Both Railz! CLASSIC and Railz! BLITZ have been updated to version 1.2.
[Rule Change] Broken Railway
It is now possible to remove Broken Railway tiles from the board. They are still as worthless as before (they occupy precious space and you will not get any score from them), but if you arrange them in a loop consisting of only Broken Railway tiles (no mixing with other types), all the Broken Railway tiles used to form the loop will be removed.
[Rule Change] Starting Pieces
The 8 starting pieces will now always be the same in each game - they will always be the 4 corner pieces, 2 horizontal track tiles, and 2 vertical track tiles. Their placement will still be random in each game - one of the seven rows will have two cells occupied, and the other rows will have one cell occupied each.
[New Feature] Upcoming Tiles
If you have played Railz! several times or have read our previous article Railz! Luck vs Skills, you will know that “the next tile” is taken from a shuffled deck of 18 tiles. This means that if the very first “next tile” you see at the start of the game is a normal horizontal Railway tile, it will be at least another 18 tiles before you get to see it as the “next tile” again. The game will now show you what are the tiles left in the current “cycle”. It will not show you the exact sequence the tiles are going to show up; it just helps you track what tiles have gone before and what tiles are left (and coming next) in the current cycle. It is actually possible to replicate this by writing the tiles down on a sheet of paper and checking off the tiles as they appear, so by implementing this feature, we are just leveling the playing field for those who do not want the trouble of tracking on paper (or mentally).
[New Feature] Power - Skip Next Tile
It is now possible to skip “the next tile”. If for whatever reasons you do not like the next tile that shows up, you can click on the next tile image. Doing so will discard the tile and replace it with the next tile in the current cycle (or the next cycle if it is the last tile in the current cycle). You only have limited use of this power - you start a game with five (5) uses of the power and you get one extra use of the power for each loop you complete, up to maximum of 10 uses can be stored. Remember, a tile you discard/skip will not appear until the next cycle so use this power with discretion.
[In-Game Help]
We have implemented some minor tool tips that show up at the top of the game screen as you mouse over certain elements in the game. Each tip stops showing up once you do something that demonstrates that the particular “tip” is unnecessary. For example, when you first start the game, if you mouse over a normal Railway tile, a tip will tell you to click, select and move the tile. Once you have done that at least once, we disable that tip. Likewise, once you score a loop with at least one special Bonus Railway tile in the loop, we disable the tip that tells you about the immovable tile, etc.
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So that is that. If you have any comments, suggestions or questions, please feel free to post them here.
Have fun!
