Two Free Transport Simulator Games

We always want to have the things we don’t have and do the things we don’t do. In the same manner we want to feel experiences that aren’t ours.

So that’s why not everyone keeps to sports games or shooters, that’s the reason some people come back from work or school and….well, work.

Only it’s a job that isn’t ours. We want to build or guide trains, fly planes, draw out transport infrastructures, or even create whole societies.

We come back home, and we work; but it’s more than that. In a way, we come back home, and we dream. We dream – ironically – about who we are not. Who we could’ve been, or who we’d want to be.

Two Great Free Transport Simulator Games

We’ve crawled the interweb, looking for simulators. For your eyes only, dear MUO reader, we’ve lined up two of the very best free transport sims.

OpenTTD -Transport Sim

OpenTTD is an open source clone of the ever so famous Micropose game Transport Tycoon Deluxe. The developers have tried to mimic the original game as well as possible.

The game does a great job in imitation, but it does more than that. OpenTTD has many additional features over Transport Tycoon Deluxe; for instance, the maps are up to 64 times bigger, a stable multiplayer mode is added, new pathfinding algorithms were written, and so much more.

In the game, you can lay out train routes for trains, cars, boats, and even aircraft! The game’s pretty advanced as well; you’re able to build monorails, construct aquaducts, and even bribe town authorities.

As already mentioned above, the game also features a multiplayer mode. You can play with up to 11 people in 8 different companies, or as spectators.

You can download the game here. If you need help, you can also find a very extended user manual on the wiki.

Simutrans – Multi Platform Transport Sim

Simutrans is a railroad simulator for Windows, BeOS, Mac OS X and Linux.

In the game, you’ve got trains, airplanes, buses, trucks, ships, trams, monorails, and maglevs at your disposal, to create the perfect traffic network. Set up a traffic network within the city, or create connections between far-away cities with high speed trains.

Earn money by moving people in between cities, or transport goods for one of the many companies in the game. The better infrastructure you piece together, the more money you’ll be able to grab.

The game works with an executable (which you can download here) and a packset. Each packset features different graphics, and the definitions for the economy. For starters, it’s recommended to go with the included pak64, but if you’re up for something new, you can always download one of the additional packsets here.

Do you know of any other good transport simulator games? Or perhaps you prefer other kinds of simulators? You can tell us and the MakeUseOf readers all about it in the comments.