Empire TV Tycoon

Empire TV Tycoon

I’ve been looking for a modern version of Mad TV for a long time, so I was quite excited when I stumbled upon Empire TV Tycoon on Steam. I had a lot of fun with it, but there were also some frustrating moments which I will explain in a moment.

How do the game mechanics compare to Mad TV?

The similarities are immediately apparent when looking at the interface. You are a tiny person using an elevator to navigate through a high building which houses your offices, film studios, a movie library, an advertising agency and so on. There are two AI opponents with their own channels.

Real player with 48.3 hrs in game


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Empire TV Tycoon is an easy to learn fun simulation where you run a tv channel.

As you increase viewership and make those important decisions on what to play and what ads to show, you can climb the ranks from a simple local channel to the world of satellite broadcasting.

Part of the game is programming your day’s viewing - which sounds more tedious or daunting than it actually is.

You will recognise some movie titles, and the spoofs of well-known award shows and film festivals. This adds to the immersive side of Empire, and it can be quite fun (if not diabolical) to plan a day’s tv viewing based on your favourite films… or least favourites…

Real player with 21.8 hrs in game

Empire TV Tycoon on Steam

Restaurant Empire II

Restaurant Empire II

I’ve played Restaurant Empire II off and on over many years (counting that the first game is included in II). When buying REII you get the full original RE game included.

The graphics are basic, the AI of customers and staff very limited, and the interface clunky in that you have to do a lot manually and one by one - for example you have to add recipes individually to the restaurant menu. But. I find it strangely compelling to try to get my chef up to 100% skill levels in as many recipes as possible, moving him between cuisines to round off his skills.

Real player with 238.5 hrs in game


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As a fan of the first Restaurant Empire game, at first I was disappointed with this one. A lot of the animations are the same, and this game adds coffee and dessert shops, so you have customers eating sandwiches and cookeis with forks and knives. Also, all the customers are talking on cell phones and using laptops now, which is annoying when you’re waiting for a chance to click on them. I actually quit the game for a long time because of these irritations.

However, I recently came back to it and I’m glad I did. It’s a lot of fun as a strategy game, and still fun just to tinker around with the restaurants and watch the chefs cook. The first game lacked female chefs, aside from Delia, but this time there are plenty of them, and that’s a welcome change too. The game isn’t very difficult, but it has some challenge to it, and it’s hard to find challenging strategy games these days.

Real player with 107.9 hrs in game

Restaurant Empire II on Steam

Blockchain Tycoon

Blockchain Tycoon

The 8 career campaigns teaches you how to play then there are 10 scenario , 10 challenges and sandbox mode, the game dose not provide you with popup tips you have to use your brain it is not hard to figure out the campaign is the tutorial, this is not a supper complex game have a little patience, i’m saying this because the achievement for completing the campaign says only 0.8% have this i don’t know how accurate it is. One level was annoying just because i had to wait for the worker to complete creating a new coin and it takes a while. I guess it takes about 5hr to complete the campaign i’m not sure tho i fell asleep at about 5:30am so my actual playtime is different from shown.

Real player with 70.5 hrs in game


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After several months of silence and no update to fix any bugs or issues, I am changing my recommendation. It seems to be dead.

This is a good game with GREAT potential! I liked playing it, and of course there were bugs and things that could be improved. One thing is a more realistic market in the exchange. It always seemed to me that the market was mostly stagnant with very little real price fluctuation. By that I mean that if you looked at the price over a year, it would be flat for every coin and token. It may fluctuate on a day to day basis, but no real growth. The other thing that could be improved is the token creation. In the game when you create a coin, it says you also create a blockchain, so why can’t you use your own for the creation of a token. I think it would be cool if you added the ability to add offices and more mining warehouses so you could also add a research tree. That would enable the ability to create hard forks, ability to implement cross platform support, add smart contracts, NFTs, etc. You could also add in researching the hosting of an exchange or NFT gallery. There is a lot that could be done on this front, and it could all affect different attributes of the coin and price, as well as the price of other coins potentially, if interoperability and forks are added. All of that having some sort of correlation with the price of your coin and token and how many other developers want to “support” your blockchain. Also, for some odd reason, any time I created a token, not matter what I did, I could only get tokens during my ICO to be between 30-50 and I couldn’t figure out why. I mostly stuck to creating coins because of this. Also, there needs to be somewhere that explains what different things do. For example, when you are creating a token, what are the differences between utility, security, payment, etc., and how do they affect the token? Speaking of that, when you do create a token, if you forgot which kind you chose, there’s no way of telling. It makes me think that maybe it doesn’t do anything at all. But, besides that, I never could get more than 30-50. One of my biggest irritations was that you weren’t actually managing a company. You didn’t name it or anything. There was no way to compare yourself with your competitors. There was a competitors section, but there was no info about you to compare to them there, and the information about them was very vague. It needs to be reworked entirely, along with some reworking of the economic system. It is very basic. It would be nice to have random events that affect the crypto market so there are real dips and surges. Also, it would be nice to actually benefit other operations when you invest. I would invest 10’s of millions, and it would say that their total investment would be a few mil. So there wouldn’t really be an affect on them. So I then have all these coins and it seems their companies have gone belly up or something because they never go to market. Those are just a few examples of how it is a basic economic system. Anyway, I really hope the developers keep working on this game and bring out some updated to address these things. It would make that mixed review rating look a little more positive. :) And why not take advantage of the crypto craze? lol

Real player with 49.3 hrs in game

Blockchain Tycoon on Steam

Signals

Signals

This is the game for Vibing!

Its super chill and the perfect for winding down.

The music really sets the mood of the game and the next thing you know you know, you’ve lost track of time and its time for bed. The controls are intuitive and the shortcuts become muscle memory, navigation works well and the UI is clean.

First play I sat there and completed the campaign mode and am now ready for getting those achievements in “Run mode”. Campaign helped to learn how the economy works and gave some backstory to the “signals”.

Real player with 10.8 hrs in game

I really wanted to like this game. I don’t like combat games, or games that test hand-eye coordination. This has a lot to like for somebody like me. The problem is the interface. There’s no decent help. I passed challenge #1, but couldn’t pass challenge #2. So I tried the run mode. There are three icons at the top of the bottom bar. I can’t repair the portal until I have all three resources, and I can’t even figure out what the third resource is. Whatever I do, it stays at zero. It might be titanium, but I’ve three three runs and checked every planet and I can’t find any with titanium. And I can’t find a way to get advice. So I’m done.

Real player with 9.0 hrs in game

Signals on Steam

Bakery Biz Tycoon

Bakery Biz Tycoon

If you like tycoons, I recommend it, the game is more complex and fun than at the beginning

Real player with 10.4 hrs in game

Retested after several months (Juli 2020):

This game still has bugs, this game still is not an example of a feature-rich tycoon game, by far not. It has still some way to go, before it is recommandable, but it is not that bad today, as it was last year. There were real improvements, new features, better tutorials, and a bit better math.

But all in all, there is at least some kind of game inside this product now. You can fiddle around with the different menus and most of them do what they tell they do. So this is a reason, that brings me to the point, that I will change my review. I do see a chance, that this will become a real game, if the Devs invests a bit more time. It will not become a “great game”, but at least something where a player can have some interaction and maybe a little fun with for a short period

Real player with 5.8 hrs in game

Bakery Biz Tycoon on Steam

City Game Studio: a tycoon about game dev

City Game Studio: a tycoon about game dev

City Game Studio

I joined the open beta for City Game Studio a little while ago. Ever since I have seen it grow substantially. The game has been improved so much in a short amount of time and I can only see it getting better and better from here on out. The developer is very active and takes all the feedback and criticism he gets very seriously. Many of my own suggestions have already made it into the game and whenever an issue arises he is quick to fix it.

The game takes place in a city where you can rent, buy and even build your own studios and exhibitor centers. When your company is doing good you obviously want to expand and get even larger teams working on even bigger titles. The result of that can be very satisfying.

Real player with 198.3 hrs in game

Overview

First off, on advice from this author’s attorney Frankie “Fine Print” Lymann, copycat games are not a crime. (See Data East USA v. Epyx for proof that copycats do not constitute copyright infringement.) Remember Game Dev Tycoon? Take the awesomeness of the aforementioned game, add interior decorating, an outside world where buildings can be rented, bought, and even constructed, and then add in some nice new ideas (along with a bad idea) and you have City Game Studio. In case the reader doesn’t know, the game is a management sim in which the player starts a game company starting in the year of the player’s choosing, and goes from rags to riches through developing and publishing video games.

Real player with 43.6 hrs in game

City Game Studio: a tycoon about game dev on Steam

Comic Company Manager

Comic Company Manager

At the time being you can only hire employees to “create comics,” just to guess what the sliders mean from reviews trying to find a sweet spot.

It works. It’s just barebones.

Edit: But lots of updates.

Real player with 1.8 hrs in game

Old Review is down below.

Patch 1 update does fix some things, it makes the experience a little more challenging and I like that there’s some bugs that have been fixed. However, I still have gripes with the rating system, as I will get a low score and a positive comment now as compared to the old patch where it was the opposite of said issue. The main thing this game really needs is more features, you can only get so far only being able to write comics and just view how they are doing. Still, I think this patch was a step in the right direction and can only see it getting better as substandardshrimp continues developing it. I’m still going with thumbs down for right now as it is still a mostly featureless game, keep updating though! I would love to see this blossom into a wonderful game.

Real player with 0.8 hrs in game

Comic Company Manager on Steam

Economica

Economica

Wow. So this game is incomplete however it has long way to go for greatness. The Dev needs keep working on it. I am sure though eventually this game will be great.

Real player with 0.1 hrs in game

Economica on Steam

Game Corp DX

Game Corp DX

Load of hours with fun for very cheap price.

Probably one of the best or maybe the best Economy-Management Game Dev Simulation ever so far. I used to play Game Dev Tycoon few months ago, it was the last good game dev simulation game.

After few months Game Corp DX came out. It was in early acces, I stayed away cuz of bugs and some negative reviews. Just added it to my wishlist and got it on my birthday as a gift. LOL, I am lucky cause this game is totally awesome.

There is three difficulty mode ; Hard, Normal and Easy. Easy is really easy. You can learn the game basics as like as it’s a tutorial. Then you can play normal or hard without getting bored easily.

Real player with 12.3 hrs in game

I have a fondness for game dev sims, but I didn’t have high expectations for Game Corp Dx. After all, how good could a $2.99 Early Access title be? When I started playing I was pleasantly surprised by it. Rather than a short simplistic game, there appears to be real depth to this title. There’s enough going on this game that I’ve decided to just write the bulk of this review in + and - list form.

Game Corp Dx features;

  • Simple and intuitive graphical interface. There aren’t dozens of menus to navigate here, and it’s pretty easy to figure out how to use the ones that are.

Real player with 12.3 hrs in game

Game Corp DX on Steam

Hotel Magnate

Hotel Magnate

Overall, the outlook for this game looks promising. I’ve enjoyed playing the game so far despite the bugs, and am looking forward to them adding the ability to create multi-level hotels. This is an “Early Access” game that is over a year out from its late 2022 release date (mentioned in the Early Access details), so there is a lot of missing, unexplained, and bugged functionality. A couple of examples of the game’s state, as of October 7th:

There is no unlimited money mode/cheat, so designing a hotel has to be done entirely through regular gameplay.

Real player with 210.6 hrs in game

I completed this game in 3 hours, and could’ve done it quicker if i didnt chill out.

Good bits:

  • Customisation is good, nearly everything in game can be customised in some way.

  • Decent size land plot to build your hotel on.

  • Easy to learn how things work in game with staff, customers and getting star ratings etc.

Bad bits (and the reason why i’ve requested a refund):

  • The video advert of the game must be on full release and not early access, as currently you cannot have multiple floors and multiple maps, its just one map (in the woods) and its a ground floor hotel only, a MAJOR advertisement con if you ask me.

Real player with 14.3 hrs in game

Hotel Magnate on Steam