RollerCoaster Tycoon®: Deluxe
RCT Deluxe is one of those rare old gems that, no matter how much people try, has yet to have a spiritual successor fully recapture its essence or innovate in a meaningful way, and the reason for that is in the game’s fundamentally brilliant design: it’s a concise, well-balanced blend of extreme customization and structural rigidity, two seemingly-conflicting ideals that are perfectly intertwined. Coaster design, park layouts, scenery, and other aspects offer near-infinite variety, but the isometric view and deceptively simple and intuitive grid system offers a very acute precision to coaster refinement that allows a player to master the art of designing and redesigning coasters.
– Real player with 377.0 hrs in game
Read More: Best Simulation Classic Games.
Where to begin? RollerCoaster Tycoon is arguably the best tycoon game of all time. The game’s development was mostly credited to only one man (Chris Sawyer), and was released in 1999. There were four games that defined my childhood. The Sims, Age of Empires II, Dungeon Keeper 2, and this.
RollerCoaster Tycoon truly gives you the power to make exactly the kind of amusement park you want to build. Even in the scenarios, it largely feels like a free building game; the game does not ask you to do anything you don’t want to do. For example, instead of asking you to build a park based on nothing but rollercoasters like some games might have implemented, Rollercoaster Tycoon simply plops you down on a plot of land and basically says, “Get this many guests and have a good park rating in three years. Have fun and buh-bye!” This game should be truly applauded for being a tycoon game that is not only great fun, but never turns into a chore by forcing you into situations where you feel you’re only doing something to beat a level. It gives you an end goal, and it’s up to you, the player, to decide exactly how you’ll get there.
– Real player with 125.4 hrs in game
Game Dev Tycoon
Game Dev Tycoon is one of those games that may look sort of boring from an outside perspective (Unless you decide to be a complete memelord on a Let’s Play or Livestream) but playing the game is a really satisfying and simple affair that is both equal parts trial and error, and also thought as to what does well.
You’ll need to think about what focus you put on each game, trying to think about what sort of aspect works well for what game, for the topic and genre it is. You do it right, and you get the satisfaction of watching those money and fan counters go up. But it’s not completely up to you to figure it out, as you play and as you create game reports in game, Game Dev Tycoon will keep notes on what works and what hasn’t worked meaning if you have the capital to try again, you can at least make another attempt at it.
– Real player with 70.0 hrs in game
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Fun for a good while. The actual system for designing games seems frustratingly inaccurate and arbitrary at times, mostly the “how much effort should we focus on area X and area Y of making the game”, but it does have a lot of fun moments in spite of that. If the devs were still working on it, a lot of these issues could likely be fixed with some quality of life improvements, but they’re gone now. With the game as it is, solid 7.5/10 from me.
– Real player with 33.4 hrs in game
Software Inc.
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Gameplay
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Replayability
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Building/Office Design
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Realism
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Developer
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Stability
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Peer Game Comparison
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Procedurally Generated Worlds
+/- Learning Curve
+/- Graphics
+/- Sound
+/- Difficulty
+/- Interface
+/- Modability
+/- Optimization
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Music
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Campaign
I will mark whether I like something +, dislike something -, or am neutral +/- as I write the review.
You start as the founder of a software company in a standard sandbox enviroment +/-. You can choose the difficulty, speed of gameplay, starting funds, starting time period, traits, and skills of your founder +. You are able to set a basic appearance for the founder, but this is clearly not a focus of the game +/-.
– Real player with 617.8 hrs in game
Read More: Best Simulation Strategy Games.
A10: The polish is coming along pretty nicely although since I posted the review (Late 2016) although I do have to say that some of the changes have made the development process a bit too hit-and-miss since you really have no idea how a product is going to turn out until it’s too late - while the code reviews are a nice addition, they’re not really that useful as far as ensuring a good product as most of the quality control process is out of your hands.
You can also put the best staff on a project, allocate teams optimally etc and it’ll still come out as rubbish, so I don’t know, maybe that needs to be more sensible.
– Real player with 132.2 hrs in game
Idol Manager
I put 88 hours into this game. The most standout part of it was the writing really had no business being as good as it was in this game, that is pretty clearly low budget and lacks some polish. I think if they would have kept fixing some of the bugs and polishing it for a month or two more before releasing, it could have easily been so much better and they could have charged twice as much. Also, having the 18+ version as DLC. I used the decensor patch (which turns it into more of an ecchi game, nothing hardcore), and while it didn’t make the game any better at the core, it did add a certain level of spice to elevate the experience.
– Real player with 95.3 hrs in game
This is the kinda game that I stayed up til 5am playing multiple times and when I finally reached the story mode ending early this morning I immediately asked my roommate “hey what do I do with my life now.” (Obviously the answer is to get the remaining endings and achievements but like. first playthrough is done there’s no going back to it.)
The story was a lot more interesting than I was expecting, but even without it the business sim part holds up imo. It’s really easy to get attached to the idols, and it’s fun and satisfying to help them earn fame and awards and such. Definitely don’t do what I did and buy this the week before two big projects are due though. For the sake of my grades I have to leave it alone for a while lmfao.
– Real player with 51.0 hrs in game
King of Retail
TL; DR: A great concept that has been executed pretty damn well. There are a few bugs and complaints, which I detail below. But, I don’t think there’s any issue that should prevent you from enjoying this game if you like simulation-type games.
The devs, or dev, has put a significant amount of sweat equity into making this game. It’s not a AAA game, its an indie dev. This goes to show you that even with a limited budget, games such as this are possible to make and we’re all the better for it.
– Real player with 108.8 hrs in game
Okay, 101 hours in and I thought I should leave a review as this game deserves it. It’s been a while since any game has captured my attention as much as King of Retail has and always gives me that urge to really want to play it at every opportunity. My niece has been watching me play and now has a store of her own too, she’s only 10 and has understood everything really well. I really need a second PC now! lol
It’s currently in Early Access but has plenty of playability and I really look forward to future updates. The next one apparently brings a ton of new female clothing.
– Real player with 104.5 hrs in game
Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game
30-01-2020
So i’ve played this game since a very early version on the ‘Kee’ game engine back around 2011~2012 (long before it came to steam). The game has grown a lot over the past decade and the small development team keeps improving it on a steady basis.
I only rarely review a game and I will be very honest about my feelings on this one and go a bit into detail since I feel this game needs this kind of review.
Target audience:
This game has a very specific target audience. I wouldn’t recommend this game to casual gamers. According to me, the primary target audience could be described as ‘persons who enjoy getting into the technical aspects of designing consumer cars and their combustion engines’. The secondary target audience is ‘persons who enjoy running a car company and try to be a succesfull tycoon selling their own car designs’.
– Real player with 1035.5 hrs in game
Managed to create a Pinto that didn’t explode…and then I put a Turbo V12 in it…then it exploded
5/7
In all seriousness, Automation is a great ‘build-a-car’ “sandbox” as it is right now. If you are at all interested in car design you should give this game a look. While you will not get the same designability if you were to design the car in CAD or some other program, for a game (and it is a GAME, not a toolset) the options are numerous and your creativity is the real limitation. Seriously watch the vids (though they are of earlier builds and dont show everything available) and look the discourse forums for this game and see what people have built.
– Real player with 956.3 hrs in game
Planet Zoo
It shows the true meaning of taking care of animals making them feel more alive unlike other games that animals seem more dead than alive, this game is worth the money and i highly recommend this game to anyone that loves zoo’s or who wants to study zoology it has a tab that you can open leading to hours of beautiful notes of each animal from what they eat to if they are endangered to how many in a group and many more things i would write about this beautiful graphic game but i would take hours writing on this amazing game, me myself want to be study zoology and be a vet or zoo keeper so this game is great to learn more about animals, one again I highly recommend this game to others! and it is worth the money!
– Real player with 104.4 hrs in game
UPDATE please read if you already have, or especially if you have the game - though i still don’t recommend the game if its not on sale –
I really wanted to like this game, there are so many things about it to love, but oh my god, it is so broken. There are so many game breaking glitches and technical errors, not to mention just straight up poor development choices that really made this depressing to play for me. I love sim development games.
Examples of errors - So you can do construction, as long as you hold down shift as well as other shortcut keys and are able to freely move the walls, still, floors are completely useless, it does make construction a little more fun knowing i can at least use the walls and roofs, I don’t understand why they added floors, snapping the pathways to a grid can help if you want to make a plaza though, as the path will become larger instead of just longer with some branches, but you still have to attach vendors/exhibits to the ends of the path and are not allowed to put it directly on top. which is annoying.
– Real player with 66.4 hrs in game
Startopia
Be warned that this game is old and the interface feels all 20 years of its age.
However, if you can stomach old games, this is one of the true classics from its era. A space station management/tycoon game with a lot of heart and humor. Numerous ways to build your station, several ways to challenge yourself or just relax and mess around.
I’ve played this off and on for two decades and still own the original disc so my hours on Steam only reflect buying it again here for convenience.
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Of interest to fans: The original development company obviously went out of business, the game transferred ownership for a number of years to Square-Enix who did nothing with it and then released the game back to the care of one of the original developers.
– Real player with 91.5 hrs in game
To date, I have purchased just over 15 games on Steam. Some of them have been complete wastenados of my money - one in particular I shelled out a lot for and only got a couple of hours of semi-enjoyment out of it. Startopia is the exact opposite of that game - I paid very little for it and, so far, I’ve gotten more hours of fun out of it than any other game I’ve purchased on here.
You’re managing a space station which is being visited by nine different alien types, each with their own preferences and skills. You have to build facilities to ensure these aliens are healthy, well-rested, well-fed, entertained and other things like that, make sure any aliens who cause trouble get rehabilitated, keep the station clean, and make sure you have enough energy to keep it all running. You’re aided by this artificially intelligent being called VAL who often peppers his advice with a degree of snark and you get occasional visits from a trader named Arona who I swear is a cross between a Vogon and Moneybags from Spyro 2.
– Real player with 74.2 hrs in game
RollerCoaster Tycoon® 2: Triple Thrill Pack
Where I grew up, in rural eastern Ukraine, in the early 2000’s, there was no internet, no smartphones, no kfc and NO FREE PORN! There was however intel pentium…and Roller Coaster Tycoon!!. I remember spending hours, meticulously building my park from scratch, earning milions on big rides and food, attracting 6k+ guests into my park…and then torturing them, by cutting off the escape routes, flooding paths and charging $15 for toilet. And it was magical, pure joy. Even now, with the graphics definitely looking tired, it will bring you hours of very simple fun, build a ride and see how much you can charge before guests say its enough. Or starve them, then build one burger bar, put a very steep price and watch money flooding in. Or even better, build a coaster that will eventually crash, then comfort all the mourners with free black balloons…and free rides on the coaster that just has crashed! Yes, this game was always my favourite, a safe haven where I could unleash all my sadistic fantasies! And after all these years, nothing has changed, I still love to see the message ‘Robert D. has just drowned’.
– Real player with 963.3 hrs in game
RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 is likely my favorite game of all time.
I’ve put much more than 500 hours into it spanning my entire life and continued to play it as a non-steam game whilest it was not available on Steam. When I saw that it was, my wallet got sad, because in just a few moments my money was gone.
This is in my opinion THE best RollerCoaster video game in existance, and well for that matter in my opinion the best Tycoon game of any developer. Everything is made to a precise definity and managing your park is easy, but at the same time heavily difficult! The more you know about how to play this game, the more fun it becomes.
– Real player with 153.6 hrs in game
Drill Deal: Borehole (Alpha)
Alpha seems pretty solid. At about 4.8 hours, the pathing for the workers when crazy. Poor guys standing right next to a canteen couldn’t find the entrance and got mad at me, some tried to walk off the edge of the platform, a few couldn’t find a resting place, despite numerous housing buildings available.
[edit] 12 hours: The game still is running well. I had one crash where some buttons could not be pushed, but it went away with continued play. Employees still get trapped periodically. I’ve tried different ways to free them up (destroying the building, changing jobs, etc), but firing seems to be the only effective solution (why is it always a level 4 driller? ~sad face~). Bridges can’t be deleted, which is an inconvenience. I find the game relaxing. It isn’t very challenging yet, but in time I can see different maps getting more and more difficult as they are added. Prices for new contracts seems a bit low. A player might pay 1600 to unlock it, but will earn back an infinite amount. Perhaps contracts should be renegotiated after X number of sales.
– Real player with 17.3 hrs in game
This will most likely be a pleasant management game to play.
During the alpha I found two things that was quite annoying.
First was that there seems to be no way to demolish platforms.
Second was that the workshop didn’t cover new platforms so on the 2x7 platform you’d have to sacrifice 4x4 space for a workshop.
And very “alpha” specific I found that the canteen upgrade was isled among alpha-locked upgrades in the tech tree. Rendering it unreachable but implemented.
This is the type of game I wouldn’t pay more than 9-12€ for,
– Real player with 5.1 hrs in game