far as I know, so there's a very good chance those lineups won't show up.

Interviewer: Well, we all keep our fingers crossed for Sim Rail to develop exactly in the direction they set for themselves. We also hope that there is no. Dolnośląskie trails are coming.

 

[m61]

...perhaps in some time there will be a missing Tunel - Kraków section and fragments in Lower Silesia on the occasion of the German route. There will also be a Katowice - Sędziszów line in a version stylized for the '80s for steam locomotives.