Bus Simulator 27 | Ep. 1 – Death, War, Famine, Pestilence… and the Number 27 Bus

A brand-new series begins! For Monday Night Simulator Night, we climbed behind the wheel in Bus Simulator 27 and attempted to provide Felicia Bay with something resembling a reliable public transport service.

Bus simulators already have a history here. The last time we started one, the power went out across the village barely into the stream, so Mr Smith gifting me Bus Simulator 27 felt slightly like tempting fate. Death, War, Famine and Pestilence were bad enough, but none of them ever had to explain why the number 27 was twelve minutes late.

🚌 About the Game

Bus Simulator 27 puts us in charge of building a public transport company across the sunny region of Felicia Bay. We can drive officially licensed city buses, double-deckers, electric buses and, for the first time in the series, long-distance coaches while creating routes, managing timetables and expanding the business.

There are two cities and surrounding countryside to explore, along with traffic, passengers and changing weather to deal with. In theory, the aim is to build a professional transport network. Whether Final Trumpet will ever qualify as professional remains to be seen.

🗺️ Where We Are in the Journey

This is Episode 1, so everything began from scratch. We created Raven Mortis — rigor mortis combined with Dr Ravenholm — and discovered that the character creator did not offer much beyond a few basic options. We settled on a default character and naturally changed the hair to red.

The company was supposed to be called Final Trumpet Transportation, but the character limit had other ideas, so Final Trumpet was born. From there, most of the evening was spent working through the tutorial, buying our first buses, setting up the beginnings of the company and learning enough of the controls to be dangerous.

🔥 What Happens in This Episode

We began on the test track learning the basics: starting the bus, working through the slightly awkward control menus, getting the transmission into drive, releasing the parking brake and generally finding out which buttons did what. I had decided not to set the steering wheel up and used the controller instead, mostly because getting everything configured felt like far too much effort for a Monday night. The tutorial wanted smooth acceleration and gentle braking; I was already wondering how long it would take before we managed to break something.

Once the game moved us onto the city streets, we finally had passengers aboard and a little bit of Felicia Bay to explore. Naturally, I immediately got distracted. Instead of concentrating entirely on the route, I spotted some shops and got out of the bus to investigate the windows, displays and interiors while everyone patiently waited for their driver to remember that he had a job.

There was a little art display with paintings that deserved a proper look, along with some suspicious parallax effects behind the shop windows. A few of the interiors did not quite match what the outside suggested they should contain, including what looked like a takeaway that seemed to have forgotten to install a counter. There was even something that quickly became the “cat shop” once chat noticed it. This is exactly the sort of thing that will probably keep happening as more of the map opens up, because I would much rather stop and investigate a strange poster, painting or shop window than politely drive past it.

Eventually, the tutorial persuaded us to return to public transport. That introduced us to Camila, a city official who looked remarkably like a discount Kamala Harris. Once her name appeared on screen as Camila, just spelled slightly differently, the resemblance became even harder to ignore. There was also an NPC standing around in a slightly broken-looking position who ended up being compared to discount Jesus, so Felicia Bay was already developing quite a cast.

The game then started introducing more of the bus controls, including doors, kneeling and the wheelchair ramp. This became an ongoing exercise in pressing buttons, checking key bindings and discovering that some of the combinations I had carefully written down did absolutely nothing. Gary, who actually has real-world bus-driving experience, became one of chat’s unofficial technical advisers, while Mr Smith helped with some of the controls as well. That became particularly useful once the passengers started complaining because the bus was sitting at around 30°C and I had apparently forgotten that air conditioning existed.

After surviving the tutorial driving, we moved into the management side of the game. We bought several buses, including a double-decker, and hired some drivers — or “victims,” as they became known — before the game introduced route planning. This was the part I was much less interested in. I understand why we need to learn how to build routes, but I mostly wanted to get behind the wheel, pick passengers up and explore the city rather than spend half the night clicking bus stops on a map.

It did not help that the opening section of Felicia Bay is tiny. The available area feels like a little three-by-three grid, and some of the stops are close enough together that you start wondering why the passengers did not simply walk. I asked whether there was some sort of automatic route generator or a collection of default lines we could use, but there was not, so we eventually clicked together something vaguely route-shaped and got back onto the road.

That gave us our first proper services, complete with passengers, tickets, traffic and the game’s growing collection of fines. Running a red light could cost £1,000, collisions were capable of removing £5,000 at a time, and the game seemed perfectly happy to keep reminding me whenever my interpretation of professional bus driving differed from its own. We still carried passengers successfully, though, with one route finishing after transporting 66 people despite everything that had happened along the way.

Then we accidentally discovered what may be the most useful technique in the entire game. While sitting at a bus stop, I repeatedly pressed the door control because the doors were not behaving properly. Every press awarded a small amount of driving or stop-position experience. So naturally, I kept pressing it.

The notifications continued appearing, chat noticed what was happening, and Mr Smith confirmed that repeatedly opening and closing the doors at a stop could be used to farm driver XP. By the time I eventually checked my level, it had shot into the 50s. Apparently, you do not need to become a better bus driver when you can simply stand still and operate the doors until the game decides you are an expert.

This became particularly useful because the actual driving score was probably telling a very different story. We continued collecting fines and occasionally receiving collision penalties when I was fairly certain I had not hit anything. That defence became slightly less convincing after a much more obvious meeting with a truck. Chat pointed out that speeding, hitting curbs, scraping vehicles and generally ignoring traffic laws should all be damaging the score, but somehow Final Trumpet continued operating.

The late-stream highlight came when we bought an electric bendy bus. I wanted to try one partly because the only bendy bus route I really remember travelling on was between Gateshead and the MetroCentre back home in the Newcastle area. Gary remembered similar buses in Dublin, so for a brief moment this became a sensible discussion about public transport before we actually started driving the thing.

The bendy bus route was surprisingly smooth compared with some of our earlier efforts, although it still had its moments. Passengers managed to stand in inconvenient places and block the doors, the kneeling and ramp controls continued to require more thought than they probably should, and one passenger became annoying enough to be told to get off. Another repeatedly requested a stop and was eventually carried straight past it, leaving them with a walk back after I decided that stopping was apparently optional.

We also had a brief stream interruption around the time the bendy bus came to life. Twitch recovered and the stream continued, so at the time it looked like another small technical wobble. As it turned out, Bus Simulator had apparently remembered its old reputation for bringing on the apocalypse, but we would not discover the full extent of that until later.

The bendy bus itself saved its best moment for the journey back towards the depot. After taking a wrong turn near a level crossing and trying to recover, we came into a corner somewhat faster than was advisable. A large collision penalty followed, and the bus ended up embedded directly into a tree.

Not merely touching the tree. Embedded in it.

Branches were coming through the cockpit, the bus alarm was going off continuously and most of the controls were difficult to see because the local forestry had become part of the dashboard. We got out to inspect the damage and discovered that the bus was completely stuck. Forward did nothing. Reverse did nothing. We worked through brakes, doors, neutral and anything else that might convince several tonnes of public transport to stop being a permanent woodland feature.

Chat offered suggestions while Mr Smith supplied the inevitable “can’t park there, mate.” Eventually, there was nothing for it but to accept the death loop and reset the bus back onto the road. Somehow it remained driveable, so we continued up to the depot and finally put it away.

The strangest part was that, after all of the speeding, crashes, fines, overheating passengers, questionable routes and one bus becoming closely acquainted with a tree, Final Trumpet still appeared to have made roughly £70,000. The latest operating day had somehow even been slightly more profitable than the previous one. Several statistics looked rather less impressive, but the important number was positive, so clearly we had achieved a successful day in public transport.

We finished the evening with a little more wandering around and glitch hunting, including checking some suspicious reflections and noticing that Raven Mortis’s shadow did not seem entirely convinced it belonged to the same character. Then we wrapped up, with plenty of buses still waiting to be properly explored and a double-decker that will need more attention next time.

The following day, however, the apocalypse delivered one final surprise. When I checked the YouTube recording, the last 40 minutes were missing. The brief interruption when we started the bendy bus had apparently caused YouTube to stop receiving the stream even though Twitch came back online, which meant I had to export the missing ending from Twitch instead.

At the end of the night we raided into DashDucks, bringing the first outing for Final Trumpet to a close. Bus Simulator 27 will return on another simulator night, but before then I plan to spend a little time off stream unlocking more of Felicia Bay and setting up some proper routes. That way, next time we can spend less time staring at the route menu and more time doing what we came here for: driving buses, exploring the world and finding out what else can possibly go wrong.

🎬 Watch the Episode

You can see the complete beginning of Final Trumpet for yourself, including the route problems, XP farming, bendy bus and the tree that briefly became part of the cockpit.

Watch Bus Simulator 27 Episode 1

You can also continue through the Bus Simulator 27 playlist and visit the Dr Ravenholm YouTube channel. If you enjoy the episode, leave a like, let me know what you thought in the comments and subscribe for the next simulator night.

🔴 Join the Adventure Live

A large part of these streams is chat trying to help me work out the controls while also watching me immediately create a completely different problem. If that sounds like your sort of evening, come and join us live on Twitch or YouTube.

You can be there for the next route, the next distraction and whatever eventually replaces the bendy bus in the nearest tree.

🌐 Community & Links

The buses may return to the depot at the end of the night, but the community carries on between streams. Here is where you can find the rest of us.

Live — Catch the next simulator night as it happens:
Twitch | YouTube

Community — Join the conversation between streams:
Discord

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TikTok | Bluesky | Instagram | Facebook | Threads | X

Music — You can also find my music here:
Spotify | Apple Music

Support — If you want to support the channel beyond watching:
Fourthwall | Teespring | Streamlabs

More — For the other projects, services and writing beyond the streams:
Business Centre | Download the Brochure | About Me | Blog

🌳 The Bus That Became Part of a Tree

For a first night, Final Trumpet actually achieved quite a lot. We created the company, bought our first buses, completed routes, discovered an XP exploit, somehow made money and proved that a bendy bus can become extremely attached to the scenery.

Next time I want more of Felicia Bay unlocked and the route setup already dealt with, so we can spend more of the stream actually driving and exploring. Whether that produces a more professional service is another question entirely.

— Dr Ravenholm