I’m not sure I’ll ever warm to Hmmsim Metro’s deserted platforms and ugly PSDs, but it only took me an hour or two of virtual EMU operation to get over my dislike of this Korean train sim’s pedantic stopping rules, and quick-to-intervene automatic train protection systems.
Because Jeminie Interactive’s prototype is Seoul Subway’s Line 1, all thirty of the stations in the current Early Access build, feature platform screen doors. While there are doubtless sound safety and efficiency reasons for separating waiting passengers from track and trains with platform-length glass barriers, these unprepossessing partitions play merry hell with station aesthetics and atmosphere.
They also afford drivers – real and armchair – very little room for error when stopping. Any railwayman that fails to halt the nose of their EMU in the specified metre-long stop zone must correct their position in order to persuade the automatic doors to open. Fortunately, helpful LED screens make corrections fairly straightforward, and reversing after a short station over-run is perfectly acceptable in Hmmsim. Presumably – as the sim prides itself on realism – such manoeuvres are permissible on the real 수도권 전철too.
Interactive tutorials are not provided, but a help screen succinctly explains everything from starting and stopping, to understanding signals, navigating ‘dead sections’, and preventing and dealing with ATP brake applications.
For the first hour or two, my runs were regularly interrupted by unsolicited emergency brake applications, and moments of ‘Why aren’t I moving?’ bafflement. Now, happily, they are largely confusion and misdemeanour free. I’m starting to get braver with the throttle, and, consequently, am able to spend more time appreciating the game’s busy railscapes and excellent BVE-reminiscent physics and audio.
For obvious reasons Line 1’s lengthy overground section is more interesting to drive than the underground bit. What the sim lacks in fetching rural vistas, it more than makes up for in complicated trackwork and catenary, striking high-rises, and unusually dense and diverse AI rail traffic.
Several EMU types, a 43km line, and a timetable mode teeming with customisable services, means Hmmsim has far more to offer than the Early Access Prague metro sim that hit Steam recently. Does it possess sufficient variety and charm to supplant my current rail sim of choice? Probably not.