u/kushranda

Hi !

I posted a long time ago about a game I was working on, where you travel through 19th century Belgium as a train conductor and you meet all kinds of passengers, and it got a lot of support here.

So I'm happy that today I finally announced the game officially and that Game Trailers (from IGN) featured our announce trailer on their youtube channel !

The game is now called Bon Voyage: it's a desktop companion game hand-painted in watercolour where you choose your route and manage your train to deliver the best train service for your passengers. The gameplay occurs at stops, allowing players to focus on other things in life while the train travels. I'm making this game specifically for people who are typically older than young adults, and who don't have as much spare time as they would like to have. The format is specifically designed so that it can be combined with other, serious, focused, work (that's the hope atleast, I'm doing something kind of new and experimental here. If anybody would like to playtest and let me know if they could really focus, please let me know!)

Currently, I'm working on a demo in which the region south of Charleroi (Meuse-Sambre valley) will be explorable, as well as West-Flanders, but in the final game all of Belgium will be travellable !

Here's the trailer if you want to check it out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lb1BsUvcYU

Ask me anything !

Bon Voyage is a both a game for people who want to focus during work, as well as a game for people who don't have time to play games anymore (because of family / work) so the format and pace is adapted to fit our typical desk job lives.

Unlike other games that are "idle" or "bottom-of-your-screen", I'm designing it specifically so that it doesn't mentally take up space while you're trying to focus. Once the train is travelling (for like 25 mins), it is only a beautiful decor, that I hope helps you to focus on your work, like a real train trip would do.

The trailer
https://youtu.be/-Lb1BsUvcYU?si=6ayNUP6OKMXD74YB

I started with the idea that older adults play games less often than they would like to. Work or parenting often leaves us with little free time. Also, many games need a focused, distraction-free environment to enjoy. By changing how the game is presented and its pace, I’m designing for an alternation between short, meaningful game sessions and longer, hands-off travel bits.

The travel bits take for example 30 minutes and it's not possible to interact with the game anymore to play. The only thing that can be done is change the size and format of the view, for quality of life reasons.

By designing it with this clear seperation, I'm hoping that players can focus on their work or studies during the travel parts, just like in a real train. I still need more playtesting data, but if it works, I would be proud that those who can’t afford to play games anymore can rediscover the magic of gaming.

What do you think of my approach ? Do you believe it could work for you ?