Winter update!

Hello Everyone.

The winter update is here! Queue the fireworks!

Some of you may realize that the silhouette of the train is a little different. Good eye! This new train is part of our largest and first seasonal update to Tracks: The Train Set Game. We've also got a new environment, new objects, some lighting and fog customization and some bug fixes.

A detailed change log will be at the bottom of this announcement. But let's go through the major additions and changes one by one.

The Gingerbread Train

The Gingerbread train is a new festive model variant. It will behave very similar to the wooden train in terms of speed and weight, but will be at least 300 percent more delicious. Candy Canes, icing and santa hat come as standard.

To equip the new model, press G while in edit mode and you'll be able to switch between the wooden train and the gingerbread train with just a single click.

This is early progress on train selection and customization. In the future we hope to expand upon this.

New Environment

Some of you may remember this environment from the Itch.io days. And yes, before you ask, those delicious pancakes are back! We are still looking at adding new environments and if you have any interesting level ideas do let us know in the comments.

New objects

16 new objects have been added, while a couple may be seasonal. A large number of them can be used at any time. We will likely handle any seasonal content in a similar fashion to avoid items going out of date. And of course, any seasonal items are here to stay. So if you want to use the Christmas tree in March, go ahead!

An important note, the objects menu has been remapped to the Space bar while in edit mode.

Track Supports (Still in testing)

There were some very creative members of the forum exploiting parts of the editor to create some really interesting tracks. The track supports are an awesome idea and discussed by several members in the forums. In today's update we've included a first test of the track supports.

Scenery controls

Those of you who want to customize the very lighting of your track can access the new Scenery controls menu. Open it up by pressing G and you'll be able to manipulate a few settings including fog color and density, weather effects and controls for the overall color tone if you prefer a lighting set up that's different from the standard set up.

We're looking forward to seeing new screenshots from the community using the scenery controls!

Snow!

Once again, accessed via the Scenery controls menu is the option to have snow fall. It looks great when used with your own track designs

Cargo Carriages

Also included in today's update is access to the Cargo carriage from the toy box. These carriages behave in a similar way to the Passenger carriages but are used with Collect and Deposit towers. Once hooked onto the back of your train, just drive slowly though each tower and they should activate. The required speed is marked on your speedometer and can also be checked with the Speed Check object.

You can now attach Cargo Carriages to the back of your train. These behave in a similar way as the Passenger carriages but are used with the Collect and Deposit towers. Just slowly drive through each tower and they should activate (required speed is marked on your speedometer, and can also be checked with the Speed Check).

The Jingle Bells Map

The last bit of content included in this update is a special new music track which plays the Jingle Bells song via the games music notes. You will be able to find the Jingle Bells map in the save data. If you do create any awesome music pieces using the games notes system, do share it with us. we'd love to hear what you create!

Wrapping it up

So there we have it, our first Winter update for Tracks, we hope that you enjoy the new update and we can not wait to see what you create.

Of course, do keep in mind that there may be some issues or bugs, but do let us know in the forums if you come across anything that needs to be addressed.

At the start of next year we will begin to make some more plans for the development of Tracks and will share more news. But from all of us at Whoop Group and Excalibur, Happy holidays! See you in the new year!

Other details:

• Pine Tree
• Christmas Tree
• Bakery
• Flower shop
• Toy shop
• Post office
• Green grocers
• Light arch
• Fairy Lights
• Igloo
• Victorian Lamp Post
• Fire hydrant
• Bin
• Mailbox
• Regular Passenger (Single)
• Business Passenger (Single)

• Name & Date sorting options in the Save/Load menu
• You can now choose how many passengers are made with spawners
• New thumbnails for the level select menu
• Added and improved various placement animations

• Improved the look of Night time houses
• Improved House collisions to make them easier to highlight/delete
• Fixed loading just after activating a bell causing permanent low music volume
• G is now used to open the Scenery menu instead of Spawn menu
• Space bar now opens the Spawn menu
• Fixed a bug caused by undoing an object while a piece of track is selected
•  Fixed a bug which could cause the train to derail in certain circumstances
• Improved text alignment in Save/Load slots
• Controls menu now scrolls so text is less compact with more information
• Fixed building highlighting looking strange if the object was far away/big
• Removed the useless 'Upload' button in the save menu, for now.