Mashinky

About

Mashinky is a single player and multiplayer open world management game with economy and historical themes. It was developed by Jan Zelený and was released on October 6, 2018. It received positive reviews from players.

Mashinky is a transport strategy game about trains. The goal is to create your own transport empire on a procedurally generated map. It’s a unique blend of realistic graphics combined with an isometric construction mode and board game-like rules.

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85%

Audience ScoreBased on 1,091 reviews

graphics111 positive mentions

stability30 negative mentions

graphics
224 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
47%
3%
The graphics of the game are widely praised for their beauty, combining a charming, modern 3D aesthetic with a functional, grid-based building mode reminiscent of classic transport tycoon games. Users appreciate the dual graphics modes—simplified for construction and detailed for viewing or riding trains—which enhance immersion and visual appeal. While some find the style personally divisive or note occasional performance and optimization issues, overall the visuals are considered impressive and a standout feature for a largely solo-developed, early access title.
- “The graphics are beautiful, from a satellite-like view all the way down to a first person view.”
- “Jan has been working on this for over 7 years, and has done an excellent job of integrating the classic transport tycoon graphics style with a modern 3d engine.”
- “You lay down stations and track with signals and such in that simple top-down grid then, with a click of a button, you are back to the beautiful landscape view of your train lines in action where most of your railroad management takes place - with graphics that exceed the quality of other current transport tycoon sims.”
- “The game is currently pretty unoptimized especially since the game's graphics aren't really good.”
- “Graphics ... - hurts the eyes.”
- “- i really had to pull down all graphics sliders fully down before it was playable.”
- “- the graphics will put a lot of strain on your video card.”
- “Graphics are pretty, but 95% of the time you are in ugly/building mode so you don't get to see them.”
- “The landscape and trains are nice to look at, but the biggest missing piece graphically is that there are no people, no birds, no animals, nothing but deserted houses, streets and stations with ghostly echoes of past activities, and zombie trains driving themselves across a green but lifeless world.”
gameplay
170 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
29%
69%
2%
The gameplay of this train tycoon-inspired game is praised for its solid core mechanics, approachable yet deep complexity, and refreshing innovations like token-based economy and era progression that enhance the classic formula. It offers addictive, strategic, and relaxing play with good replayability and customization options, though some users note early access bugs, occasional instability, and a need for better tutorials. Overall, it stands out as a promising, enjoyable, and accessible transport management experience with a good balance of simplicity and challenge.
- “Mashinky (in early access at the time of writing) may initially resemble OpenTTD but offers a refreshing gameplay experience with its distinct game mechanics.”
- “Gameplay can be modified by various settings: use only one depot, trains don't "magically" reverse at stations, eras through research and/or date etc., add different map sizes and settings; the replayability is very good.”
- “The addition of resource tokens is a great mechanic; it encourages you to keep delivering as many resources as possible, creating a great gameplay loop.”
- “Not my thing to say what's priority, but I'd expect an alpha game to focus largely on stability and core mechanics working 100%.”
- “And at this stage, the entire gameplay collapses.”
- “There are no lines mechanic, no way to build speed-optimized tracks, no convenient way to upgrade trains.”
music
72 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
28%
65%
7%
The game's music features a charming jazz and blues-inspired soundtrack that many find relaxing and fitting for the train-focused gameplay, often likened to classic transport tycoon tunes. While generally praised for its nostalgic and pleasant vibe, some users find the soundtrack repetitive over time and suggest improvements like more variety and better music controls. Additionally, the ability to add custom music via .ogg files enhances the experience for players who prefer more diverse or personalized soundtracks.
- “And the historical references, combined with the excellent soundtrack, is a win-win combination.”
- “It's very charming in ways only an indie game could be, and perhaps has accomplished the 'modern TTD' look, feel, and sound (particularly in the great music) better than any other game in this genre both out or upcoming on the market.”
- “From the moment you boot it up and hear that sweet nostalgic jazz music to building your first line, the sounds of the trains and environment, riding that line in beautiful beauty mode, walking around town and looking at the scenery, scaping the land, optimizing your network and connecting up your industries with electricity to give them that extra boost.”
- “Music gets annoying pretty quickly.”
- “It gets pretty repetitive, and for some reason, the game has two copies of each song in the folder, so each song plays twice for a total of 20 minutes of repetition per each song.”
- “Some of the other music tracks have long parts where the music is extremely repetitive and makes me start Transport Tycoon Deluxe music.”
story
69 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
10%
86%
4%
The game's story is minimal, with a focus on sandbox play supported by simple, often repetitive fetch-style missions that some players find tedious or unengaging. While quests provide structure and rewards to guide progression, there is no cohesive narrative or campaign, and the tutorial and mission tracking can be glitchy. Overall, the story aspect is underdeveloped, serving primarily as an optional layer to add direction rather than a rich or immersive experience.
- “If you are mission-oriented and enjoy the game coming up with new missions and new levels of complexity that make the game challenging, you may feel right at home here.”
- “There are little objectives and missions that pop up occasionally, urging you to deliver certain goods or complete simple tasks, rewarding you with currency, materials, or even one-of-a-kind upgraded trains later on.”
- “As you build up your network of stations and depots, you get quests to complete specific tasks and unlock new locomotives, carriages, building extensions, and progress through different technological ages.”
- “I am also not a big fan of the missions; most of the time I felt they were totally not worth the effort and on top of the 'chase for the next type of coin,' they contribute to the feeling of tedium.”
- “While this is early access and will likely change in the future, at present players who want a game that has a clear story and a robust quest/objective system should stay clear.”
- “More importantly, do not buy this if you want a story, you want the game to explain things to you, you want any kind of visual or audio bells and whistles (although the game does look very pretty if you go out of building mode and just watch the trains go round), you want track laying that enables you to build complex, fun, visually impressive rail networks, or if you want a game that you spend more time playing than tinkering with or fighting with - because this one will be much the opposite.”
optimization
41 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
15%
73%
12%
The game's optimization is mixed, with smooth simulation and moderate performance on low to mid-end PCs, but suffers from significant issues such as poor multicore utilization, high GPU usage, frequent lag, and crashes, especially after updates. While early access status suggests improvements are forthcoming, current performance problems, including demanding graphics and occasional severe FPS drops, detract from the experience. Developers need to focus on enhancing stability and optimization to fully realize the game's potential.
- “However, the actual simulation, building, and rendering of hundreds of vehicles runs smoothly.”
- “If you like your optimized setup as it is, then you can just let it run for a while, and you can marvel at how efficiently and nicely it works.”
- “Also reasonable performance even with moderate number of trains (around 100).”
- “However, it is so damn unoptimized, even EA is better at optimizing their games.”
- “And terrible optimization - FPS drops to 5-10 in realistic camera mode.”
- “- Multicore performance is a disaster, the game can basically only use one core and rotates back and forth between two cores to balance thermals but does not gain any performance from that.”
- “After adding the aircrafts it had massive performance issues even with recommended requirements.”
- “Now after the "performance update" (2025) it crashes every minute.”
stability
32 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
6%
94%
The game's stability is typical of early access, with frequent bugs, glitches, and occasional crashes, especially under heavy load or in multiplayer. Performance issues such as FPS drops and freezing are common, though autosave features mitigate progress loss. Despite these problems, many players remain optimistic about improvement and the game's potential as development continues.
- “This also runs great on the Steam Deck for those who have one.”
- “Great immersion for an early access game, and new releases seem to be relatively bug-free.”
- “It's a good game and still in early access, however it is very buggy and after 100+ vehicles the game starts to stutter; the FPS is all over the place - I'll go back to Transport Fever 2 and wait for this one to come out of early access.”
- “The game is also buggy -- trucks cannot find routes (even though there is one), trains crash on valid signals once you have too many, and the internal bug report crashes when you try to submit something.”
- “Not only does it become clearly slower when there are many trains running, but it also frequently freezes when placing too many railways altogether.”
replayability
16 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
56%
19%
The game offers significant replayability primarily due to its procedurally generated and customizable maps, encouraging players to replay under varying conditions. While current content limits replay value for some, many users note that ongoing updates and additional features are expected to greatly enhance the replay experience. Overall, even in early access, the game provides a solid foundation of replayability, especially for those who enjoy sandbox and strategic gameplay.
- “Great experience, the game has a huge replayability factor thanks to procedurally generated maps, so when you reach the final available era and master the balance of train routes and cargo delivery you can just hop on the next map and start over.”
- “Its a superb blend of immersion, intelligent design, and replayability, that makes it the kind of game you would want to come back to again and again.”
- “Maps are randomly generated and have a lot of tweaking options from very flat to a map full of lakes and mountains, so there's plenty of replayability.”
- “As a result, the replayability is rather low at the moment.”
- “The replay value is limited right now, but will explode with additions of new content.”
- “It is a good game, I think it will be really good, it just has no replayability at the moment.”
grinding
7 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Grinding in the game is often seen as tedious and slow, involving repetitive tasks like leveling terrain and micromanagement that can feel more like a chore than fun. However, some players appreciate its old-school vibe and puzzle-like challenges despite the trial-and-error nature. Overall, grinding may appeal to those who tolerate tedious gameplay but can be frustrating for others.
- “I understand this might be a lot of fun for another player but for me it just feels tedious and the game feels like some never-ending to-do list at work in futile hope to finally have some fun.”
- “Here, just laying any track from point A to point B involves tedious leveling of the ground, as the track laying system constantly complains about the slightest slope hitting the path of the track at the wrong angle.”
- “It gets really tedious micromanagement exercise pretty soon.”
humor
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game delivers a consistently funny and entertaining experience, offering over 20 hours of humorous gameplay despite being in early alpha. Players appreciate the humor and look forward to future content additions.
- “An overall funny and entertaining experience, I personally can't wait for new content to be released.”
- “It is a big alpha, but it still offers about 20+ hours of deep funny gameplay, mostly without critical bugs.”
- “The game is funny already.”
emotional
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users find the game exceptionally wholesome, highlighting its strong emotional warmth and positively heartfelt experience.
- “A downright wholesome game.”
- “This is just about the most wholesome game ever.”
atmosphere
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users appreciate the immersive and engaging atmosphere created by managing busy transport networks, finding it satisfying to observe their creations in action. Although the current lack of passengers or creatures is noted, it does not detract significantly from the overall experience.
monetization
1 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users criticize the monetization as unprofessional and perceive it as a cash grab rather than a genuine effort to develop the game.
- “This is unprofessional, and smells like the developer just wants to cash grab instead of actually developing the game.”