(upbeat music)
Oh, yes, the very distinctive sight, sound,
and even smell of the Bakerloo line,
the oldest tube rolling stock on the London Underground.
If you've ever wondered what it's like to drive one,
well, now you can, courtesy of Train World Simulator 2,
and I'm off to get a big train from Waterloo
and Waterloo East to head down to Chatham
to meet the makers of the game at Dovetail Games.
So I've come to Chatham, to the Old Dockyard,
which is where they're based in this splendid building.
In there, Dovetail Games,
gonna have a go at the game
and chat to one of their producers.
Released earlier this year, Train Sim World 2
lets you take control of a variety of trains,
but we're here to focus on the Bakerloo line
on the underground.
You can sit in the cab with realistic controls,
take control and drive it,
as well as also experience the outside world
on platforms and stations.
It's an incredibly detailed, immersive experience,
and in between playing it on the PlayStation version
that they've got set up in their offices,
I asked Matt, a producer, how it all began.
So Train Simulator started about 10 years ago,
as you say, and built up a really interesting product
about driving trains, and grew a huge fan base.
And it's still going, it's still being developed,
and we've just put the latest version of that out this year.
So Train Sim World 2 has just come out this summer,
and it got my attention.
My Twitter went into meltdown 'cause people are like,
"Geoff, they've added the Bakerloo line, you must play it."
And then we got in touch and we started chatting.
And so my obvious question is,
is why the Bakerloo line, out of all 11 tube lines?
So we spent a long time
looking at all the different tube lines.
There was a lot of people were contacting us saying,
"You need to do Tube.
You need to do the London Underground."
And so we thought, "Okay, we need to listen to this
and actually go and have a look."
So we spent a bunch of time looking at all the lines,
analysing what would be easy to make in the game,
what would be very difficult to make in the game,
what makes a good experience,
because some lines are automatic or semi-automatic
and some are still manually driven.
Some have got a much more modern signalling system.
Some of them have got a very conventional signalling system.
So it's weighing all the pros and cons,
the length, how many stations,
all the things that make things difficult to make.
And the Bakerloo line and the Piccadilly line
were the two we ended up on
being our favourites that we were gonna make.
And ultimately, the decision was the Piccadilly line
felt like a more manageable project for us to do it first,
so that we can see,
well, we've never done an underground line before.
There are things that we might come across,
I mean, we most certainly will, and did,
that will make it difficult,
so let's pick a reasonable-sized project.
And I'm really glad we picked Bakerloo line.
So put it in off and release.
I mean, you generally wanna enter the station
with no power applied so that you're easy to apply.
And then how do I know when to brake?
And then it's judging.
We put a colour bar on there
to give you a clear idea of how far,
because these trains actually brake really well.
So put it back into off and release again and just coast.
Oh, no, I broke too soon!
(Geoff laughs)
My initial thought when playing it
is this is incredibly detailed.
Piccadilly Circus looks like Piccadilly Circus.
The sound of the doors closing
and the train whistle are the exact sounds.
So did you create those from scratch
or did you go and take pictures?
Did you do site visits or did you talk to TFL?
How did you make it so amazingly accurate?
So we use a combination of techniques
for every route we do, and it's no different here.
We were able to work closely with TFL,
who granted us access to go down to all the platforms
and take lots of photographs.
We took photographs of the trains.
We were able to do some recordings from the trains,
but we weren't able to do a full recording set up,
just because of practicalities.
So the beeps and things like that of the doors and so forth,
we were able to get some good recordings from those.
There's also, it's the London Underground,
it's very heavily documented online,
so there's a lot of reference material online.
There's a lot of cab ride videos
which are really useful to look at as well.
So we referenced those on YouTube and on DVD.
So we found anything and everything,
which is what we do for every project
is we go hunting for everything we can find,
and then we go and see what we can get ourselves.
And then we find, we just try and work out,
and we usually can find anything and everything that we need
in one way, shape or form.
So I've ended Waterloo and off and release.
And I'm gonna give it a bit of brake now.
Where's my speed?
Okay, too much.
(train screeches)
Oh, too much, far too much.
Oh, I've got the wrong way.
(Geoff and Matt laughs)
It takes practise.
No, I was going up instead of down and I'm not opening.
I did the wrong...
Now, it's out there in the world.
It's been out there for a couple of months.
I know you have a couple of, are you allowed to say this?
You have a couple of tube drivers
that are actually on your beta programme,
but do you get feedback?
Do you have tube drivers get in touch saying,
"Yeah, this is really real."
Or are they critical, they go, "Oh, you got that wrong."
Yes.
And it's all really good feedback.
I mean, when we've worked with...
We were always looking at trying to bring in people
onto our beta programme,
which is not just a beta programme,
they help us really right from the very beginning
of projects as well,
to understand what are the nuances
that they appreciate when they're driving,
what are the things that they see,
the things that are not obvious
to someone who doesn't drive on the route.
But then you have that brilliant moment
on the Bakerloo line where it comes out into the daylight
at Queen's Park and you've got the carriage sheds there,
East Coast Main Line, and then, wonderfully,
I mean, that's what I like about the Bakerloo line,
you've got the underground bit,
but then there's the outside bit as well.
And the outside is just as detailed as the tunnel
and the station sections, right?
Yeah, I mean,
Queen's Park is a really interesting station,
just because it's the busiest point on the line,
because every train will go to Queens Park.
Whether it even if some will go onto Stonebridge,
some will go onto Harrow,
but every train goes to Queens Park
which means it's the busiest point on the route.
And it's really fascinating just to
'cause in Train Sim World
you can get off the train and just stand and watch.
Passengers are reminded
that smoking is prohibited on all stations.
In timetable mode they'll just do what trains normally do.
So some of the trains will go through,
some of them will go into the carriage sidings, stop
and come back out later on
and go back down into the tunnels again.
So yeah, there's so much there to look at.
Have you been out onto the Bakerloo line
in London since the game has come out?
'Cause I'm also imagining a world
where you could take your laptop and you could sit on
a Bakerloo line train playing the game
whilst travelling on a Bakerloo line train.
It's not something I've done.
However, not on the Bakerloo line,
I do hear of a story of someone
who was playing Train Simulator
on a West Coast mainline train
and they were driving on their laptop, the same train
doing the same journey that they were actually on
in real life.
And the little lady that was sitting next to him
at the time was really concerned
that he wasn't sitting at the front,
"Shouldn't you be in the front," was her exact words.
Is that a true story?
That's a true story.
(Geoff and Matt laughs)
It's just so you had to explain
"No, this is a game."
And if you apply the breaks now, there you go.
Perfect.
Almost spot on actually.
The squeal of the brakes.
It's so real.
The audio team do a really good job of capturing that.
So if you use the right deep pad.
And so, press right.
Doors open. That'll open the doors.
If you don't press, actually click the right stick.
Click the right stick.
Yeah, click it in. Okay.
Yeah, and then you can use
the right stick to move around.
Oh, okay, you can then-
You can actually see what's going on.
I think a lot of people don't realise how many hours work
go into it.
You have a team here of what, over 100 people working on?
You have more than one Dovetail make, not just this game.
How many people are working on Train SIM World?
Actually the development studio itself is probably
in the order of 50, 60 people something like that
across all of our vehicle teams, the environment teams
and so forth.
So I've been fortunate enough to actually go to
some train depots where they have
their multimillion pound simulators.
Is this how close is it to that?
Is it insulting to say it's just a computer game,
or is it actually so near what it's like
that it is almost you could train yourself to drive one
using your game.
So we pitched the game as a game, just to be really clear.
We pitched this.
We only actually we build this to be as a video game,
but actually there's a lot of detail accuracy
going on inside,
which is way beyond what a normal video game would do.
So we developed a new tech for Unreal called Simugraph
which enables us to simulate propulsion
and breaking physics.
The go stop physics as I call it.
You end up with an engineering-style diagram,
which has got valves
and pipes and all sorts of connecting rods in there.
And so essentially, you wire all of these hydraulics
and mechanical things together and then it can work out,
this engine is turning at this much speed
with this much torque
that's driving this particular connecting system.
So when you're driving the train, moving the throttle,
it's doing the accurate thing underneath in the simulation.
When you apply the brakes,
we're trying to simulate exactly what's going on
with the brakes,
even down to when you apply brakes on a train
there's a time that it takes for air
to change air pressure down the length of the train
which affects how the train brakes
and how it releases brakes and so forth.
So we simulate all of that stuff.
'Cause right will give you the cab light
on the other side of the cab.
So it doesn't give you two harsh light on this side.
Oh, so you can see a bit of what's going on
inside the cab. You can see better.
Even the cab will remain visible
then when you're in the tunnel.
So some people prefer to drive with the cab on,
even though in reality you wouldn't,
because you'd get all the glare in the windows.
I think I would, I would.
Tube drivers that are watching,
do you drive with the cab light on or not?
We should find out.
Okay, so that was Waterloo, Charing Cross next?
No Embankment.
It's embankment, it tells you on the top left.
Let's do one more.
And you say that so simply like someone
we simulate all that, but that's somebody's job here.
They've sat and they've written code behind it.
It's a bit like "The Matrix", isn't it?
Where got the movie.
It's where they've written code about how real life works.
That's what they've done.
That's exactly it, and it's-
I've just likened your game to "The Matrix".
Is that okay?
(Geoff and Matt laughs)
Really, I mean there's 2 or 3 people in the company
that have really got to grips with how to recreate these
absolutely in detail recreations
of the inner workings of train,
the thing that nobody spends any time
understanding with trains,
because the information's really difficult to get.
And even if you can get it
it's usually these obtuse really weird diagrams
that actually make no sense
unless you happen to be in that field anyway.
So Embankment approaching.
Cut your power.
One more, that's it.
Coming in at 30 miles and hour, that's quite harsh.
(train screeches)
Oh, no, maybe. Too much.
Too much.
I did do too much, didn't I?
Oh!
(Geoff laughs)
The great thing about the Bakerloo line people love it.
It's got the oldest rolling stock on the underground,
but of course, the actual oldest stock
is the 1938 underground stock that runs on
the Isle of Wight.
And I believe you can tell us something pertinent
about the Isle of Wight, can you not?
Yeah, so one of our third-party developers, Rivet Games
is going to be releasing the Isle of Wight
for Train SIM World, and it looks great,
they're just driving the 1938 stock.
It's another underground train experience
albeit you're not gonna be actually underground,
but it's driving that old classic underground stock.
It's just, it's great.
We can stop there.
That's fine.
That's it, we're good, we're good.
My time here at Dovetail is gone.
Matt, thank you so much.
Give the internet wave.
As a little teaser he's got up on screen
the Isle of Wight.
So this is out.
This should be out today that my video is out today.
We'll leave it with a shot, that's a class 483,
the old 38 stock
but it's a Network Southeast Delivery.
Yes, absolutely, on the Isle of Wight.
Can you do a shot of it driving away?
And we'll have that as our closing shot.
(upbeat music)
(train swooshes)