Here’s an interesting A9 update from Japan which came as a complete surprise: It appears that Artdink are preparing to release what they call the ‘Building Kit‘.
The kit, as far as I can discern, will come on a CD available from high street stores – rather than it being a digital download. The price will be ¥3800 (£29) for the data CD on its own, or ¥14,490 (£109.530) for the data CD PLUS a copy of A9 which, because of the current strength of Japanese Yen feels a bit pricey at the moment. Read more »
Here’s a short video I found whilst browsing YouTube. Some guy, presumably Japanese, has A9 set up to play on two PC screens simultaneously. An intriguing concept to be sure…..
It’s taken a while to get comfortable with A9. Until last weekend I had mostly spent my time blinking at the numerous menus, experimenting with the schedule dialogue box, randomly building and just looking – It’s easy to get distracted and find yourself exploring the landscape via the excellent intuitive navigation control.
I awoke one morning determined to play a proper scenario – get a better feel for the flow of a game in A9. I chose the first scenario (the designated starter map of the game), consisting of a well-developed office district surrounded by three satellite towns – all eventually, I guess, to be swallowed up as the city expands. Anyway, my point here is that it isn’t until you begin to play for real that attention is drawn to the differences in game play, some subtle – others obvious, and how they’re combining to enhance the game overall.
So, starting today, and for the next few updates, I’ll be looking more closely at the gameplay features new to A9 that are making all the difference. Read more »
I’m busy exploring A9′s nuances. This weekend I’ll hopefully be in a position to share more detailed impressions from actual game play – really, there seems so much about this game that has been tweaked, improved and expanded. It’s such pleasure to sit down and play…
The other day I purchased a new graphics card for my gaming PC. It’s an ATI Radeon HD 5570 – a ‘low profile’ card to fit the small design of my Aspire X3810. It’s about the best LP card I’ll be able to fit into the casing and has pushed the frame rate whilst playing A9 up to a very steady 50 fps on 1600×1200, full AA. The only thing I find that’s killing the frame rate is shadowing which drops it by around 30 fps.
More soon…
What a start to the weekend! I’ve spent most of this evening toying about with my copy of A9. It’s almost bedtime now so I wanted to share a few initial impressions and screen shots of the full game before I turn in. Read more »
Since building my new site from scratch involves far more effort and time than anticipated I have re-opened A-TrainHX.com until I’m ready to go live with version II.
I don’t plan to update the ‘old’ site and the forum is now closed so the link for that will not work.
I was going to add the walkthrough here as a post but decided the more logical approach would be to simply re-open so that those who want to can browse for information.
It still hurts my eyes to look at it, however…
A-Trainhx.com temporary closure and shift in emphasis for this Blog.
A week ago I took the A-Trainhx.com fansite off-line. With the release of the new game I decided it was the right time to re-think the site, design a new look and update all content therein. It was fun for the short time it lasted but I was growing unhappy with the blocky, functional appearance and some of the ropey content. Read more »
A-Train 9 (A列車で行こう９) Demo
In a couple of days Artdink of Japan will release A-Train 9, the latest instalment in their series of Urban Development/Train Management games. In the West we’ll have to wait and see if any distributors are willing to regionalise the game and give it the exposure it deserves (Last year, DHM distributed A-Train 8 in Europe. It was a low-key event, relying mostly upon word of mouth and chatter around the web forums). Read more »
A-Train 9 | MarkE231 | 
29/08/2010 15:25 | 
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