Rolling Line · published · build 23003881
Time really flies... Rolling Line is celebrating its 8th birthday today! That means 8 years since it's release back in 2018.
As you might already know, I'm just one solo developer. I've been working on this game as a full time job for about 9 years and it's well and truly my pride and joy. It is both my income and my own creative outlet, and I wouldn't dream of having things any other way.
I've released a total of 205 updates to the game since its launch date back in 2018, and I would love to dig a bit deeper into the games development history in this news post.
But first, here's some stats about the trains & maps added to the game over the years, as well as all the community made content on the Steam Workshop!
There are 23 official trains + 39 official freight & passenger wagons
And on the Steam Workshop:
10,115 community made liveries + 7,203 community made modded trains & mod liveries
(1,912 train mods + 2,896 mod liveries + 698 legacy QuickMods + 1,697 legacy liveries)
There are 20 official maps ("main" maps + "small" maps):
And on the Steam Workshop:
There are 7,917 community made maps:
As of right now, there are 31,653 total items on the Steam Workshop!
While I won't list every single one of the 205 total updates Rolling Line has gotten over the years, here are some of the more influential milestones the game has gone through over the years!
You can have a look at the full list here if you are curious:
There was a short time where the only way to share maps with each other was to send .txt files manually! During this time there was a "community maps" list on the main menu of the game where you could play a small list of player-made maps that I had manually included in the official release of the game.
The 'dark ages' of Rolling Line were back when there were only a few specific pre-set pieces of track to use. No custom curves, no flexytrack. It's hard to imagine now (with full dynamic track generation of any curve/length) but back in 2018 adding flexytrack was pretty much the greatest thing in the world.
Before this point ALL custom maps were made on a few select pre-made table rooms. You could not place your own tables down. After this update, a new infinitely scalable room was added along with a placeable table piece prop. Suddenly maps could be any shape and size!
The first ever new official map was added! The Santa Fe map was very small, but added a whole new color pallet of props and a brand new train (F7). It was also the first location to feature in the game outside of New Zealand.
A custom color picker was finally added, so you could now use any color you like for painting props. Before this the game had a set selection of colors. To celebrate this a map event called the "Color comp" was hosted lots of vibrant and colorful maps were made with this new level of freedom.
As mentioned earlier, at this stage in the game all track was made from pre-set pieces. You could not create custom curves/lengths. Gradient track also didn't exist in the smooth way that it does now. This update (split into 3 parts) completely replaced the track system and allowed for completely customizable track shapes.
On this day the Paranapiacaba map (set in Brazil) is released. This map is by far the most detailed and complex official map I had made for the game at this point and really pushed forward what the game was capable of. Things like overhead wires, custom track styles, jungle scenery and several locomotives were all added to make this map possible.
Prop modding is finally possible. Players can now import their own 3D models into the game to make new props and share them on the Steam Workshop. This is also the debut of the new in-game modding system (the "Modding Manager" in the main menu). Lots of other modding improvements followed, like audio and animation importing.
This marks a major stage in the games development. For this update a ton of behind-the-scenes stuff happened because the "Main layout" (now called "top of the south") was finally re-built using the new in-game tools. Prior to this, the map was actually made using an ancient and completely different system to the rest of the game. It was basically a static scene made in the game engine (Unity) instead of an editable save file made in-game. This update proved that everything seen on the Top of the south was now finally accessible for anyone playing the game to make themselves!
The train modding system we all use today was finally released in this update. Prior to this, all modded trains were made using the old "QuickMod" system. The quickmod system was entirely outside of the game and involved editing .txt files and placing 3D models manually into a folder. The new modding system is an extension of the prop modding system and can all be done in-game!
Roads are finally added! Though they are a standard part of the game now, roads actually only showed up in the game over 4 years after release. This update included intersections and relied heavily on the "track grouping" feature added earlier, since roads are essentially just track with a different coat of paint.
Spread over two updates, the current inventory system UI and player movement (e.g. gravity and jumping) were added. Before this players were restricted to only 4 item slots, with no icons to even show what they were holding! And when walking around in miniature you simply flew around without collision. These updates were a major step towards the game being made mode user-friendly.
This update added electronics features into the game like wires, lights, buttons, logic gates, etc. To this day this is still my personal favorite addition to the game I've ever done. Having physically intractable electronic circuit building in a model train game is a dream come true.
While not an official update, this was a major milestone in the games history. The famous G&D map was released on the Steam Workshop and became arguably the most impressive map in Rolling Line ever made.
The beginnings of the freight loading system were added into the game. You could now "load" a freight wagon with props (like logs or containers). This system would continue to be expanded in the future, with things like modding tools and coal & ore loading.
After almost a year and a half of work, the Sierra Logging map is released. This map is still my own personal crowning achievement of map making in Rolling Line. It was a huge step forward in terms of trackwork design, industrial operations design and even general scenery detail for an official map. To this day it is still the best map I've made.
They day finally came, something people had been requesting for over 7 years. Multiplayer was added! Multiplayer had almost been a joke in the community since it was requested so often and the answer was always "maybe one day". Well it finally did happen and it was arguably the largest and most important update Rolling Line has ever had.
After completing the massive Sierra Logging map project, I wanted to work on something more personal and closer to home. Rolling Lines roots have always been in New Zealand, and It's about time I got to have a go at making a new official map set in NZ with all of the modern tools and features the game now has (like terrain sculpting). Ever since I first started developing this game I've always had ideas for a West Coast map, featuring massive mountains along the rugged coast of the South Island. And with great joy I can finally announce that this is exactly what I'm working on next!
This map is already well into development, and I can share a few previews of what it looks like so far.
It's set on the South Island's West Coast, which is heavily focused on the coal industry. The most common railfanning sights are long coal trains running along the coastline between farm paddocks, massive mountains and the sea.
The area this map covers is specifically between the Stockton Plateau and Greymouth, including areas like the Denniston Plateau, Inangahua, Buller Gorge, Paparoa National Park, Charlston, Fox River, Stillwater and Greymouth.
Since this map is set back in NZ, and features some of my absolute favorite natural landscapes in the world, you can probably guess this map is going to include a lot of scenery!
So this map isn't just railway lines, it also has fully exploreable caves (famous to the Charlston and Fox River area of the West Coast) and lots of mountain scenery, including backcountry huts, tracks, rivers and mountains!
In fact if I have time I also plan to include one of the stunning South-Westland glaciers!
But that's all I'll share for now!
Expect plenty more news about this West Coast map in the future. It's an absolute joy to be working on classic New Zealand scenery again and this map is going to be a big showcase of the kind of scenery detail a modern Rolling Line map can handle!
You can now spawn a "table data painter" from inside the options menu when editing a piece of terrain. You can use this to copy-paste settings between tables, like water height, color, wall settings, etc.
Terrain is now included in the 3D model export options in the "Terrain" modding menu. This means you can create 3D terrain in-game and then export it into a 3D model to be used in any 3D modelling software you want (like Blender).
Fixed various bugs with terrain (like rendering issues in VR) and the terrain tools (like adding context help for the controls).
Whether you are one of the people who's been playing this game for the full 8 years and want to feel nostalgic, or if you've joined more recently and want to see how things were back then, there's actually a way to play the 1.0 day one release version of the game!
You can switch to a beta branch on steam called "Rolling_line_1x" to play the 1.0 version whenever you want. To do this, right click on the game in your library and select "Properties" then "Game versions & betas":
Your normal map save files can't be loaded on this 1.0 version and any maps you make using this "classic" version of Rolling Line are stored in a separate folder.
When you switch back to the normal main beta branch you will be able to access your normal save files again, so using this 1.0 version does not remove any of your custom files.
It can be quite funny playing this old version and seeing just how insanely bare-bones the game was on release. The first thing you'll probably notice is that there are only 17 shelf drawers TOTAL worth of props, trains and track:
It's felt simultaneously like a very short and very long 8 years. It's quite interesting to put all those updates into perspective and think about how much this game has grown.
It's not actually that far off until the 10 year anniversary... maybe I'll cook up something really exciting for that one!
If you're someone who bought this game years and years ago for $20 and feels like helping support me to keep making these free maps & updates until the end of time, then please consider joining the Patreon!
Remember you can always just make a one-off payment and then cancel your membership afterwards if you prefer that style of donation rather than the monthly format.
Current Patreons:
DOLLIN, Skilker, Gazzac100, Taerom, Trainiac 21, Clae, The_President, Teapop311, Chloe Surett, Rowan Mackenzie, Matt, Ábris Pataki, ItzAerozic, Matthew Johnson, Microcosmologist, Blake Prevett, TrainTiny, Thomas Merolla, Don Willis, Jayton Hawkins, Helga Nordgren, TheAmazingRyry, HuskyDynamics, Outertoaster, Nathan Perez, TrainMann, Railraider, Richard Prior, Joblogh, Detroit_, CAMOGUY54321, Ben Burch, Gustavo Sanchez, Michelle chan, Jack Fruh, Jonathan Ginsburg, Lynk_Wyland, SmokeStream, KathalLasagna
Past Patreons:
Joey Drysdale, Ethan Lamont, NESecretWeapon, JohnR, Lutz, Leto Gloas, Rivet, Trackmeister, Codebag Playz, Garst, Simon, Carter Shew
You can join the Patreon to help support me to keep making free updates!