Tycoon Games

Launch Trailer

NEW GAME Rolling Hills: Make Sushi, Make Friends Gameplay // Cooking Cozy Game by Rock's Playground

Release Trailer

WIZARD Tower Base Builder!? - Artificers Tower - Management Colony Sim by Orbital Potato

Laysara: Summit Kingdom - Explainer Video

Youtube Review by Angory Tom

Youtube Review by DeepSpaceMatt

1.1 Update News

ContractVille - Official Gameplay Trailer

Hollywood Animal — Gameplay Trailer

The screenshots looks very interesting; nice visuals and seemingly engaging gameplay.

May need to try this.

As per reviews, this seems to be a solid improvement over Reus 1 (2013). The original was fun, but got a bit complicated with the different resource choices and synergies. Reus 2 is turn based as opposed to Reus 1 which was real-time.

Official Release Trailer

This is a casual "town builder" where you build on a single small road. Very cute graphics with "slice of life type gameplay"; picking ramen recipes for different age groups. I beat 4 out of the 5 core missions in about 3.5 hours. Minami Lane is fun if you want a quick, easy to pickup casual tycoon-style game.

Tavern Keeper - Steam

PC Gamer Article on Tavern Keeper

This is being made by Greenheart Games, the makers of the relatively well known Game Dev Tycoon , I personally much prefer Mad Games Tycoon 1/2, but it's definitely a solid game.

As someone who really enjoyed Tavern Master and liked the concept behind Tavern Tycoon (the item quality decay made the game not fun), I am looking forward to this.

The first thing you will notice about Synergy is the gorgeous and unique art style clearly inspired by Jean Giraud (Moebius). The style is very refreshing compared to the rather common generic 3D or "cute 3D" (think Foundation) art directions used in such games.

I have about 3-4 hours in the demo. While I really enjoy the world building and of course the art style, I thought the gameplay, while functional, needed some refinement. There wasn't really a hook (e.g. the unique gameplay in The Wandering Village) that would differentiate the town building gameplay relative to comparable games. The core gameplay experience was also somewhat uninspired; the progression structure needed improvements to enhance motivations.

That being said, this was an early demo, so you would expect certain elements to be a less refined state. Looking forward to hearing more about their progression in early access.

Currently 93% of the 124 reviews on steam are positive.

I had this on my radar for a while, good to see the early reception being positive.

Might have to get this one at a later date (have enough games on my plate at the moment).

Reus 2 is coming out on May 28th.

I played the original Reus (from 2013) and it felt like it a had a lot of interesting ideas with the flat rotating 2D map, the patron god/creature concept, the resource commonalities and decision making.

That being said it never really clicked even after 6 hours of play.

I will be on the lookout for reviews and youtube "first impressions" when Reus 2 releases next week.

Timberborn Update 6 Preview: Wonders - Youtube

Some of the Wonders and their activations look pretty cool.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15543836

Played a fun 2D management game this past week. Worth a look if you dig management games with cute animals ;)

https://youtu.be/AkRMXJmLcBU?si=tpAefPO8B5LyIF1k

Summer Islands is a resort management tycoon/sim where you build a tourist island paradise while managing hotel capacity, retail, leisure services, utilities etc. The player will build hotels, roads, shops, restaurants, utilities to support their island resort in a Simcity 2000/3000 style interface.

The game is primarily inspired by Holiday Island (1996) developed by Sunflowers Interactive (best known for publishing the original two Anno games in the 90s) and to a lesser extent by the tourist component of the Tropico series.

This mini-review of Summer Islands 0.9.x is based on ~15 hours of gameplay, albeit with disasters disabled. I've never played Holiday Island, although I believe I would have really enjoyed the game if I tried it back in the 90s/early 2000s.

When playing Summer Islands, the first thing that you notice is the Simcity 2000/3000 style 2.5D view. The game world is based on a grid structure and all buildings have a local coverage area. The aesthetic fits well with the game and provides a nice nostalgia hit for veteran players. 3D looks nice, but if the base game de facto functions on a cell based structure, 3D can become a hindrance for gameplay if the UX doesn't communicate the true impact of your choices.

Summer Islands does have weird pixel graphic glitches (primarily in the management screens) that do become annoying after many hours of playing. The minimap is also janky and doesn't work as expected.

The early game requires a bit of min-maxing to drive expansion. You want to select a starting region with lots of flat land to minimize terraforming costs (which can get really annoying in the early game). In the early game you do want to have a very efficient money making setup.

Summer Islands is very much driven by coverage scope, incompatibilities and requirements of different buildings. These are not always intuitive. I found that to drive expansion you want to come up with modular micro-blocks that you deploy depending on the geography.

There is a large number of a different building types, albeit you do have to use your own imagination to align the different buildings in an aesthetically pleasing manner. The game would benefit from a clearer focus on different types of tourists and requirements.

The economy of the game needs a bit more balance. Early game is pretty rough and requires lots of min-maxing. The in-game achievement system is broken in the 0.9.x release series (confirmed by the dev in the steam forums); early game you won't be able to leverage the achievements as they will be too difficult, late game you will be overflowing with money and there will be no reason to bother with the achievement system.

One weakness of the game is that after a few playthroughs, by the mid-game you will be loaded with resources. In the mid to late game, there is a distinct lack of generic city building functionality. You have ~40 hotels, with associated restaurants, shops, parks, sunbathing zones, but no residential areas for the personnel that service these hotels and service buildings.

That being said, Summer Islands will appeal to players who enjoy tycoon games, this is a pretty unique experience, and those who are willing to be flexible when it comes to gameplay polish.

I've played about ~20 hours of this game, both an earlier Early Access version and the more recent pre 1.0 version (mostly played this one). I have not played the 1.0 version.

It's a fun, casual base-builder with tycoon elements executed in the style of a kingdom management game. Compared to many base-builders, you get to manage your own hero in-game. The integration between the overland map and the actual kingdom building is done well. You also need to manage relationships with the kingdoms around you. The mechanics aren't too deep.

With the pre EA version, it felt like you could see most of the game in a 15 hour playthrough. However, Fabledom also benefits from a more "pick up and play" profile, with many other base-builders like Banished, you often have to manage mods, design a high level village development plan before you can actually start playing the game.