Overview: Before we get into the actual review, be aware that unlike most reviews, this is based at least partly on a demo given by the company. You can read a recap of the demo and interview here.

Lucky Train is a simulator along the lines of Railroad or Transport Tycoon, but with your friends on Facebook serving as the stops on your routes. It also has a city-building component that supports the train system but is enough to keep decorator types happy as well.

The train system is the heart of the game. It’s very simple, and the short tutorial covers it well – you’re in charge of a small county with a train station, and your job is to keep trains moving through with plenty of passengers. You create a train route by picking a friend to send it to – while you can send trains out whether or not your friend accepts and you’ll make some money off of it, it will remain a one-stop train (and therefore low-income) until they accept the invite. You can upgrade the trains to a variety of historical and modern types that increase the speed of the route and the number of passengers. The trains take real time to complete their routes – faster trains are, well, faster, but adding stops adds time.

The other half of the game is building up your county. You need to build houses in order to have passengers to put on the rains – else, what’s the point? Different kinds of buildings create different kinds of passengers, and as you level up you’ll unlock new ones. As you send passengers to the depot, too, the individual buildings will get upgraded, giving you new types of passengers who pay higher fares. You can always spend Lucky Bucks to upgrade buildings faster and to get some of the quirkier ones as well. There are a range of decorative items as well, if creating lovely scenery is your preference. Many of the seasonal and decorative items cost Lucky Bucks, but you can certainly make an attractive county if that’s your pleasure.

One thing worth mentioning is that the music is a lovely bluesy piano track – it was so good and so out of character for a Facebook game that this reviewer literally went through all of her browser windows trying to figure out where it was coming from before realizing it was the music for Lucky Train. Also unusual for a Facebook game, the track is long enough that it’s not obvious that it’s looping. It was a very pleasant surprise. The graphics are also noteworthy – they’re done in a deliberately nostalgic pixel-art style that calls to mind the classic games that inspired Lucky Train.

Lucky Train is an interesting game in that it’s entirely built as a social game – it’s very hard, if not impossible, to play it without friends. But if you can get a group of people playing it, it’s a neat and unique mechanic, and train enthusiasts will love the detail on all the different trains available. If you’re needing another stop on your route, you’re always welcome to send it our way!.

11/8/2010: Update Review