Monetizer: Pocket Trains

Hello and welcome to Pocket Gamer.biz's Monetizer feature. This is where we look at some of the new free-to-play games that are coming out. Just have a quick look at the first 5 to 10 minutes of the experience really to see um kind of how the game's being introduced, any monetization techniques being used early in the experience, and just the general flow for the user. So the game we're going to look at um now is Pocket Trains. So let's fire it up, start the stopwatch. So this is the uh latest game in the uh I guess the series from from from NimbleBit. So we've had Tiny Tower, then we've had the uh um uh Pocket Frogs and and and actually uh we've had Pocket Planes, uh which originally started out as Pocket Trains, but they made it Planes instead. Now they've gone back to um do Trains. So um typical kind of pixel art that we expect from NimbleBit. And we're straight into the into the into

the gameplay, which is always good to see. No push notifications again. Top marks for that. So let's press the train list button and see my trains. So let's turn that down a tiny bit. So we start with two trains. Let's put one train to work. Tap the cherry steamer. Trains can pick up jobs in each city. Tap the drop to load. Tap the jobs button, sorry. There's only one job available, so we'll tap it, load it onto my train. Uh only one train can operate on each rail section. Okay. So tap one to Milan. All set. Hit depart. Off we go. Let's load some more jobs. Load up both jobs. Okay. So let's put four cars on each. Send it along the main line to Milan. All set. Use the boost button. Okay. Boost the train so we

getting introduced into this the bucks, which is a in-game currency. So, we use this to speed them up. There we go. So, that's it. Keep delivering jobs. At level two, we'll start expanding them by tapping here. So, this is really almost like a like a I would say a um an ex- a you know best practices example of of of how to get people into the game. It's pretty simple. Obviously, there's we're not going into a lot of gameplay at the moment, but there wasn't any push notifications that we asked for. I was straight into the game. There was no loading. Very little loading. Um and I mean this is like a seems like it might seem a minor point, but I had the gameplay. And obviously, for this type of game it may be a bit easier, but I was kind of using I didn't it wasn't particularly highlighted, but I used this these two buck things, which kind of I was in a bit of a bind apparently. The train wasn't on time. I used them and and and it came through on time. So, psychologically, that's really that's kind of a kind of good step because you could like I said, when you have problems in the game, hit this boost and the boost will use up this kind of currency. And we've not obviously we've

not we probably know as a player who plays a mobile game, but some players might not that you can buy them and and um and we obviously most players who play the game won't buy them. Um but at least we've kind of introduced that for those who do want to, they can see there's an advantage. So, okay. So, we'll see how much I remember. Um So, three steam ones want to go to Berlin. So, let's tap on those. Then let me see. Little Munich Munich. Oh, it's the Munich as well, maybe. Oh, okay. Let's do the Munich ones. Oh. Oh. Oh. What's going on here? Oh. Oh. So, anyway, I've reached level two. It's 30 bucks, 1,500 coins, and a special crate. So, um All right. I think I've got to take the Paris one, I guess, cuz that's the line that's being shown. Yeah. Okay. Off we go. Put in a little off to Paris. So, off Where is my other So, okay. So,

Time to just build my train part. Okay, open the map. So, let's build some more Ah, so they're not built on Oh, so these are tracks. Okay. So, it's going to go between Paris and Munich. And okay. And we're going to do that one. This is where it gets a bit embarrassing. What am I tapping the wrong thing? Pretend this never happened. What am I tapping on? Tap the line between them. Okay. That's a bit embarrassing, isn't it? Oh, well. So, could have done with a bit with a bit more um stupid people playing the game before it came out. Build a track from Paris to Munich. 1,500 2,500 coins. I don't know if I've got enough coins. Um oh. Okay, my coins. I've got loads of coins. Looking good. Close the map and build a new train car. Oh, there's in the crate, isn't it?

Train parts found in crates. Okay. So, I'm creating those. I said it's a part. Part I don't You have enough parts to create a new engine. Tap craft to build. Yep. Yep. Yep. New engine will be placed in my yard. Tap my yard. There it is. Let's start a new line with it. Tap the close button. Oh, there it is up there. Okay. Tap the new ra ra RR to start a new line. Select my engine. More coins being spent. Select the city. Well, where should I do that then? Okay. Oh, I see. Where is one? Where is that? Oh. Some jobs. Okay, so this is the Munich one. Send it to Munich. Oh. It's not owned by any train. Pay coins to claim this. Okay, so it's going to be owned by that. Tap on the depart button. I'll figure that.

You can expand your own place tapping on the three. Okay, so we've got a better idea of kind of what I'm going doing in this simulation game. I'm buying trains and upgrading them probably and and taking stuff around. So, it's good to see. Let's have a quick look at the currency cuz this is kind of something that we like to do in monetizer. So, there's a shop. So, bucks we understood are a hard currency. So, we can get some bucks for free probably looking at video. Or I can spend so this is £7 or $9. Just take this down. So, 2,000 bucks I can buy there. Also, we learned crates. Crates are what we're using to make new trains. So, we've got um it's not really a currency so much as it's more of an item. So, we've got three options there to buy crates again. I mean this is like nine it's like a dollar and this is um $3. And then it also does that's um $5.

Yeah, $4.99. And then we've got special crates so for special trains again. So, the interesting thing here is compared to a lot of games I mean NimbleBit as a as a small indie studio have pretty much always um kind of I mean restrained is maybe the the wrong word but they they but they've never taken full advantage of the price points that they are allowed to um on um on the platform. So, obviously the most expensive uh in-app purchase Apple allows anyone to do is is $99.99 and we're obviously not even into double figures for any of these. Obviously, these are you can if you want to just buy more you can make multiple transactions but this is you know quite rare now to see a to see a develop developer um being quite so uh kind of minimalist in in how much money they allow people to spend. And in partly this because they've been pretty successful with their other games

partly because that's the style that's the ethics of the game it's what what I expected. And I guess equally partly they are a pretty small team they're not they're they're you know a handful of people um so they're not like an EA um which is not to justify or unjustifiable just that's the mechanics the kind of I guess the it um economic system behind how they make the games um so the other one was the bank so that's Okay so this is quite nice as well so we can't buy the coins but we can exchange bucks. So today's exchange rate I mean this is kind of a nice this is actually the exchange rate that I kind of kind of for hard currency to soft currency I quite like a hundred hundred to one as a for a dollar rate to a conversion is they're not this is a soft currency conversion obviously but I think that's psychologically quite a nice ratio and obviously I guess they can change it if they wanted. So we can see now so in terms of the currency we have crates we have bucks

and we have coins these two hard currencies that we buy. So um So yeah so that's NimbleBit's Pocket Trains and kind of kind of see the kind of get one of those. So we can kind of see what kind of game it is it's very much in a simulation kind of very nicely put together. Um I guess we could say it is a not a highly monetized game I think that'll be the the conclusion when we put this through our monetizer lens but um a very enjoyable game I'm sure and will be pretty popular I imagine um as all the mobile games have been.