You never touch a wagon. You only ever set the levers before it gets there.
Switchback is a night rail-yard arcade built around one rule: colored wagons roll down a fixed
trunk on their own, at a steady pace, and the only input is flipping three levers — two junction
switches and a Vent guarding a hazard siding. A lever's state only matters at the exact instant a
wagon crosses that junction: whatever it reads then locks in for that wagon forever, even if you
flip it back a second later. There's no correcting a wagon once it's already committed — only
reading the queue and getting ahead of it.
Amber, teal, and violet wagons each belong at their own matching silo. Deliver the right color to
the right silo and you score; get it wrong and it costs a life. A rogue Surge is worse — shunt it
down the Vent siding before it ever reaches the first junction, or it will eventually roll into a
real silo and cost a life there too, same as a misrouted wagon. Power orbs ride the trunk like
everything else and apply the moment they reach any silo: a slower flow for more reaction time, a
wider commit-window margin, double coins, or a buffer charge that absorbs one bad delivery of any
kind. Chain deliveries into a streak for a growing score multiplier, and every tenth one triggers a
bright burst at the hub. Spend coins on permanent upgrades: a slower rail, a wider margin, starting
buffer charges, longer power-ups, or an extra line.
Three yard presets (Slow Yard, Steady Yard, Rush Hour) tune wagon speed, spawn interval, and how
often a Surge shows up. Rendered in a flat dark rail-yard lit only by a glowing copper trunk and
three vivid signal-lamp colors — bright, saturated, and never gradient-washed. Browse every
destination from a branching route map on the main menu, the same junction shape the game itself
is built on. No ads, no timers, no energy system. Just three levers, a queue, and however far
ahead you can plan.

Vertex Thalmann

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