Train
Braining

Train Braining (2015) is a puzzle game where you lay train track to then deliver passengers to their required platforms. While sounds simple, but due to the minimal passenger room on your train and the layout of each miniature level, the solution is rarely as straightforward as it first appears. It's an ingenious game that's unique and challenging, yet rewarding when you figure each of the puzzles out.

---

In each level, you are given a train with room for just two passengers. You lay track to define a path past each passenger, who then occupies any available carriage. If you then move past the station, they will depart. The challenge is to get all the passengers to the station. This, however, is complicated by the fact that the passengers in later levels are colour coordinated, only getting off at certain stations, adding an extra layer of complexity.

The layout of each level, too, increases the difficulty, with trees, platforms and passengers scattered in such a way as to make the journey you need to take increasingly complex with each passing level, of which there are 11 in total. You can undo as many goes as you want, or restart a level at any time if you need to, and each level is fairly small in scope, with there only ever being a few passengers total.

It's a fiendishly difficult puzzle game that, while simple to grasp, takes lots of outside-the-box thinking, experimentation to beat. It's a challenging yet rewarding play experience. Train Braining is the original prototype for the game Cosmic Express, which contains more levels, much-improved graphics, and a gentler difficulty curve.

---

Our examiner, Ben Kendall, first checked Train Braining 2 years ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 20 months ago.