Freight Misconductor is a game based on model railway shunting puzzles like John Allen's Timesaver and Alan Wright's Inglenook Sidings. It has been under development since December 2024. What began as a simple prototype based on the Inglenook has evolved into a much bigger project that has pretty consistently exceeded our expectations. We're having a lot of fun developing it and our closed playtesters are having a lot of fun playing it.

Here are some fairly recent gameplay videos:

Here's a look at version Train Puzzle dot exe (title pending) 0.00, version 0.2, version 0.3, and the most recent milestone version, Train Misconductor (title no longer pending) version 0.4, to see how the game has progressed over time.

Here's some art of the game's Gymnomi Slime alien characters: The Conductor and the Engineer, as illustrated by MsAsterisk and myself, respectively:

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Who are the developers? A: The development team is myself (whirligig-girl / Luna Rose) and my friend @msasterisk. I am the lead designer and the artist, MsAsterisk is the excellent programmer. In addition there is a closed playtesting group, a work in progress soundtrack being volunteered by SpockAndStep et al, and some additional scenery art assets being volunteered by @vivvy-of-the-lake.

Q: Didn't this used to be called Train Misconductor? I liked that name better! A: A game developer who I do not want to bring attention to had a trademark dispute, and because we don't have the budget to fight a legal battle, the name had to be changed to Freight Misconductor. I am not happy about this either.

Q: What engine is it? A: an advanced steam engine utilizing compound expansion of steam to--oh you mean the game engine? Oh. Ok. We're making the game in Godot.

Q: When will Freight Misconductor be released? A: It depends on a whole lot of factors. We want to make sure it's good and ready before it comes out. Some fundamental features are still not yet implemented, and there is a lot more art left to do. It all depends upon how long a two person hobby indie dev team with no budget can go before getting burnt out. My cute little soundbyte is "if it comes out in 2025 or 2027, something will have gone wrong." But we just don't know.

Q: What platforms will Freight Misconductor be available for? A: PC for sure, likely also Mac & Linux.

Q: Where will Freight Misconductor be released? A: We intend to release on Steam and Itch.io.

Q: Is there a Steam page? A: We're waiting until near the end of this development sprint to do so. at popular request, a steam page has been made, the link is at the top of the post.

Q: How can I keep up with development? A: You can follow me on Tumblr or on Bluesky, or follow specifically the #Freight Misconductor tag on Tumblr or Bluesky. (note: historical posts before March 8th 2026 will be under the #Train Misconductor tag.) When the steam page goes up, we'll try to keep that up to date as well. There is also a Discord server.

Q: Is there a demo? A: Not yet; though there will be a short free demo before the game is released.

Q: What will the game cost? A: We expect to sell it in the roughly $20 (USD) range.

Q: Will there be track laying? A: Freight Misconductor is a puzzle game that is premised on the restrictions given by a specific track plan, changing it on the fly would mess up the puzzle design.

Q: Will there be a level editor? A: Though we'd like there to be modding support for custom levels to be made in the Godot editor, there will be no built-in level editor in-game.

Q: Ok I'll bite. What is an Advanced Steam Engine? A: Historically, Gymnomi locomotives looked something like this: large articulated steam locomotives, garratts especially.

By the 2310s AD, planet Gymnome had largely phased out steam locomotives and switched to diesel-hydraulics.

In 2329 resulting from a regular shift in the planet's orbit as it encountered the coorbital giant planet Omen, a global oil crisis began, which led to steam engines being taken out of museums to run the railways again.

By the mid 2330s, brand new high efficiency steam locomotives with modern electronics were built. The SLYM-11513 is one of these new locomotives. These fictional engines are loosely based on real world concepts like the ACE 3000, LVM-800, and 5AT.

Q: Will there be a story? A: There will be some character dialogue and narrative tied to the player's progression. More info to come later.

Q: How can I help? A: If you're willing to volunteer your skills, contact me and we'll see what we can work out. In particular, additional scenery art assets and soundtrack are wanted. Also, a tip on my Ko-fi would be appreciated. Aside from that, please reblog, share this and other dev posts and keep talking about Freight Misconductor. Indie games live or die on word of mouth. I know it's cheesy to ask for engagement on a social media post, but hey, you read this far, may as well right?

Q: Can I playtest? A: The playtest group is currently a closed group.

Q: Did you draw a bunch of angles or is it 3D? A: Although Freight Misconductor is designed to resemble games that use prerendered sprites, we actually use 3D models rendered in real time with a pixel shader.

Q: Can I ask you a question? A: Yeah sure go ahead. My asks are open, as are the comments on this post.

It doesn't come across on video just how satisfying it is to take the key in and out of the control stand, @msasterisk did an incredible job with the implementation as always.

More Details on the "Foresight" Class

Advanced Steam Locomotives were the result of a global oil crisis that began on Gymnome in the late 2320s that made Diesel engines first uneconomical, then almost unusable. After a period of bringing museum steam locomotives out of mothballs and modifying existing designs, the Foresight class is among the first "third generation" steam locomotives, designed with modern engineering principles from the ground up.

Advanced Steam engines, including this class, are designed with ease of maintenance and operation as well as high efficiency. The controls are electromechanical with an electronic control stand in the cab, similar to what you'd find in a Diesel, and it can be hooked up to other locomotives as a multiple unit. Some are even equipped for remote control running.

The engine is a compound Mallet, which uses the steam twice in pairs of low pressure and high pressure cylinders to make better use of its expansion. The firebox is a gas producer combustion system which breaks the fuel (either coal or biofuel, stored on a hopper atop the saddle tank) down into gasses, which are then burned at high efficiency. This produces more ash, but much less soot.

The locomotive runs at a high boiler pressure of 25 bar, and uses a superheater, since hotter, higher pressure steam expands more efficiently. However, this produces arguably too much pressure for the locomotive to use given the size of the cylinders. If it could use all of its tractive effort, it would be able to exert a whopping 243 kN of force. In practice, it would wheelslip long before thin. Although the onboard computer would identify and attempt to prevent a wheelslip, it would reduce in a lower throttle setting, which reduces the effective pressure.

Instead, the Foresight's cylinders are deliberately oversized so that it can be run with a higher cutoff, that is, closer to neutral gear. When running near neutral gear, steam is put in the cylinders only briefly during each stroke, which does less work per stroke but more work per unit of steam, therefore making the engine run more efficiently. To facilitate this, the expansion link on the valve gear has been cut short, limiting the cutoff to 30% in either direction, although starting cutoff is nominally 26%, which means it is over twice as efficient as an engine with the same tractive effort but working at full cutoff.

The useful tractive effort is about 60 kN.

Process:

This locomotive's story starts in July 2024, when I drew this image:

of a Gymnomi Advanced Steam locomotive based loosely on the Argentinian LVM800 (Modern Steam Locomotive 800) concept by one of the biggest (and most successful) late proponent of steam, L.D. Porta.

My original version of the Gymnomi Advanced Tank Engine took the hopper-shaped covered coal bunker on top, and the basic design of the platforms on front and back, but adapted it to an overkill 0-6-6-0 Mallet design in true Gymnomi articulated loco design fashion. In retrospect I probably should have made it an 0-4-4-0, oh well.

In December 2024 I learned how to use Blender with the help of my friend @msasterisk, and produced this model:

By January that model was used in our new game, Train Puzzle dot exe (title then pending).

MsAsterisk later made this pixel art animation depicting the locomotive scrolling through lovely pixel art scenery based on that found in the original drawing.

And at some point I drew the inside of the cab.

This (quite self indulgent) art was done by placing the engine's game model next to my model of Thomas and tracing the result. It let me refine the look of the engine somewhat and include detail that wouldn't have fit into the game model. It's at this point that the loco gained Southern Valve Gear.

This alternate version was made showing the engine crew characters from the game. I now realize that the characters are grossly under-scale here. (The game's name was briefly Railway Misconductor; it is now Train Misconductor).

During the development process for the most recent milestone version, the resolution was slightly raised, which let me add a little more detail to the basic car frame model, including a 3D modelled truck rather than a box with a photo of wheels on it. But then, the box-with-wheel-drawings original 3D model was looking pretty archaic, so a few days ago the loco was redesigned. This let me fix some proportion issues I was annoyed by, and add a little more detail.

And I liked it so much I raised the game's resolution even more.

That brings us to the drawing at hand:

I started with this render of the new game model of the engine, and traced it, adjusting a few proportions to fit a realistic style and adding lots of detail.

I made heavy use of FireAlpaca's perspective tools. The wheels were done by first drawing two wheels on a circle, and then copying and squishing them to fit the elliptical shape they present to the viewer. The brake pump was given lots more detail, and the dynamo was added (previously I had assumed the dynamo might be hidden away because it's so noisy, but there's not really a good place for it.)

Then came brake rigging, sanding gear, and a blastpipe on the front engine, and the connecting rods, crosshead, and main rod on the engines. Cab detail taken from the old cab view drawing was added as well.

Here's the more or less final line art:

Note the holes in the side of the firebox. These are to let in air above the coal grates, as part of the Gas Producer Combustion System design. (although not the one from the LVM800).

There's also number boards on the headlamps. They were suggested on the previous drawings, but now they have an actual number (11513).

The LVM800 ancestry is a little more visible in this version, with the modified coal hopper roof doors and the sloped cab walls.

Then came the scenery, which was made in layers to replicate aspects of both MsAsterisk's pixel art scene and the original drawing it refers to, as well as a few of the other tree assets currently in game.

It was here where I went to sleep (at 5 AM last night). I got 4 hours of sleep and got back up to finish the drawing, so as you can imagine I'm a little tired as I type this. :P

By 11:30 today the solid colors were done.

And at 1:20 the rendering for the first variant, the clean yellow livery, was done:

Clean and factory fresh! Time to make her TIRED! The SLYM-11513 has only been in use for a few years by this point, but it does dirty work and the maintenance department is too overworked by all the new steam engines (which are harder to maintain than Diesels, even with Advanced Steam) to reliably clean the darned thing.

So the weathering was added, and the loco was finally complete!

But it was still missing one thing:

Can't have a Gymnomi train without a Gymnomi Slime crew!

Finally, some livery variants were prepared, which can be seen here:

There's some more livery variants I want to draw but they would be more complicated to pull off, so they can wait.

Here's some transparent versions

And finally a lineless version. The drawing wasn't designed to be seen this way but it's kind of interesting how close it is to looking good.

What's next for this engine? Well in addition to being part of a very fun shunting puzzle video game, I want to model essentially this drawing in blender, as a future project. Essentially going from traced blender render to high quality drawing back to blender render, but this time with a ton more detail. This would mostly be just a for-fun project, but it's possible I could mod it into other existing train games.

appendix: a fun render i made last night.