GT: What will players spend most of the game doing - laying track, supervising trains, managing finances, etc.?

Paul: In a single-player game or scenario, you can set the clock speed without anyone yelling at you, giving you time to noodle over each decision and wring maximum profit from each track. It becomes a matter of style. In multi-player, our experience is that you need to divide your time equally between laying track, monitoring your existing tracks, and thwarting your opponents. It was our explicit goal that multi-player be fun and enjoyable and interactive, which means that you can take your head out of the "operations management" aspect and think about the big picture for a bit.

GT: What kind of scenarios or campaigns are planGT for the game?

Paul: We're still writing the scenarios, but a partial list would include early years in the Northeast, Southern & Midwest expansion, a reconstruction scenario after the American Civil War, and a few trans-Mississippi scenarios. Our map includes northern Mexico and southern Canada, and we are looking into scenarios focused on those areas. In the campaign, players can control the start and end years, number of players, etc. If time permits I'd love to do a few what-if scenarios where the Pacific Northwest is Canadian and the West Coast is Mexican. Borders matter in our game, and that would really change the way railroads expand and connect.

GT: What about multiplayer support? What are multiplayer games of Rails Across America like?

Paul: Multi-player games at Flying Lab tend to be very competitive, fast-building games. In the East, where the cities are close together, there is plenty of cargo but two of our artists are really aggressive and can make it feel like a knife fight. Our developers like to start out on the West Coast or Midwest where it's a little quieter and aim for the trans-continentals connection. And one guy starts off at his hometown of Raleigh for nostalgic reasons. We're using GameSpy for matchmaking, and support up to eight players. You can finish a 20-year game in about an hour, which means it is very reasonable to play a "pickup" game. Often the outcome is decided in the last game year, as players jockey for position and use influence to improve their own situation or undermine somebody above them. It's a lot of fun and everybody plays. We're pretty tough on new employees, though. No mercy! They go bankrupt a lot the first time.

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