Game: Conduct TOGETHER!
Genre: management game
System: Nintendo Switch
Publisher/Developer: Northplay
Price: $19.99|€19,99 |£ 19.99
Age Rating: EU 3+ | USA E
Release Date: December 6th 2018
Review code kindly provided by Northplay
It has trains!! Fantastic! Who doesn’t love trains? I know everyone in my family does. And it is a puzzle game! Great! Have to stay mentally awake (especially at my age). The publisher, Northplay, is from Denmark and my grandfather was born in Denmark. So, a good reason as any for me to review this game.
The description on the Nintendo site is: “Conduct Together is an addictive game of explosive railway action that will challenge your inner conductor.” I quite agree.
Planning your train-run
The first puzzle starts you off easy enough with easy to learn controls. The controls are easy to grasp. The D pad controls one of four potential switches. The A, B, X, and Y buttons control the similarly marked trains. The shoulder buttons can be used for slow motion.
The difficulty is keeping everything running. Your train(s) pick up (red, blue, purple, and yellow) passengers and you have to direct your trains to drop them back off at the correctly colored stations. You also often have to avoid vehicles crossing the tracks and other trains that you can’t control. I think if you’re a conductor on a real train, this must sound very familiar!
Your train always starts moving on the track automatically. Your train can be slowed down or stopped in place, as you might want to avoid crashing into an obstacle. Track switches can be toggled at the press of a D-pad direction. As soon as the train is moving, interaction is minimal but still requires attention and strategy.
The first couple of tracks are uncomplicated cycles but soon, the levels get more like a labyrinth and much more difficult to navigate. After the first levels, it becomes a highly challenging affair. Multiple trains run in tandem, so you need to make sure all of them complete loops and station stops without crashing.
Be sure to take a look at the settings
Not only does Conduct Together offer a choice for multiple languages, there are more settings to tweak. There’s a slow motion setting to set it to 5 seconds or infinity, sounds off or on, vibration off or on, replay the intro (which is just a short tutorial for the game), reset progress, and difficulty.
I didn’t change the difficulty at first and was getting quite frustrated. You see, the default is full speed. On full speed, I’d have to play a map several times before I could complete it. I changed the setting to easy and it makes the game a lot easier but also a lot more fun to play.
Coins are earned for each map you complete and you can use those to unlock other maps and buy different trains from all over the world. As you complete regions, these unlock more regions as well as different train cars from history. Also, each map has a 3 star rating level to it depending on how quickly you beat it. So it has that replay value to it to be the best you can be on every map.
Multiplayer fun too
During the Christmas break, my oldest son was in town and we were able to check out the multiplayer. I controlled the switches, he controlled the trains. We had to stay in constant contact letting each other know what we were doing.
We really had a lot of fun doing this and we will surely play again. This multiplayer mode, which you can play with up to four people in total, would be fun at a party!
Conclusion
I enjoy this game alot and would recommend it. The graphics are well polished and simple. The puzzles are clever and challenging. It seems perfect for handheld Switch gaming.
I still have a lot of the maps to unlock as well as a lot of the trains to unlock. If you only have 10 minutes or so to play, this game lends itself well to that pick-up-and-play scenario.
Good clean fun with a solo or multiplayer mode that makes you use your brain.
