Getting Started

Railwake is a train-builder idle game. You spend a minute at the station fitting out your train and picking a line, then press Depart — from there the run rides itself. The train moves, the guns fire on their own, and your job is deciding what to buy and when, not steering.

Your first run

At the station you have two shops:

• The Depot is the dock you use during a run, spending the gold you're earning as you ride.
• The Armory is the board you use between runs, spending scrip on permanent upgrades to your train and guns.

Before your first Depart, the Armory is where you shape your starting train — more carriages, more gun mounts, and your first guns. Then pick a line from the Track Ladder and press Depart. Everything you can buy mid-run appears on the Depot dock, which sits under the run view the whole time you're riding.

The one rule worth learning before anything else:

Gold is for this run. Scrip is forever.

See Gold, Scrip & Gems for exactly what that means and what it costs you if you forget it.

While you ride

• The dock shows what you can buy right now with the gold you've earned so far this run.
• A small strip lets you buy ×1, ×10, or ×100 levels of anything at once — handy once your gold income picks up. See Gold, Scrip & Gems for how it prices a batch.
• A ▼ button on the camera bar hides the dock so you can watch the run full-screen; ▲ brings it back. It doesn't stay hidden between sessions — it's a "get out of my way for a moment" toggle, not a setting.
• A run ends by reaching the end of the line, or by your train being destroyed. Either way, what you earned is banked and you're returned to the station.

Saving

Railwake saves itself. Every purchase at the station and the end of every run updates your save — there's no save button and nothing to remember to do. The one exception is a run still in progress: what you've earned so far this run only becomes permanent when the run ends, so closing the game mid-run loses that run's pending earnings (nothing else).

Where to go next

• The Track Ladder — the lines you can ride, and how the next one opens up
• Gold, Scrip & Gems — the currencies and the rule that governs them
• The Depot and The Armory — the two shops, in detail
• Guns, Cores & Elements — what you're actually arming your train with