Rift Runners

A train management sim where you command your crew to survive relentless onslaught of vicious enemies.

A submission for Brackeys Game Jam 2026.1

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Gameplay

You start your game in one of the five diverse worlds, trying to traverse through all of them by giving out orders to your crew. You can command your crew to do different tasks to ensure your survival. Balance train speed, shield recharge and fixing of the train to get to the end!

Controls

Select a crew member/turret	Left mouse click
Assign crew member a task	Right mouse click
ESC	Pause

Use left mouse click to choose a crew member. Use right click to assign them to a specific task (tasks listed and illustrated below). You can also left click the turrets to enter manual controls, boosting its rate of fire (mind the bullets though!)

Supply ammo

Your turrets are your only way to keep attackers at bay. However, they do need bullets to shoot! Assign someone to replenish it from the ammo boxes if you are running dry.

Working the engine

Your warp engine needs constant supervision, without it the train starts losing speed and your enemies will have easier time keeping up with you. Don't overwork it though - after reaching 1500 speed, there is a chance of overheating and a fire can erupt.

Put out fire and repairs

If your train is burning or damaged, do not fret! You can extinguish fires by assigning a crew member to deal with it, or send someone to the head of the train to fix the hull. 

 

Restore shield

And last but not least - your shield generator. While it works by itself, assigning a worker allows active shield to recharge (without worker it will only regenerate after breaking!).

Credits: 

Ivan "Ivenar" Kretchetov - code/engine

Ivan "ImaginarySoldier" Kazakov - code/engine

Anna "Mor" Rudyko - Art (backgrounds, enemies, projectiles)

Alexander "Teslion" Chernyshev - Pixel Art (character models, tilesets, weapons)

Context: 

This game was created for Brackeys Game Jam 2026.1. This is our first time participating in a Game Jam and while it was certainly not an easy task, it was still a blast! We will be happy to see what you think about our little project, so leave a comment!