In Steam Power you are striving to run your company more successfully than any other player. How well you do depends on fulfilling contracts, connecting to certain cities, selling all of your resources from your factories, and how much money you have at the end of the game. On your turn you can perform two actions — build track tiles, build a factory, fulfill a contract, take contracts, or take money from the bank. The game ends when one or more players have fulfilled a certain number of contracts, and you score points from contracts, cities, factories, and money left in hand.

Gameplay Overview

Steam Power is veteran designer Martin Wallace's distillation of a lifetime spent designing train games — a lean, accessible network-builder that captures the soul of heavier titles like Brass and Age of Steam without the two-hour commitment. Each turn you get just two actions: lay track, build a factory, fulfill a contract, or grab resources and income. The clever wrinkle is that anyone can use anyone's factories and rail links — for a price — creating organic tension and interdependence without complex rules. With multiple maps available and variable end conditions by player count, it plays well from solo to five and consistently wraps in under an hour. A brilliant entry point for train game newcomers and a satisfying, breezy fix for veterans.