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OP here. I feel in the last years we're having a resurgence of management/simulation games. Just like Will Wright did his own SimCities, SimFarms, SimLifes, e
by Vaskivo 11y ago
OP here.
I feel in the last years we're having a resurgence of management/simulation games.
Just like Will Wright did his own SimCities, SimFarms, SimLifes, etc., new developers are returning to these themes.
We need more of these freeform interactive management sandboxes. We have Prision Architect. Rollercoaster Tycoon is coming back. Bring back Theme hospital and the histrical city-builder! Let's open our arms for new management games in new unconventional contexts. (Boon Hill is a graveyard simulator. How cool is that?)
- Udo 11y ago> We need more of these freeform interactive management sandboxes. If you haven't checked it out yet: Rimworld. You manage a group of people who crashed their spaceship on a planet, and they found a colony. The game has a storyteller AI that tries to make your struggle for survival interesting and entertaining. I love(d) it.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago> Bring back Theme hospital Well, there's this new Big Pharma simulator on Steam :).
- elthran 11y agoBig pharma is well made, and definitely fun, but it's completely different to Theme Hospital - BP is completely lacking in the humour that made TH what it was.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoThanks for the opinion. It was a bit pricey last time I checked it out, and I wasn't sure if it's good. I'll reconsider buying it :).
- detaro 11y agoBig Pharma is way more of a puzzle game. Very fun, but different mix of genres.
- douche 11y agoGame Dev Tycoon is one of my favorites (http://www.greenheartgames.com/app/game-dev-tycoon/ http://www.greenheartgames.com/app/game-dev-tycoon/) Kerbal Space Program also fits into this trend. It's a little interesting that this is pretty much all indie Steam games - the AAA publishers haven't pivoted to start chasing this demographic again yet.
- speeder 11y agoExcept for EA (that bought Maxis) Sim games were never big on AAA market. For example Roller Coaster Tycoon was created by a single guy, that made the game in Assembly (yes, almost 100% of RCT1 is ASM), he ended getting "publishers" in the sense they sold the game for him, but the game is still his.
- gedrap 11y agoGame Corp DX is equally enjoyable (I played both of them), worth checking out http://store.steampowered.com/app/399670/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/399670/ I maybe like Game Corp DX a bit more as it gives more freedom. Simple things like the office layout etc, but it's a nice addition.
- GlennS 11y agoYou might enjoy http://maiagame.com/ http://maiagame.com/
- a_bonobo 11y agoThere's an open source Theme Hospital implementation written in Lua:https://github.com/CorsixTH https://github.com/CorsixTH Doesn't look 100% stable, beta 0.5, you'll still need the game files from the CD
- tinfoilman 11y agoI been looking at this for years just so I can finally finish the game as the copy I have has the last level bug where you cannot keep the doctors happy and they all leave. That being said I think I been watching it for 10 years :/
- ionised 11y agoI'm playing through the game again using this. It's still in beta but I haven't run into any issues. I'm currently on level 7 I remember right.
- vacri 11y agoPlease, no more city builders - they're all clones of each other. Oddly, they all have strange ideas about budgets. Want to build a hospital? That's $5k. Even for a hundred years ago, that's laughably small...
- dsmithatx 11y agoWell I have to say that, while arguably unrealistic, I'm addicted to Cities:Skylines. Been playing for two months and it brings back the days of the original SC. The later SC titles really went down hill IMO. It's been great fun having a well made one after all these years. Even if it is mostly a rip-off of SC and not truly realistic. Honestly though I don't care if hospital prices are accurate only how fun the game is to play. One of the first games on Steam I've gotten my money's worth in a very long time.
- tinfoilman 11y agoI am really impressed with the Cities:Skyline dev team. They have done 2 IamA on reddit (most recent - https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3ly7ib/we_are_the_team_behind_cities_skylines_getting/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3ly7ib/we_are_the_tea...) I hope we moving in to a time where Dev teams are interacting with their players instead of lunching a game and just moving on. I really want to go back to smaller super star studios
- dagw 11y agoI've often considered creating a realistic city building game. Where instead of just clicking to build a bridge or a hospital, you click where you would kind of like to have a bridge or hospital, then wait 1-15 years, pay 1.5-15x the initial price estimate, have a X% chance of the project being canceled on you and a Y% chance that the bridge or hospital shows up in a completely different place with completely different specifications.
- mikk14 11y agoMan, I instead always wished for a non-American centric realistic city building game. Where you start not from 1800-something, but from 0 AD or earlier. As eras go by you get new buildings and requirements (reinvent your roads for cars, dismantle & re-purpose buildings, etc), plus some disasters and events change (in old eras you get raided by foreign armies, ...). In the end, you get a meld of old and new architecture and a truly alive city.
- empath75 11y agoSeems to me that Prison Architect is closer to Dwarf Fortress than those games.
- freebs 11y agoI remember getting hooked on DinoPark Tycoon as a kid :D
- jameshart 11y agoPart of the impetus for that is also the existence of Dwarf Fortress, showing how deep a simulation like this can go. While nobody else goes to the depth DF does, it is a rich source for game mechanics that can form the basis of other game ideas. Planetbase is a good example in this style, of a simcity-like experience with much simplified, DF-style inhabitants.