Tycoon Games | Single Malt Strategy | Episode 91 - Single Malt Strategy

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everyone to the Single Malt Strategy Podcast. This is
episode number ninety one. I am Tortuga Power the King.
I've dethroned THG. No, that's that's not true. TSG. You're here.
How are you doing? Uh?

Speaker 2 (00:13):
I'm good. I'm good.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
I don't call you the co host because you're really
the host. I defer to you in all things. I'm
so subservient behind the scenes.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
How many episodes you're going to have to be on
before you say before you like, before you stop saying.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
The imposter syndrome. It's super real, I guess. I hope
everyone's enjoying my new mic, including our other guests, which
includes Letherington. Welcome back, Letherington. I think you've been on
what once or twice?

Speaker 3 (00:37):
Well once? This is my second time back here.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Well, glad to have you back. And we also have
joining us from the other side of the world, mister.

Speaker 4 (00:43):
B LX from the good side in the world.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
That's debatable. Thanks for coming on. I've been thinking about
the topic for this one for a long time, and
since people who click on this you've already seen the title,
I assume, so let's just get it out there right away.
This is an episode about tycoon games. I've been trying
to rile up a bunch of people to dot about
this with me for months, I guess. So I'm glad
you are all going to entertain my theory about all this.

Speaker 3 (01:07):
You're mad ramblings. Yeah, sure, what we're here for.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, and thanks to Tisch coming on, especially because he's
got to get up pretty soon for a new job.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yeah. I'm excited for the podcast though. What is a
tycoon game?

Speaker 4 (01:20):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:20):
That is one of the things we were going to
talk about, isn't it. Yeah, we all kind of. I
think this is very common to debate what exactly a
genre is. My thoughts on this have been I think
that I used to be much more of a purist, like, oh,
that that's a tycoon game. Oh that's not a tycoon game.
But lately I feel like, what is the language? What
is communication other than like conveying common ideas? And I

(01:42):
don't know if some people think a is a tycoon
game and some people don't, Maybe they're just both right
to a degree, like okay for them, that's what that
word means.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
Getting into a relativistic argument.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Yeah, I mean that undercuts the whole what is a
tycoon game, but no, let's get into it. I also
tried to propose my own idea of what one is is.
I think that it has to be the management of
a business of some kind. And I also think, feel
free to disagree with me, that one of the critical
resources that is being managed must be money. And just
as a quick counter example, I think Machinky is a

(02:13):
great game. It's probably the closest thing to open TTD
I've seen since open TTD. But it has no money.
It's all management of like tokens, I do not consider
that a tycoon game. It's really much more of a
puzzle game. Well that's my thoughts on it. What let's
go about TG What what's your tycoon game?

Speaker 2 (02:28):
By your definition? What I would want to know is
Port Royal a tycoon game?

Speaker 3 (02:31):
I was wondering the same. At least I.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Would say it is like it's a business. You're managing
a business, right, Money is definitely a critical resource.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
I think if it's the Pirates game, yeah, And now
that I'm thinking about it, like sid Meier's Pirates, I
don't think you didn't you can like buy businesses or
I think you could have real estate with your wife
and your adventure and your money. Can you can have ships,
but I don't think you can have I don't think
you can like own a business, whereas port Royal you can,
right like, you can actually own I.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Think you are a bussiness.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
So to me, that is a tycoon game. Yeah, So
what I guess to me when I hear tycoon game,
what I picture in my head is a game where
its spirit is putting you in the shoes of someone
like you know, John D. Rockefeller or you know the
the Robber Barons, if you will, Like it's a game
about becoming or trying to become, you know, an all powerful,

(03:23):
wealthy tycoon, if you will. Right like, when when you
say tycoon, I think railroads in the eighteen hundreds, I
think steel mills. I think you know, managing a business, yes,
but also like you're not managing a mom and pop shop.
It's a game about building an empire of business, and
sometimes that can span multiple types of businesses. You know,
maybe you would make the argument that like some of

(03:45):
the transport tycoon or capitalism type games or are tycoon games,
and sometimes it's just one business, right you know. Maybe
it's not a perfect example, but railroad tycoon. At its heart,
it's about building railroad and making money and really at
the end of the day, driving your competitors out of business.
That's what a tycoon game is to me. I know,

(04:05):
we had some back and forth, like is a city
builder a tycoon game? And I think there are similar
elements to games like that, But to me, it's really
about becoming the elite of the elite of, you know,
in terms of wealth.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
I would say, even if there's a game that's about
making money and all that, I also don't consider things
like sid Meier's Pirates to be tycoon games because the
focus of the game is not as much about I mean,
it has action elements and such like that. Like I
wouldn't consider of Oreon or the X series tycoon games,
even though they're a lot about making money and building empires,
it's not the focus exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Well, and that's why I think the Pirates slash Port
Royal example is interesting because there's there are there's a
lot of similarities in Port Royal to Pirates, but I
think where it differs is this notion of building the
business as the primary objective of your person, whereas like
Pirates is like you're a pirate and have adventure, right,

(05:05):
and that includes making money. But that's not like at
its core it's an adventure.

Speaker 4 (05:10):
Yeah, I suppose it's the main point there is that
if the focus is on the money, the money making,
it's more of a tycoon game, where if the focus
is on say, look at the Anno series of games, Yes,
you're you're technically a business building a colony or something
not actually a country, and and you do business y
type things.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
Is that true?

Speaker 4 (05:27):
You are in almost every game you're you're a business
or an expedition rather than the country itself.

Speaker 3 (05:32):
Okay, or a charter from yeah, the magistrate or something similar.

Speaker 4 (05:37):
Like an East India company equivalent.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
I just participated in a private beta for a Pax Romana,
the newest Anna game which is coming, and that is
very much like you're a governor of a Roman province
and you're, you know, you're you're tasked with like rebuilding
this place. But I would have never thought that it
is a tycoon game. To me, it's a city built.
That being said, I have not played all of the

(06:00):
Ano games.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
I think Packed Mind is also a big departure in
a lot of ways from their previous titles. From what
I've seen, you add in curved roads and you're already
throwing a big curve ball at Anno fans.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
All right, you can only use curve to so many
times in a sentence and before my head experience.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
What about like like Tropico is also I think a
gray area. It's probably very similar. Whatever Anno is, probably
Tropico is too.

Speaker 4 (06:22):
But you know, the focus isn't on the money. You're
not there to make money. You're there to retain power,
which is again you've got Tycoon elements, but it's not
a Tycoon game, whereas something like like Theme Hospital. I
was thinking, what about does that count as a Tycoon
game building a hospital Empire?

Speaker 1 (06:37):
Absolutely yes, all the theme games, one hundred percent, because I.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Mean, if you played theme Park like, that's the I
think that's the predecessor to Railroad take or not Railroad
to a roller coaster Tycoon like, one of the most
famous Tycoon games of all time.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Right, that's true.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
So yeah, I would definitely say the theme games are
are Tycoon game.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
Some other interesting ones that are kind of on the pens.
It's like Railway Empire. I put it as a yes,
and Transport Fever as well. Like those are tough though,
because they're almost as much about the transportation as they
are about making the money. So I put them a
little bit like the same as Anno under like a limbo.
I'm not really sure if they are or not.

Speaker 3 (07:16):
I mean, would you say that open TTD is not
I mean, because that's the same thing open TTD.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah, Okay, then I guess that I put likely yes
for Railway Empire Transport Fever, So I guess I do
say yes.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
I think a lot of those games have this have
a similarity with And I go back to Railroad Tycoon too,
because I played that game more than almost anything growing up,
and like Railroad Tycoon too, like at its core to me,
you want to make money, but you want to make
money mostly because like I want to build more railroads,
I want to connect more towns, I want to do
more stuff. But the theme of that game is absolutely grounded.

(07:53):
In Tycoon, you're this this fat cat if you will,
and you're competing with other railroads to become, you know,
one of the wealthiest people in the country. Like the
fact that they've got this stock market in the game
where it's like you can buy out your competitors. There
can be hospital takeovers, stock splits. That game is grounded
in tycoonism, for lack of a better phrase. And I

(08:15):
think a lot of those other transport games, you know,
players want to build and connect and they want to
build pretty roads and railroads and whatever. But the underlying
theme behind I think a lot of those games are
I'm just making this phrase up, but I think it
is tycoonism.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
It sounds right.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
Quick question to do with tycoon games, especially in the
modern world, they tend to imply sort of the less
serious business simulation style or is that something more like
like capitalism lab. I guess it's sort of tycoony in sense.
But would you call that a tycoon game?

Speaker 3 (08:48):
A very very dense one.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
But yes, absolutely, I would say you're pretty much segueing
into the thing I really want to talk about. I'll
let you finish first, but yeah, I would say absolutely,
capital of lab anything hardcore. I think a lot of
the old Tycoon games were deeper, and I enjoyed that.

Speaker 4 (09:04):
You look at the modern the modern stuff steams a
wash with with tycoon games. You got your toilet Tycoon
through to Moon Tycoon, through blood bar Tycoon like there's
resurgence of that nineties Tycoon slop that sort of appeared
after Transport Tycoon Railroad Tycoon.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
Really, I heard your mumbling.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
I mean, it's just calm. Some of these games slap
some golf and that was just like building golf courses
and that was.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
I loved Carnival Cruise Line Tycoon, and that game is
not very good.

Speaker 4 (09:37):
So you know it's not toilet toilet Tycoon level slop.

Speaker 2 (09:41):
You're a slap.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
Oh man. So I'm not sure if there's the right
time for it, because I do want to go into
my like main theory about Tycoon games and probably gaming
in general. But maybe one last sub segment, what about
I have it by the way the I say yes,
it is.

Speaker 4 (10:02):
No way, no way hmm.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
Okay, I would say you can play it that way,
but that's not how most people interact with it.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
Okay, that's fair for me. It's one hundred percent Tycoon game.
Like my three people that I always have in my
first house, two are on work duty, ones on like
house duty, and it's just mid max the money.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
Minmaxing the money is not enough to be Let's go
back to real quick, to pirates and to Tropico. You
mentioned Tropico. Those games are scored based on how much
money you have at the end. Pirates, they give you
a little write up based on how much money you
basically have to say, can you retire or like, are
you a popper? Like what happens to you right Tropico?
Like your dictator, it's assumed will at some point lose power.

(10:46):
And how much money you've stashed in your slush fund
is like your score. So when you leave, are you
living a lavish life in exile or are you a
beggar on the street. Those games, their core scoring McCain
mechanism is money. I don't think it is enough to
say your goal is to make money to be a

(11:06):
tycoon game. I think it is you are running a
business and you are also like trying. You're trying, I
don't know, for lack of a better way of explaining,
you're trying to become John D. Rockefeller or whoever, You're
trying to become a magnet of business.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
I mean, it's funny because I thought we already established that.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
Well, he's making the comparison that like the Sims, Yes,
you can make a lot of money in the sense,
but that's not the same spirit as becoming an entrepreneurial tycoon. Right,
you're not making it. You've got one guy in the
corner making paintings for you, but you're not building a
painting empire.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
I understand, right, And like, you can level yourself up
to be a CEO or whatever in the SIMS, but
you don't actually get to play as the CEO. You
don't get to do any of the work of the CEO.
You're not running the business.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
So that's messing the point though. I think that you
can view the SIMS, and first of all, I agree
with the arguments the counter arguments. To me, I do
play the SIMS as a tycoon game. But for me,
the quote unquote business is the family. The family is
the business.

Speaker 3 (12:01):
Oh that's kind of dark.

Speaker 4 (12:02):
Mafia, that's dark.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Is not a dark well, I.

Speaker 4 (12:06):
Mean you do it for the business the family.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
If you have one person who, against their will, has
to clean toilets all day because they're the person who
stays at home cleans the house, then I guess, yeah,
it is a little dark, but that is how you
optimize the business.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
You know what they need. They need to make a
SIMS that takes place in eighteenth century England where you're
managing in a state and like your family is like
you know, you're trying to pass the generation on and
build your place in the aristocracy. They need a SIMS
doing that. That might be a tycoon game.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
There's a lot of topics you'd have to dance around.

Speaker 4 (12:40):
Would you guys say Astronauts is like you build a
ship salvage empire.

Speaker 1 (12:45):
I had Astronauts on my list as close but not
quite in the same category as like Machine Key against
the Storm the X series. For me, Astronauts is really
not about money. It's it's like a tool that you
need to do the exploration in the RPG.

Speaker 4 (13:01):
And all that.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
So i'd kind of that's the way I categorize.

Speaker 4 (13:05):
But then if you call the SIMS a tycoon game,
you wouldn't call something like Austronauts where you build a
ship salvage imply.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
Yeah, I would say that we're talking about things. You
could play Astronauts as a tycoon. You can play the
SIMS at a tycoon game, But yeah, I would. In
the end, I'm fine to concede that the SIMS is
not a tycoon game.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Now, maybe if you play the SIMS only while you
watch Succession.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Here's another thing I wanted to talk about, which is
why I wanted to have this podcast to begin with,
is the trend of tycoon games. And we didn't mention.
I mean, I guess we did mention some of the
earlier titles that I want to talk about. Recent titles.
We have stuff like Planet Coaster, we have the Two
Points games, we have Jurassic World Evolution. I have seen
from a lot of these titles that despite being I

(13:52):
feel like they are the definition of tycoon like modern
tycoon game, as in, you go out on the street
and you ask some people who at least know about
Steam games and tycoon games, if you ask them if
this is a tycoon game, they would say yes, right.
And we even mentioned that or Zeb said that Capitalism
Lab is maybe not a tycoon game because it's so complicated.
And that's really what I want to talk about today.

(14:12):
I feel like what happened to a tycoon game being
able to put you in situations where you might actually
lose money or god forbid lose And I feel like
there's so few tycoon games these days. They've all kind
of transitioned to creative modes. They're not really the same
as what I remember, Like I remember Roller Coaster to

(14:34):
Tycoon trying to min max what's the optimum money strategy
for umbrellas, because that was about that's how you sell,
that's how you get money. Right, it doesn't seem like
things have gone in that direction. They've really deviated, And
my image of a Tycoon game nowadays is really about
people painting whatever they want and like economics be damned,
which is so like against the core of what I

(14:56):
think a Tycoon game should be is about Tycoon, about
making money, spending on spending money.

Speaker 4 (15:01):
Wisely, I think you need to look at the numbers
and where they're selling Tortuga, so something like computer Tycoon,
you know, it's a generic Tycoons sort of a game.
Currently got seven people peaking in the last twenty four
hours playing the game on Steam. Whous you look at,
say Schedule one, which is sort of that new drug
dealing Empire thing that came out they're dealing with, you know,
sixty one thousand people peak in the last twenty four hours,

(15:23):
four hundred and sixty k as an all time peak
like a month ago when it first came out.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
I would say, though Schedule one actually does have more
of the DNA of the older Tycoon games in it
than a lot of other new ones. Are you can
absolutely go bankrupts or worse in that game very easily.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Okay, that's good to hear if you make a mistake.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
Maybe we need to do some research on this and
talk to some game developers and see what they're what
their perspective is. But I think to some extent, we
are used to playing games that don't care if they
beat you tortuga like for me, you War in the
Pacific or whatever, right like, those are not games that
are built to be like easy per se. But I
do think, especially when when you start flirting with the

(16:01):
notion of business in the modern era, a lot of
people don't want to be reminded of work. They want
to build something cool, but they don't want to feel
like nose to the grindstone and now I lost again
to capital. I'm not trying to get political, but I
think there might be some element of like, people want
to build something and they don't want to have to
stress too much about money, at least within a segment

(16:25):
of players.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
That may be true, but then why wasn't that the
case twenty years ago, and I have like an idea,
one idea why that might be the case, But do
you have an idea why it wasn't done that way
to begin with? Because they could have made roller coaster tycoon,
they could have made them hospital, they could have made
any of the trained tycoons.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
I'm not a psychologist, but I do feel like maybe
this is just the nostalgia kicking in, like you know,
the veil of nostalgia that hides what it was really like.
But I feel like twenty thirty years ago, like especially
in the early computer era, it was a much more
optimistic and idealistic era, and I think there is there's

(17:17):
less of a sense of hope, and maybe that colors
people's perspective.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
I didn't really follow that, Sorry, I mean I just.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
Think it was I think people were more optimistic and
so like there was less of a sense of this
is I may cut some of this, but like I
think that generally speaking, people were more optimistic about tech,
about business, about computers, and so the notion of something
being hard and being losing was not like this. It
was not received in the same way that like maybe

(17:47):
social media throws us down algorithm holes that make us
feel feel helpless.

Speaker 4 (17:52):
Was that more an evolution from like the coin games
where they wanted you to lose regularly and you know,
a little bite of those games were called put coin in,
and I wanted you to lose quickly so I can
get another quarter out of you or whatever currency people use.
Is that just not like the gaming evolve you had
live you had a high level of challenge.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
I don't know, Bill ex but I do think like
I would, I would love to hear Tortuga's perspective because
my high level view is that people are less optimistic
than they used to be, and that technology was there
was more optimism in general. I think, you know, we
at least culturally, we had a happier outlook on the future,
and so like there was less concern over like, hey,

(18:34):
it's going to kick you in the face and you're
gonna lose, and it's gonna be fun as opposed to
now if you're already kind of feeling a little bit
a little bit down and you're looking for the game
to be an escape as opposed to work.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
The way I interpreted this trend is that early on
we were actually this is kind of your point from
the previous podcast TG that we were actually like computer
resource limited on what we could do creatively. Now we're
at the point where you really can do a whole bunch.
I mean, just look at what you can do in
games like Planet Coaster and Jurassic World Evolution. I mean

(19:06):
you can actually sit down and just enjoy the visuals
of those games. They're really gorgeous. So to me, it
really it's become a person who saw the games in
the nineties. I mean me in particular, I've watched the
evolution of graphics and I've seen how much better they
are now, So I can see why people might feel
like it's easier to do creative type stuff now versus

(19:27):
like you know, when you had the original Roller Coaster
Tycoon and you're building in these tiny grids, because that's
that's just that the graphics couldn't be any better than that.
I mean maybe they could have been, but not by much,
and probably not for a Tycoon game, which is never
going to be triple A. So that's but I thought
that maybe this is where things have gone is because technology,
like computer technology, has unlocked the ability to do more

(19:49):
fancy things and visualize things better that we've been able
to lean more into the creative side. However, counterpoint to
that potential counterpoint, people who are growing up, like who
are young right now, they didn't know technolo that like
this is their technology. When we are in the nineties,
they're waiting for something to become like perfect virtual reality
or whatever. So I don't know if if that like
holds water when you talk about young people being more

(20:11):
interested in creative games.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
I also wonder, like, at least for the adults in
the room, do I want to sit and agonize over
excel when I work eight hours a day and excel
the gap perhaps in the nineties still do the gaps
between the nineties and early two thousands, I think perhaps
was had we had a workforce that was less immeshed
in computer twenty four to seven. And I do wonder

(20:33):
if there's an element of like, I don't want to
feel like I'm at work, and a lot of those
Tycoon games, the hardcore ones, feel like that.

Speaker 4 (20:38):
But I'm a farmer and I play farming simulator doing
what games often will take the good parts of work
and only show that. I mean, there's some tegum occasionally,
but you know, with farming simulator, I get to I
get to ride on tractors and do fun stuff. I
don't have to go and put them obstetric gloves and
reach up inside the sheet very often.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Yeah, but Tortooga's past view of tycoon games would require
you to do that, wouldn't they.

Speaker 3 (21:02):
I wanted to mention about that, So like the original
Zoo Tycoon game or any of you fans.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
Of that, I was not aware of it, so I
wouldn't say it wasn't.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
Well, maybe this is a bad example, but that's considered
a fairly classic tycoon game of the era. But when
I was actually sitting here listening, I was thinking about
playing those games, and they had a lot of detailed
granularity to them, like if you wanted to tweak like
how much your soda cell would sell for or whatever,
you could do that. But you didn't have to do

(21:30):
that those games. You could largely just follow a basic
playbook of place this ride. This ride's usually popular, people
will go pay this amount for it, and you could
just post on that just fine. You could make it
really detailed, but I would never say those games were
that difficult. Yeah, you could mess up and lose all

(21:53):
your money, But if you just had the basic fundamentals down,
they were not that difficult.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
Let's not pretend there are hard games still that come
out right. Kingdom Come Deliverance is like Super Jankye combat.
Maybe that was less intentional, but that game, that game
was very hard for me anyway, from like a combat
point of view, Suzorin is a These aren't tycoon games,
but like Suzerin is a very challenging game about managing
a kingdom, and I struggle with that a lot. To

(22:20):
get a good ending anyway, but that's not the point.
The game's point isn't everyone wants ending getting a good ending.
The game's point is the story and c K three
like the point is to fail, Like that's where the
good stories are built. I just think tycoon games sometimes
are a little too close to work, and I think
there's this element of, you know, maybe more gamers are
looking to detach from work and if you're you know,

(22:41):
if you're a business sim and it's hard and it's
not more about creative. I think there's an element of
I don't want to feel like I'm at work again.
I want to I want to build something cool.

Speaker 1 (22:52):
Okay, this is where we need a big disclaimer. Tsh
is on this podcast, but he is not obviously a
Tycoon game player.

Speaker 4 (22:59):
So oh, come on, yeah, I was gonna ask that question.

Speaker 1 (23:03):
Oh wow, wow, big caveat sitting here shooting down the genre.
I'm not.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
I'm just I think that's why games, many games have
pivoted more into the creative than than the hardcore simulation.
There are still grog Tycoon games out there. I would
also counter your argument with that to say, like, there
are there are grog Tycoon games.

Speaker 3 (23:26):
It's a good descriptor for that.

Speaker 4 (23:28):
By the way, I like that gear City is a
very in depth sort of a Tycoon game, and then
you go something like Game DV Tycoon is sort of
that that business, but much much lighter in tone. Is
that sort of what you're getting at?

Speaker 2 (23:40):
Like, people, I really liked Game to Have Tycoon by
the way.

Speaker 4 (23:43):
Yeah, it sort of seems like something you'd like.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
I did too.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
And the was it Carrysoft, the the mobile one, the original. Yes,
I also played a lot of that back when people
paid for games on iPhone.

Speaker 4 (23:56):
I know.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
No, I think there are going to be examples of
games are still difficult, but you have to kind of
take the broad derivative, right, You have to look at
the trend of games overall, and I do think that
specifically for tycoon games, but maybe even more broadly, all
genres have become easier or like less less easy or
more difficult to lose. And I mean, for me, the

(24:20):
perfect comparison. We have two very good examples. We have
two point Hospital versus Theme Hospital, and then we also
have Planet Coaster versus Roller Coaster Tycoon. Like these are
just two perfect examples. How the most popular, one of
the most popular tycoon games nowadays is Planet Coaster. You
know recently has Planet Coaster two. But back in the day,
everyone was playing Roller Coaster Tycoon one, two, not really

(24:44):
three as much, but at least one and two, and
they're so good that people will still play them. Today
you have Planet Coaster, and it obviously just doesn't scratch
the same itch because it's not the same game. It's
like the genre has drifted. When you play these Jurassic
World Evolution you could I feel the point of the
game money is it's no longer a critical resource. So

(25:05):
people call these games tycoon games. And that's why I
like that. We talked about tycoon games how to define
them in the beginning of the podcast because if one
of the critical resources is not money, which it no
longer is for a lot of these I feel like
the Tycoon game it almost doesn't exist now. I mean
it does, but like in very niche titles like Armed
Trade Tycoon Tanks or Project Hospital, i'd call that one

(25:26):
more of a Tycoon game.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
And even Arms Trade Tycoon Tanks. While I have fucked
up managing inventory and therefore gone under once, that is
not a hard game like that is as long as
you have I've dumb.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
Anyway, It's one of those games where you have to
learn from your mistakes and then restart, which is not
a great I don't know it's debatable whether that's a
good gameplay loop, but it's difficult enough that I have
almost never gone bankrupt in tycoon games because I'm very methodical.
I take my time, and I have gone bankrupt and
arms straight Tycoon Tanks, so I would considered it difficult.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
I don't want to derail. Don't know what your thought
process is on the outline of this episode, but I
would love to have a discussion on the gameplay loop
of tycoon games and discuss what do you to me.
One of the things that differentiates a good tycoon game
from a bad tycoon game is when you figure out

(26:22):
that initial gaming loop of how do I make money,
manage my expenses, and so that I'm basically cashual positive
all the time and I can keep building now what
I think. So that's where games become quote unquote easy. Right,
you figure out the initial hook and now you're good
and there's no real challenge per se, and now it's

(26:46):
just like, all right, well, how big do you want
to build? Whereas I would love to hear it because
you guys are bigger tycoon game fans, But one of
the things that always pulls me back is like, what's
that second level? What do tycoon games that become sort
of iconic do to keep you interested past that initial
challenge that you overcome, because that's where so many of

(27:08):
those games lose me. And it's like I throw my
hands up after playing for an hour and a half
because it's like, all right, well, seems to be that
I'm just printing money and now I don't know that
I care about anything else here, Like I could make
a bigger factory or widget, but where's the challenge at
that point?

Speaker 1 (27:23):
Well, if you're printing money, the game has already failed, right,
That's probably kind of my point. It's not take hooon
game if you're just printing money.

Speaker 4 (27:28):
But the challenge often is what you create for yourselves.
You look at Transport Tycoon to Likes or open TTD.
Now you know that's got six hundred and seventy plus
players in the last twenty four hours on Steam alone,
and there's you download that thing easily online without going
through Steam, so there's probably well every thousand players. And
this is a thirty year old based game. What's the

(27:49):
challenge with that is is building these big networks. It's
you make money in the first twenty minutes of the game,
and you either set up for life or you go
bankrupt somehow because you stuff up the twenty minutes. But
from there, it's not about the struggle of making money,
it's the struggle of building a massive, continent spanning railroad network.

(28:09):
You've go create your own find which sort of goes
back to Tortooga's point earlier about modern tycoon games and
their whole focus on creativity. I think developers really narrowed
down that's what people are doing, and so giving them
more options for creativity allows them to just go big
with the game.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
I think one of the things that interests me. I
hate to go back to it because it is an
old game, but it is like so iconic in my memory.
An example of what I was thinking about is like
Railroad Tacoon two. You figure out, all right, how do
I build stations, build railroads, connect towns, where should I go?
Where should I build it out? But if you play
on any kind of difficulty other than basically sandbox, usually
you're gonna be playing with other railroads. And so there's

(28:53):
like the second level that you hit when all the
good routes start to be taken and now you're sharing
routes with an AI competitor, and now, oh shit, they're
trying to do a hostile takeover of my company and
you know that. To me, that's where that game sort
of has this extra layer of complexity of like, I've

(29:13):
got to compete with these competitors on a dwindling field
while I still build out this railroad. Even like I
think game dev Tycoon doesn't really have that, but it
does have these moments where Okay, there's gonna be a
technology shift, there's a new there's a new genre of
consoles coming out, and so now you're gonna have to
make these massive investments that sort of cause you to

(29:34):
restart to a certain extent, and now you need to
have different sized development teams because games are getting more complex,
and so like I think games that that at least
have hooked me in the past, they get out of,
you know, the initial hour and a half two hour
playthrough where you figure things out, and they add something
new to the challenge to kind of slow you down
and make you think and sometimes change the game a

(29:57):
little bit so that you've got to you're now with
a different challenge that you have to you have to
figure out, and that those are the games that keep
me coming back.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
I think even a lot of of the old games
we even will call a classic tycoon game did suffer
from not really having a way to keep things interesting
after a certain point. I agree, there is often a
point a lot of these games where you've basically won.
There's a lot more you could do, but you're just
you at that point. It is a sandbox that's said,

(30:26):
right like, you've already got enough money that there's no
way you could lose. And I think even back then,
games struggled with that. I think it's reasonable that even
today that that's something that modern tycoon games also can't
really find the perfect balance on.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
And I think that's something that you know, not to
broadeness too much, but I think that's something a lot
of city builders struggle with too.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
I agree.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
Actually, I mean it's every game. It's it's like every game.
I mean, you have every game struggles, okay, I mean
unless you have like a preset action, you know, like
story narrative driven or something like that. But in most
of these games, like RPGs even they try to struggle
with I mean Diablo two or whatever. How do you
keep endgame interesting when it's the same gameplay loop over
and over again. How do you like increase the difficulty

(31:09):
at a pace which will keep up with all of
your player base rather than just the elite being the
ones who make it to the endgame or like everyone
makes it so it's not fun, so really nobody makes
it because they all give up on the game. This
is a challenge for every game, and some of them
do it well, some of them don't.

Speaker 3 (31:25):
I do sometimes wonder what is it in particular about
certain games, Railroad tycoon games, roller Coaster, Tycoon, those are
very old now, right, and yet people are still going
back to play them. Some of these more modern games,
like the new Planet Coaster games forty years from now,
is anyone going to be revisiting that much? I don't know.

(31:48):
I don't feel like there's the same draw in these
modern ones.

Speaker 4 (31:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
I wouldn't say so, just because if they're creative based,
and a lot of it is about freedom to build
these beautiful parks, technology will continue to advance, whereas like
tycoon mechanics, like the fun of making money is what
the earlier ones are about. They're not as like technology
or graphics based. Yeah, once the technology advances, you'll have
like a new version of Planet Coaster, and that'll be

(32:13):
the more appealing thing, whereas something that has good tycoon
mechanics that has a compelling gay pay loop is we're
robust against graphical improvements.

Speaker 3 (32:22):
And maybe that's the one thing that most of these
modern titles are really struggling with the most, just because
they've lean so much into the sandbox creativelopment that they've
kind of limited their long term thing, right, I mean
all of them seem to be going that way now,
where they're really leaning into what computers can do, which
is cool. I love looking at my cool dinosaurs in

(32:45):
Jurassic World. Maybe they look great. There's not much beyond
that to do. So one years from now, when there's
the hyper realistic Jurassic World game, no one's even going
to remember this one.

Speaker 4 (32:57):
What do you guys think about the future of tycoon games?

Speaker 1 (33:00):
Like?

Speaker 4 (33:00):
For example, in I think was the first of second
half of November twenty four, Atari actually acquired the IP
for Transport Tycoon from Chris Soyer. Do you think there's
going to be a resurgence of tycoon games now that
there's been a couple lately that have had a few hits,
and it looks like at least Atari is planning something.
Are you guys seeing oblique future or are you seeing
the you know, a new resurgence of tycoonism.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
I would be on the negative of that, I think,
because I don't the current trend I see is moving
away from these more beautifully complex tycoon games with the
few outliers. You know, you do have your Software inc.
Which is great, and you do have your project hospital type,
but other than that, I don't see the trend going
in the direction which is satisfying to me. And we're
only going to get older and newer people are only

(33:45):
going to you know, there's newer people will start playing,
and I imagine that they'll want even more creative games.
I don't know, maybe it'll be an oscillation and people
will go back to wanting hard tycoon money making things.
If the trend was to continue, then you'd want even
more free form building. Is Minecraft blame here? By the way,
this is what Minecraft.

Speaker 4 (34:02):
Did was Oh don't is that a tycoon game?

Speaker 2 (34:05):
No, not Minecraft, but it's Roadblocks.

Speaker 3 (34:07):
I blame Roadblocks big was There was tycoon games in
Roadblocks when I was a kid, so that you know,
interesting cross over there. But they were not sandboxing. They
were pretty brutal to tycoon games actually, which was really funny.

Speaker 1 (34:22):
They were one thing I would be interested in doing.
Is also mentioning a lot of the games that are
still successful to day, at least by my view, which
is again I just mentioned these. One that I really like,
I think has done a great job and is pretty
innovative for the tycoon field was Motorsport Manager. I don't
know how that gameplay loop is so good. I don't
know what they did and they make endgame or like
long term gameplay really compelling. And I don't feel like

(34:45):
I'm really that big of an F one fan or
a motorsport racing fan, although I did watch a little
bit with my father when I was younger. But I
just I'm not like one of those diehard wake up
and watch I haven't watched F one in years, but
I still enjoy that gameplay loop, and especially the idea
of with a lot of things right when you build
from nothing, when you take the worst team and the

(35:06):
worst league and you build them into a really good team.
That game has so it just it just gets so
much right. If I could give a rating to that game,
it'd be like a nine out of ten, which I'm
very critical of games. That's a very high score. I
don't know, maybe everyone can contribute. What is the good
games that you've seen from the last ten years.

Speaker 4 (35:24):
I don't know how old gear Gear City is, but
that's a fantastic tycoon game, building cars from the turn
of nineteen hundreds through till modern sort of. Then it
evolves over time. You start off building, you know, handbuilding
ten or fifteen cars a month, and by the end
you're mass producing and cranking these things out and dealing

(35:44):
with you know, worker revolts and stuff like that. It's
fantastic evolution of the game.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
I'm very naive. What is this?

Speaker 2 (35:51):
Can you?

Speaker 1 (35:51):
Is that like Gaya like Gaia or.

Speaker 4 (35:54):
What gear gear City like as in gear Gear like, oh.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
Your damn accent gear City. Yes, okay, I've play that,
done this series on it. Yeah, that's a very good one.

Speaker 4 (36:05):
You've played it. You got me on.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
I think, yeah, that is a very good game. Complicated,
and that's that's a great example because that's that might
even be beyond my comfort level for a game that
is like extremely complicated. It's you. They let you had
they let you do whatever you want. And that developer,
by the way, he's making a similar game to Aerobiz
Supersonic right now, which, by the way, one of my

(36:28):
childhood favorites.

Speaker 3 (36:29):
I was also thinking like that made me think of Automation,
which is another part tycoon game on paper. But I
can't play gear City. It's too complicated for me. But
one thing that's in arguing about it is that it's
definitely a tycoon game. Automation is a car designer with
a tycoon game kind of laid on top of.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
It is as a trap?

Speaker 2 (36:50):
Is it?

Speaker 1 (36:51):
Like they it's like a Venus fly trap. I'm a
tycoon game. I'm a tycoon game. And then they get
you and it's like, oh, this is actually a car
building game.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
I feel like half the janksim's out there pretend to
be tycoon games, but they're just like run a gas
station with horrible graphics.

Speaker 3 (37:06):
I don't want to talk badly about automation because it's
a very cool game.

Speaker 1 (37:10):
But no, let's let's first say I also agree it's
a good game, but why don't you dive into it
explain automation because this is kind of a funny one.
I don't even know if you can label it a
tycoon game or not. It's the most borderline case that
I think I've come across at.

Speaker 3 (37:23):
Its or it is a game about very granually designing cars.
So we're talking you have to design the entire engine
of your car before you even get to the rest
of it. So you have to worry about not just
your cylinders, but like what kind of compression are you
going for? Very gritty and granular. So card nerds love

(37:45):
that part, right, But then you're supposed to actually sell
these cars as part of a tycoon layer, so like
you could make a car that's for the like a
pickup truck, right, And there's markets in game showing like
the percentage of the population of your country that would
be interested in a light utility vehicle or something like that,

(38:06):
And it's cool to see all those numbers. And it
does work like you set up dealerships, you distribute the cars,
but really easy to figure out what's going to make
a profit. The only problem I found is that you
want to just make really cool sports cars. That's when
you start having difficulty with the financial system and it
feels more like a tycoon game. You know, you're trying

(38:28):
to be the Lamborghini, but if you just decide to
be Ford and just mass produced cars, the tycoon element
feels very strapped on because as long as you're meeting
a bunch of different big population marks, you're gonna make
tons of money, right, So it's very unbalanced, and I

(38:48):
think that that makes it kind of an odd tycoon game,
which is why I don't recommend it to people as
a car tycoon game, because you're gonna spend way more
times as any cars than you are on any tycoon element,
and it's just it's not Baltball. But it's very cool,
very cool made by very cool developers. They've always been
very open towards how their development works, so they're very

(39:09):
good people. It's just weird.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
And we can also mention that that that game maybe
a point against it being a tycoon game, is they
leaned into the ability for you to export your car
to beam or whatever. The driving game is. So yeah,
it doesn't appear like it appears like the game's focus
is probably more on building cars than it is on
the money for them. But it's so packaged like a
tycoon game. What's your guests know on if it's a

(39:32):
tycoon game.

Speaker 3 (39:33):
I technically it is, but again I don't think it
really it fits within you know, the rule, but not
necessarily the vibe.

Speaker 1 (39:42):
Right, the spirit? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (39:43):
Okay, is it a tail defense game?

Speaker 2 (39:45):
No?

Speaker 4 (39:46):
Going down that again?

Speaker 1 (39:48):
Really isn't everything a tycoon game? You really break it down,
you know, Tish, what's your favorite taycoon game recently? Oh,
he hasn't played any. He hates tycoon games. Very good answer.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
I haven't played a ton of recently released tycoon games.
I think this qualifies any of you play Nantucket. No
that the US, Yes, that's not what I'm referring to.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
Sorry, Is that the one where you're a whale fishing expedition.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Yeah, so it's a little bit adventure gamey, but it
definitely has this element of like building up your whaling
fleet or your ships and managing your crews and making money.
It's like embedded in this sort of Moby Dick story,
but it is effectively it's about, you know, trying to
find the white whale, and it definitely has tycoon elements

(40:36):
to it. I don't know that i'd truly say it's
a tycoon game. I think it probably is like in
that Pirates example, a little bit more Pirates than Port Royal.
But I really enjoyed it. It was very interesting. It
had great sea shanties, so if you want, you know,
men singing songs about being on the ocean, and I

(40:56):
thought it was pretty good. I mean, it's about five
years old, so it's not like it's brand new or
any thing. But I played it quite a bit and
enjoyed that game. Dev Tycoon a little bit older than that,
but I played the heck out of that when that
came out. I think we already talked about that a
little bit. I think those are the most recent. Like
I had to say, most of the Tycoon games I
play ten to be more on the classic vein you know,

(41:18):
from the nineties early two thousands. Airport Tycoon was one
of my favorite growing up. Railroad Tycoon two I've mentioned
like five times already. I played a lot of Port
Royal growing up as well, but that's all. You know,
those are all ten plus years ago.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
I mean you mentioned Airport Tycoon. I'm a real sucker
for those like Airline, and.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
I was mad. I remember playing that game and wishing,
like I was, like, why do I only get to
build an airport? I want to freaking I want to
manage the flights and the routes and all that. I
never even knew Aerobiz Supersonic existed as a kid growing up,
So I mean, Airport Tycoon was a good game, and
I enjoyed it and I played the heck out of it.

(41:58):
But I think I would have enjoyed Aerobis more if
I had known it existed. Actually, one other game I
played somewhat recently is in like three years ago, Cartel Tycoon,
which is like takes the moniker of Drug Lord, like you're,
you know, you're managing a drug cartel, except instead of
like just buy sell, you know, by by low sell high,

(42:18):
you know, on the street the basic Drug Lord game,
you're actually building like plantations, building facilities all throughout like
a South American country and so like it is very
much a a tycoon game. And that was an interesting
one that came out about three years ago.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
Now, yeah, I'm just looking that up and it looks
really cool, and then I see the reviews and I'm like, well,
what's going on, Like, what's the story of with this?

Speaker 2 (42:42):
I don't know if they had I mean, the most
recent reviews are mixed, but the original reviews they've got
twenty six hundred and it's like seventy five percent positive.
So I don't know if I feel like a lot
of these kind of games, because it did originally release
into early access. Sometimes the early axis comes out and
it's great, and then they break it with like future.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
Oh, I see it was related to what happened to
the company that made it. Okay, there's some drama.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Wasn't aware of that, but yeah, it was an interesting
game at the time when I played.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
I'm actually gonna take a look at that sometime.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
I mean to what you guys were saying earlier. One
of the negative reviews, God, it could have been so
good if it wasn't so micro It shouldn't that be
a positive review.

Speaker 3 (43:17):
There isn't such thing as too much micros. I've found
out from a recent game youlex that has got to
be playing that there is there can be too much.

Speaker 4 (43:24):
Best game in the world. Put one hundred and eighty
hours on that in a month. I've been playing Logistical.

Speaker 3 (43:29):
The Logistical No, absolutely not.

Speaker 4 (43:31):
Logistical is not tycoon at all. But it's I mean,
you run a business and you build a massive impart
and you make loads of money, like coming out the wazoo.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Any of you played Plutocracy, Uh familiar.

Speaker 4 (43:43):
I don't remember it.

Speaker 3 (43:44):
I feel like I've heard yeah, I've seen this.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
Yeah, I've looked at this, but I can't remember.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
It's like eight early nineteen hundreds, late eighteen hundreds. I
think it's trying to be a little bit story telly,
but it definitely looks tycoon ish. I have not played it.
It's been in early access for a long time. It's
been in my wish list for a long time. I
was waiting. When it first came out, it was real rough,
and I was waiting for to kind of get polished
up a bit.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
You know.

Speaker 2 (44:09):
Its description is, this is a business simulator. It gives
you a chance to become a wealthy and powerful to
take control of the world. It sounds like my definition
of a tycoon game.

Speaker 3 (44:18):
From the screenshots, it looks really tycoony.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
I'd like to take a look at it and check
it out. I have not played it yet, I do
own it, but yeah, I mean.

Speaker 3 (44:26):
All these guys have that real Rockefeller Carnegie look to them,
so it's definitely interesting.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
Very much the vibe as far as I can tell. Oh,
and then Arms Trade Tycoon I've played, which I enjoy ish.
I think the original concept of the game is a
little bit simpler, a little bit more traditional tycoon game.
And I really liked that game. We've talked about that
on the channel a fair bit Tortuga. But yeah, where

(44:52):
that game went wrong is when they decided they didn't
really they weren't content to be a tycoon game, and
what they wanted to be was a game where you
could drive your tank, where you you could do all
these other things that didn't really feel like a tycoon
game to me.

Speaker 3 (45:04):
Oh the episode when you guys talked about that was
so vindictive for me. I was like, yes, I was
so disappointed.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
Maybe the problem is the market. Maybe the problem is
the players don't want just pure businesses. Maybe they want
adventure games, they want jank games, they want the ability
to move around the world. You know, I don't know.
Maybe maybe the fault isn't that no one's building this game.
Maybe no one's building these games for a reason the
way that they used to.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
I think that's a possibility too.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
You know.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
I'm going to take another swing for the fences here. Okay,
So I think Prison Architect is a tycoon game, and
I love it. I think it's like one of the
best games in the last two decades. It's so funny though,
that that game somehow is not I can't think of
other games like it.

Speaker 3 (45:49):
What else, Well, there was a prison tycoon game a
long time ago. I don't know if it was any good,
but I remember there was one. Yeah, two thousand and five.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
Just seems like Prison Architect kind of came nowhere. And
I mean one of the reasons why it's famous is
because it was early Access done right, one of the
very first early Access titles, and of course it was
done correctly where they didn't abuse that which is now
just total garbage. Early Access doesn't mean anything anymore. But
I really like that game, and maybe that's just because

(46:19):
I really like these Build Your Hospital, Build Your Museum.
I mean, that's why Two Points has got me so much,
because every different title that they put out there, I think, yes,
I would love to build a museum and make it
a tycoon game. I still probably will end up picking up.
I still will probably end up picking up a two
Points title at some point because I think that they
look fun enough to give it a try, but I

(46:42):
know that it's not going to be difficult and that
the focus is not.

Speaker 3 (46:45):
Try a few of them. I keep bouncing off of them,
and I want to like them because obviously they're doing well.
But I don't know if it's just because they're a
little too wacky and whimsical for me.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
Have I mean, if you played Big Pharma, yes, yes,
and the next when Aquarium or whatever.

Speaker 3 (47:01):
If that came up, I was curious because Big Farmer
to me felt more like a puzzle game. It is, yeah,
absolutely like there's obviously like a correct way to.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
Do things, because to me it always seemed like the
more serious version of two It.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
Is more serious, which I definitely like that. The esthetic
of Big Farm is very cool.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
I think it's Big Farm is a totally different genre
than the Two Points titles. Those are much more Tycoon
games because the idea is building your hospital or whatever.
Big Farmer was about assembling pills in a way which
was very puzzle like, if you do it in this order,
you know, you get the product. Costs a little bit less.
It was all about laying out your conveyor belts. It's
almost more like Factoria than it was about Tycoon.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
What about Warhosp Not familiar with that?

Speaker 1 (47:44):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
That one came out last year. It has mixed reviews,
mainly because I think the game is very unfinished.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
But it was I mean, are you on are you
just on Steam like looking up Tycoon titles?

Speaker 2 (47:55):
No, I'm looking through I played War Hospital. I played
it on the Channel little bit.

Speaker 1 (47:59):
Oh wait was that the World War One?

Speaker 4 (48:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (48:01):
It was basically like, hey, what if the show of
Mash was a game and you were managing a hospital?

Speaker 1 (48:06):
Yeah, that's not Tycoon game.

Speaker 3 (48:08):
Oh I remember you showing this now, Okay.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
Yeah, that struggles from the two level systems, you know, symptom.
I think it is a game with a really interesting hook.
I don't know it's traditional tycoon because you're not really
making money per se, but like.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
It's not a tycoon game at all.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
Oh gosh, fine, but it's it's similar. If you could
just charge those patients' money, it would be a tycoon
g here we go.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
This is we're back to what was it last time?
Tower Defense all over again.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
No, but I think you don't think War Hospital would
be We're gonna get weird comments on the YouTube upload again.
You don't think War Hospital is very tycoon ish.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
I don't. I mean it has. It's like to me
the same way you could say that like Xcom is
a tycoon game. Yeah, you do manage your squads and
all that, and there is money to it about like
how what thing you're going to build and all that.
There is resource management, but it's really not about the money, right,
It's about doing the missions, and that's really about like
making decision about what patients to save and not if

(49:02):
I remember the game correctly, and like you even have
to defend with troops. Yeah, I would say this.

Speaker 3 (49:08):
Would you say, would you say it's not about being
the Rockefeller.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
When you said it was like x com they never
before have thought that we need a video podcast because
the look on my face of sheer disgust would have
been would have been. But yeah, I don't want to
argue too much. There's no money making venture to it.
I don't think it's quite as mission oriented as you
seem to think. It is very much about like building

(49:33):
your facility and then building your supply chains to be
able to get as many people save.

Speaker 1 (49:39):
Tell me, that's not exactly what xcom is.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
Okay, you know, so I'm just I'm gonna go take
a drink.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
Plus Z missed my segment on prison architect and I
just want to give him a chance to tell me.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
Go back to prison Architect. I apologize, I've been interrupting
all day.

Speaker 4 (49:55):
And then if you call that the takering game, though.

Speaker 1 (49:57):
Which one prison architect?

Speaker 2 (49:58):
What?

Speaker 1 (49:59):
Oh interesting arts.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
I'm curious do they not have heavily privatized prison systems
in Australia because they're very much a business here.

Speaker 4 (50:07):
Well, they don't know, but I don't think it's tight
you're not building an empire of You're not the owner
of the company that runs the prison. You are an
employee who's doing middle management work.

Speaker 1 (50:21):
Before we debate this, because I think this will be
fun to talk about, you also concede it's an amazing game, though,
right that everyone should play it. Prison Architect, Yeah, I mean,
do you think it's a good game.

Speaker 4 (50:30):
That's fantastic. I run it like a business.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
Okay, cool, So now let's talk about type print.

Speaker 4 (50:34):
Those license plates.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
Should move to America. You'll be all set.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
I just wanted everyone listening to realize they should play
Prison Architect. It's a great game. How would you differentiate
you say, maybe not, But how would you differentiate differentiate
between something like Prison Architect and something like Project Hospital.
To me, they both seen tycoon games. They seem very similar.

Speaker 4 (50:53):
I said earlier about Theme Hospital, and is that a
tycoon game? And it's it is because you're building multiple hospitals.
You're building that tycoony type of empire. I don't know
if Projy Hospital is necessarily a tycoon game. It's a
hospital game for sure, because that's what it is. But
I don't think i'd call it a tycoon game. Necessarily,
you're not building the greater empire. You're a gain. You're

(51:16):
the manager of a hospital.

Speaker 1 (51:18):
Interesting, so, like I kind of think of it the
same way. So maybe my definition and yours are just
different because I would consider a tycoon game the same
way that I would consider Roller Coaster Tycoon a tycoon game. Like,
you can't really expand beyond the map of Roller Coast.
You will never be more than one theme park.

Speaker 4 (51:34):
But you are though every mission you're different, but.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
You're not in practice, No, not not in practice, Yeah,
the same way you are in Prison Architect. Right, every
different map you load in Prison Architect is a different
prison in theory. I mean, I think that they're similar,
aren't they?

Speaker 2 (51:50):
But I think be an ex I do think it's
a stretch to say, like you are building multiple hospitals
or multiple theme parks because you're on a different scenario.
I think what you're saying is an interesting perspective. Do
you have to have the ability to have multiple locations?
You know, to really be a tycoon? You can't just
be a small business owner and you own one golf course, right,

(52:11):
you got to own a chain of them, right.

Speaker 4 (52:14):
Exactly, You're not a tycoon. If you're a little mom
and dad shop selling widgets in the corner, you have
to be the widget tycoon to be a tycoon. And
theme hospital very much is about that, like the progression,
that story of moving from hospital to hospital and you know,
building up a big empire.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
All right, cool. I think this is great because I disagree.
In fact, even when TCHG said in the very beginning
that it's not about mom and pop shops, I actually
disagree with that. I think you can have a good
tycoon game just because it doesn't mean exactly definition of tycoon.
In my head, it just means like this management of
a business, Like if I was to rename Tycoon, I

(52:51):
would call it business management type games. So in my opinion,
like there's restaurant Empire, which is not really even about
a restaurant's really purchased, managing one restaurant and that's a
very small and you can just run a small restaurant.
You don't have to be a big one. I still
think that that's a taccoon game though, and maybe this
is better labeled like management games. But management games can

(53:14):
get into Okay, here's a good one sports games. Football manager,
Football manager, is that a taccoon game.

Speaker 4 (53:20):
No.

Speaker 2 (53:20):
No, there is out of the park baseball, which is
very similar.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
But I think that motorsport manager is a taccoon game.

Speaker 4 (53:27):
You're not playing for the money, so it's not about
running a business. Somebody else is running the business, so
you have a when you're the football manager, you have
a club manager or would forget the title, but they
are if you were playing to them, perhaps you'd call
that a tycoon game. But you're not. You're a manager
of a football club and there happens to be money.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
Involved, so you're also a null on motorsport manager. Then.

Speaker 4 (53:51):
Look, I wouldn't call it tycoon. I didn't. I didn't
pipe up when you were saying that because I don't
feel strongly about it, and I'm happy to be convinced
either way. But I don't think I would call not
a sport manager a tycoon game. It's even I even
looked at it for my list and discounted it. I
don't think it's tycoony. You're not running the business for money.

Speaker 3 (54:11):
I mean it's a it's an interesting point though you
have outcomes, you're an employee of somebody's business, but you're
not actually the tycoon so.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
I agree, And like I was thinking of Out of
the Park Baseball, where you're you can be a manager,
but you're also like the GM, right, you'd be running
the business side of things, but you very clearly report
to the owner of the franchise, and your goal is
not to make as much money as possible. Your goal
is to make as much money as your owner wants
you to make. But like at its core, you you

(54:42):
get judged mostly with the budget that I give you.
Are you going to win titles? And so like, to me,
that's a sports management game. It is not a tycoon game.
If you could play as Mark at Nasio, owner of
the Molakee Brewers, that could be a take game. But
in Out of the Park Baseball, the highest up you

(55:04):
can get is being a GM. Being a GM is
not being a business tycoon.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
I think I'm willing to concede this one actually, mainly
because these management games when they have an aspect of
the game where you're going into the actual sport and
you're doing completely non money management, right, You're figuring out
in Motorsport Manager, when do I want to do my
pit stops? That's definitely not tycoon ish, right, Whereas some
like Restaurant Empire. I think that that would be Even

(55:30):
though it's yeah, that would be a better example of
a tycoon game. I still think that Project Hospital, despite
having the okay, actually Project Hospital might not be because
you actually have to manage patients. You actually have to choose.

Speaker 4 (55:42):
I mean you can at least money's tangential.

Speaker 3 (55:44):
Well, what if it was zoomed out more and instead
you were you have to place down your outpatient clinics
and you have to manage the doctors that you're hiring
across like a statewide area. That feels more like a
hospital tycoon game. Right, you're playing as a corporation that
owns medical facility rather than just running a single hospital.

Speaker 4 (56:05):
Project Hospital is outcome. It's the medicine, it's the outcome base.
You want to provide healthcare to the people that come in.
That's what the game is. You're not there to make money.
The money only facilitates building more stuff, and in fact,
without modeling the game, you play until the money can
no longer keep up with the number of people that

(56:27):
come in. I won't go into detail on it, but
basically there's a fixed number of patients that can come
So if you build a new department. The next day,
the number of patients are split between those two departments,
and so on and so forth. So eventually you get
all these overheads where you can't just keep expanding and
you have to try to manage. That's the only time
money really is issues when you're it's gating you. You're
not playing to earn money. You're playing the cure people,

(56:50):
and money is the challenge.

Speaker 1 (56:51):
It's funny because that's not why I play. But this
might be another one of those the Sims things, I
mean a little bit less. So I think you could
probably make a case for this one being a tycoon
game in the same way for people who would think
The Prison Architect is a tycoon game. And you would
disagree for both of those z which is fine, But yeah,
I really.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
Like I think they're in a gray zone.

Speaker 1 (57:10):
Yeah, I mean again, it goes back to.

Speaker 3 (57:12):
I think some people would feel that they are tycoon games.

Speaker 1 (57:15):
Right, do we need to define tycoon game? They're a
game with money that we're managing. Do they fit exactly
within this strict definition or that one? I don't know.
That kind of mean.

Speaker 4 (57:25):
Oster Dots is now a tycoon game according to your
your definition. You've got money and it allows you to
buy stuff.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
Which which one aster dolls? Yeah, Like I said, I
think you can play that one as a tycoon game.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
Or maybe nothing is a tycoon game. It's the opposite
of this. It's the opposite of the city builder we
I think we gotta.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
But this is not I don't think this is.

Speaker 3 (57:44):
Maybe game genres are nebulous.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
Is this going to be the direction we want to
proceed for this episode podcast? I don't think so. Maybe
we can go back to good tycoon games and stuff
like that, because.

Speaker 4 (57:54):
I think Transport Tycoon like that is the tycoon game.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
Yeah, I see that.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
Yeah, railroad tape too.

Speaker 3 (58:00):
Like.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
I like the notion of you have to be the owner.
You basically have to be the capital. And it's not
enough to just like own a business. It's about more
than just making money. Is central, but it's about more
than just making money. I feel like it's about building
an empire.

Speaker 4 (58:17):
You can't be middle management. I think you have to
you have to be the one with the skin in
the game, so to speak. You've got to be the capital.

Speaker 1 (58:23):
I don't have much more to say. I think that
for me, I will never it'll never get old seeing
like money go up. I love that, And it's not
to me about expanding to like become a franchise or whatever.
I'm very satisfied with a lot of the quote unquote
tycoon games whatever, the games that we're talking about, whether

(58:45):
or not you call them that, just building up. I mean,
that's why I like the sims. I just like to
make enough money to expand my house, to break the
gameplay loop, to get out of it, to have enough
money that you've done well enough. Yeah, okay, left. But
in our chat, is Victoria three a tycoon game?

Speaker 2 (59:00):
I almost brought that up earlier. By the way, like
the way the markets work and the way that you're
building the factory is like the difference is here the state,
and I don't think you can be the state in
the tycoon game.

Speaker 3 (59:10):
But oh, you're just a national tycoon, right.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
It's interesting. I mean, I think it's on the border.
I wouldn't say it's an out right now. It's probably
a little bit to me like the Ano series, a
little bit in limbo.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
To me, a tycoon is not a government. But yeah,
I can see why there are a lot of parallels.
But to me, again, you are a you are a
robber baron, and that's that's what makes Tycoon games sort
of stick. And that's why I like b Alexad's notion
of you can't be a mom and pop shop in
order to play these games. But that's obviously my own

(59:42):
personal opinion.

Speaker 4 (59:42):
That's not you can start as a mom and pop shop.
You just can't sit there and fidd with manutual that
You've actually got to have scope to expand.

Speaker 3 (59:51):
I think we always need to go down these interesting debates.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
Well, we caught a lot of grounds so far, probably
getting close to the time to close, but maybe one
last thing we could do before we wrap up is
just go through and talk about one of the games
or you know, if there's an honorable mention, that's fine too,
but maybe focus on one game that a Tycoon game
that impacted you, you know, quote unquote Tycoon game and
tish since you've been Yeah, let's let's start from the

(01:00:16):
anti Tycoon perspective.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
Why do you keep saying anti Tycoon?

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
I like Tycoon gage, you just hate Tycoon games.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
I hate saying this because I feel like I bring
this up every episode, Like my favorite historically would be
Railroad Tycoon two in particular, I think it does a lot.
I think it really leans into that notion of early
nineteen late eighteen one hundreds businessmen, you know, unrestrained capitalism
and the ability to like fight against your opponents and

(01:00:46):
sort of struggle over routes and make money and buying
and selling you know, stock and whatnot. But since I
have talked about that game, you know i'd mentioned airline
or sorry, airport tycoon.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
Wait before you go off of before you go off
a railroad, tycoon, just quickly on that. Do you have
any thoughts on the age old debate of two versus three?

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
I never played three, so I played two on PlayStation.
I did not really have a gaming computer growing up.
I played two on PlayStation. I rented it from Blockbuster
literally like two dozen times. I don't think I ever
actually bought the game on PlayStation, but I rented it

(01:01:29):
like religiously, and eventually I would get it on PC
much later and play the heck of a heck out
of it on PC. Three. I remember looking at it
one point years later and be like, that looks like
early era three D, where everything looks blocky and looks shitty.
I actually prefer the sprite look of two better. You know,

(01:01:49):
everything's like big and like not really highly detailed, whereas
I think two has like a better camera view of
like you're zoomed out just the right amount in my opinion.
But I can't speak to the gameplay because I never
played it. Why do you have an opinion on which
is better?

Speaker 3 (01:02:04):
No, I'm just surprised that you never at least gave
it a try. With how much that you like too.

Speaker 2 (01:02:09):
Yeah, I mean I looked at it, and I remember
thinking I like to look at two better. But again,
like I played when I saw that was probably like
ten years after I had been playing the heck out
of two, So like these weren't the same. I wasn't
in the same era of my gaming. I would say,
like another game that I really adored and played a
ton of growing up Tycoon get Wise, was a.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
Report maybe before we go off two or three, because
I do have comments on that. I think that the
fascinating thing between the two and this is some people
like it, some people don't. Is that three introduced dynamic economy,
right you could actually I know the two had somewhat
of this, but three you could actually run out of
or it became like completely unprofitable to maintain a route

(01:02:54):
if you didn't supply the supply chain. If I have
that correct, I hope I'm not misremembering, but I'm pretty
sure that three had this dynamic economy, and two you
could keep these same routes running and they wouldn't like
dry up.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
No, So two they would get less profitable, but I
don't know that they would ever completely dry up. Like
in two. When you would first connect two cities, the
passenger profit would be astronomical, and then over time that
would taper off a bit, and then there'd be events
that would happen. It was not dynamic, but it'd be

(01:03:27):
like the automobile was invented, or other things would happen
which would cause, you know, those products to become even
less value. And you could feed a city with a
steel mill, iron and coal, you know, to have more
profit there. You could buy the steel mill, so you
could kind of get both ends of that profit. But
like two definitely had this diminishing returns aspect to your routes.

(01:03:49):
That being said, from what I've heard from like Finish
and other episodes where we've talked about this, it sounds
like three did ramp up on that considerably, and two
was much less complex in that way.

Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
Yeah, and there was also the three D aspect of three,
which introduce I mean, I think it made placing track
a little bit more difficult. But they're both good games,
and I would say maybe two is actually easier to
go back to, just because it's two D and three
D that the Railroad Coaster Tech sorry Railroad Tycoon three,

(01:04:26):
the three D probably did not last the test of time.

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
Yeah, it reminds that three reminded when I look at
pictures of it reminds me of like N sixty four
era PlayStation two era graphics, whereas you know, again I
have a soft spot for sprite graphic games.

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
Oh okay, you were talking about airlines something.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
Yeah, so I played a time of Airport Tycoon growing
up as well, and that was an interesting game because
that was a game where you would manage an airport,
put your run ways down, you manage where your jet
ways are managed.

Speaker 3 (01:04:58):
It's the one from two thousand, right, the I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Remember what year that sounds about, right, because there's.

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
Been a there's been a few Airport Tycoon games, I
think they.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Even Yeah, and there have been like more recent ones too. Actually,
I should have said the sky Haven Tycoon Airport Simulator
was another one I played more recently too, says the
guy who never plays Tycoon games.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
Wait, the airport simulator? Was that the like very prison
architect like one.

Speaker 4 (01:05:22):
That's Airport CEO. You're thinking airport CEO tort There's one
called sky Haven as well, which.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
I see, I see.

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
I know.

Speaker 1 (01:05:28):
There was two or three that came out at the
same time, and of the you know, it was like
which one do you which one do you pick? I
don't know. I picked one.

Speaker 2 (01:05:34):
I did not play sky I did not play the
CEO one. I played the sky Haven. Yes, the two
thousand game was the was the airport take? Oh god,
what did I do?

Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
I never played that, but my brother played it all
the time. I was obsessed with watching him play it.
It looked so cool.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
Honestly. It was more like a terminal terminal Tycoon designer game.

Speaker 3 (01:05:55):
Yeah, because you could do stuff in the terminals, right.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
You literally designed every You would place every single individual
seat in the terminal, design all the different like places
in the terminal for restaurants and other things like that.
Like the game was, you'd throw the runway was like
pre designed. You just throw it down based on the
length the jetways. You know, it's just a square that's
where the plane parks the you know. A lot of

(01:06:20):
the external stuff was all like prepackaged, but it was
very like SimCity esque inside your terminal where you would
like design things. It was really interesting. It was actually
published by Talents Off, which interesting because you know, I
think of them when I think of war games. But
you know, it was a game about like managing the
business side of things. You had to sign contracts with

(01:06:42):
different airlines for different routes you could do.

Speaker 4 (01:06:44):
You could do like a.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
Cargo focus or a passenger focus. Obviously cargo flights have
different you know, they don't need your passenger terminal, but
I you know, and there are things like different scenarios
like you know, the oil crisis and other things like that.
I just remember playing the a lot of it and
enjoying it quite a bit. They made three, I believe
there's Airport Tycoon two and three they made have been

(01:07:06):
pretty rapid successions. I sort of like peak of the
Tycoon era, I guess early two thousands, because they made
Airport Tacoon two and I think that was like two
thousand and one, two thousand and two, and then Airport
Tycoon three was two thousand and three, So like they
made a lot of those real quick.

Speaker 3 (01:07:23):
I was back in that era though, you know, back
in that time they just make sequels rapidly for games.

Speaker 1 (01:07:28):
Still has anybody played that one? And also Airport Ceo
because it does sound a lot like Airport Ceo.

Speaker 3 (01:07:33):
Airport CEO is basically they tried to do the same thing,
but I don't think it's quite as in depth more playable,
arguably because yeah, I know's Airport CEO has the concourse
management stuff into two, but I don't think it's quite
the same aesthetic. But they were definitely going for it.
They were trying to do the same thing.

Speaker 1 (01:07:53):
Okay, got it, Thanks, well, let why don't you pick
up next?

Speaker 3 (01:07:57):
Oh you sure?

Speaker 4 (01:07:58):
You sure?

Speaker 3 (01:07:59):
Because I got some controversial things here, let's hear it. Technically,
as a tycoon game, one of my favorites that I've
played the most is not a very good tycoon game.
It's in that situation we've talked about earlier where it
leaned way too much into the sandbox. And what's funny
is every attempt to remake this game has had the
same problem, which is called the movies.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
Huh oh wow, that was early two thousands.

Speaker 4 (01:08:23):
You like five back then.

Speaker 3 (01:08:25):
Yeah, very funny. It's my Lionhead Studios, so you know
that's Peter Mollinew and stuff. Right, So interesting game.

Speaker 1 (01:08:32):
That's why it didn't work out well.

Speaker 3 (01:08:34):
Honestly, Yeah, it was over ambitious.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
Oh it was very sims asque, like the vibes are
very sims kind of. I mean, yes, I remember I
played that game.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
Actually, the coolest thing it let you do was that
you could create your own movies too, Like it had
this fully interactive like suite for on all these different
sets you could use. But the problem is that the
actual Tycoon element not very good. You just make money.
It's it's really bad.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
But I mean it won the bath To Games Award
for simulation.

Speaker 3 (01:09:05):
It's because it has such cool features in it. And
there's been two other games. I had to look them
up again, Movies Tycoon, which came out just last year
and Blockbuster Inc. Which came out just last year, and
I think both of them had the same problem, which
is that they're really cool sandbox games. But the Tycoon stuff.
Everyone I've heard has said that they're just too easy.

Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
This game had a real big advertising about get I
remember seeing a lot about it. It was published by
Activision and Sega.

Speaker 3 (01:09:32):
Yeah, and it's abandoned where now it's great. The other
there's the other one that I was gonna mention is
it's kind of a great. It's one of those gray
area ones that we've been discussing, which is the Guild Too.
I don't know if any of you guys have played
any of the Guild series. They are like a mix

(01:09:52):
of a tycoon game and a life simulator game. It's
there's a lot of business management stuff that goes on
in that and you're buying out other bits businesses and stuff,
but it's also a life sim so it's in that
weird race space.

Speaker 1 (01:10:05):
I'm super happy you brought this up. That's a I mean,
you talked about the Guild Too. I guess you didn't
want to talk about the Guild three.

Speaker 3 (01:10:11):
No, we're not, No, the Guild three doesn't exist, Cotton.

Speaker 1 (01:10:16):
I really wish it was good. I mean because I
didn't really play that much of Guild Too, so I
would have been one of those people who would have
appreciated a lot any Ui enhancements which have Oh.

Speaker 3 (01:10:25):
Absolutely, the guildt too is a hot mess too. It's
just less of a hot mess than the Guild three,
which is sad. But you know, that is an extremely
fun game to play with other people as well, because
of how cutthroat the business side of things are in that.
You know, you can fire bomb your friend's fishery. It's
it's it's pretty cutthroat, but so satisfying to play such

(01:10:49):
a weird I think it's German, has to be German.
It feels German. Oh it's yeah, yeah, it's it's it's
it's magical. And then the last thing I was gonna
mention I mentioned it earlier. I wish that a modern
company would take the concept and make something good out
of it, which was Carnival Cruise Line Tycoon. A tycoon

(01:11:10):
game and running a cruise line just seems like such
a great match, right, Those are big companies even today.

Speaker 1 (01:11:17):
So in this I didn't play this game, maybe because
it was considered slot, but I mean I might have
enjoyed it if I had. Is it you running a
single cruise ship and like building the cruise ship, or
is it you running many cruise ships?

Speaker 3 (01:11:29):
It's kind of weird in the it's one of it's
you don't run the company, but at the same time
you're not answering to a corporate authority. It's got a
weird system where basically, once you make a certain amount
of money, you get the next ship, and then you
have to make a certain amount of money with that ship,
and you just keep getting new ships. It's it's very strange,

(01:11:50):
like trying to logic the progression and system into anything
in reality, it doesn't make sense. You're you're just getting
rapidly promoted to every ship in the fleet, but.

Speaker 1 (01:12:00):
No, you can't.

Speaker 3 (01:12:00):
I would love that if it was more like that,
where if you managed a fleet of ships as like
the actual tycoon corporate owner. But no one's touched this
cruise line thing properly since. And it really disappoints me
because I think it's really cool and I get very
nostalgic still when I play it because it's such a vibe.
Cruise ships come on.

Speaker 4 (01:12:19):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:12:20):
Anyways, That's all I got. Those are my weird three picks.
Those are the ones that stick in my brain.

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
Those are good picks.

Speaker 2 (01:12:25):
By the way. Regarding the movies, there was a recent
release of a game called the Executive Movie Industry. Tycoon
came out like two months ago. Three months ago, we
got another one. Now, that's crazy. I'll have to look
at this one too.

Speaker 1 (01:12:37):
I was chasing the dragon life. You'll never they'll there
will never be a good one.

Speaker 4 (01:12:40):
I know.

Speaker 2 (01:12:41):
Well, any game, though, we're all at that stage in
our life where I think maybe no game will ever
capture the nostalgia of your of your youth.

Speaker 3 (01:12:49):
Yeah, well the reviews seem good.

Speaker 1 (01:12:51):
Well, that's a podcast for a different time, a depressing
thought and a podcast for another time.

Speaker 4 (01:12:56):
Yeah, segue into my my situation there, because I actually
do have a game that will capture the nostalgia of
my youth. People still play it. Transport Tycoon was my
first ever PC game, and it is the best. It's
so good. People reverse engineered, they made it open TTD.
It's the best. It's the goat look. I played it
actually before it was even had the deluxe thing on

(01:13:17):
the end. I played the Mars skin on this crappy
old little laptop from the nineteen nineties, had a little
integrated mouse. The size of it was actually smaller than
a matchbox, and it was ty It's fantastic. And you know,
this was back before I was old enough to realize
that you had to make couldn't just make right angle
train junctions, so none of my trains ever turned around.

(01:13:38):
It was beautiful. I played that game to death, and
I think that's what started me down being a proper,
proper gamer in the sense, rather than going into Tortuga
the sims. I'm a real gamer, I'm a hardcore gamer.
But I think that's what set me down the path.
It's a fantastic game, and it's like the pure definition
of a tycoon game. It's in a name. There are

(01:13:59):
issues to but it's it's pretty much a train game
rather that No trucks have issues. They used to jam
up in the little truck stations all the time. And
aircraft aren't balanced because you make shit tons of money
with aircraft.

Speaker 1 (01:14:10):
Yeah, I mean aircraft. I was going to say it's
really an airport airplane simulator if you wanted to just
make money.

Speaker 4 (01:14:15):
Well not in the original game, because throughput on airports
wasn't good enough, so you'd end up with they actually
have to fix that. In open TTD, you could only
really get one plane landed every x number of minutes.
It was a real struggle, so they really they opped
it up. They have improved that open TTD is miles
above what the original game was, but it's still the

(01:14:37):
same core game there. Probably My second is a little
bit more modern, which is gear City, gear gear City
and how to pronounce that?

Speaker 3 (01:14:44):
Yeah, ge gear city city?

Speaker 4 (01:14:46):
Yeah that way, I'm not Scottish.

Speaker 1 (01:14:49):
Gaya is that some Japanese thing?

Speaker 2 (01:14:52):
No.

Speaker 4 (01:14:52):
Gear City is another that's that's really taking Tycoon all
the way. And like you were saying before, you have
to make your own challenge once you've once you've practiced
at it and beat it a little bit, You've really
got to make your own challenge, am I. My latest
thing has been making a Steam Vehicle Empire and trying
to make Steam bring it back again, make it go
all the way and having those nearly impossible challenges really

(01:15:13):
define I think Tycoon, and you need to be able
to take them where you go. That the money becomes
inconsequential after a while, you start making your first billion
and you'll never lose. To me, you could you could
not sell another car for the rest of the game
and just survive. I don't know there they might too.

Speaker 3 (01:15:27):
Bild said while on that topic, I never played this,
but maybe some of you did. Did any of you
ever play Locomotion? No? No, it was the weird spiritual
successor to Transport Tycoon.

Speaker 4 (01:15:42):
Yeah, Chris Sawyer made it. It was his in his mind,
it was the sequel to to Transport Tycoon, but he
kind of kept getting delayed because railroad type rollercoaster Tycoon
was like a breakout success that he wasn't quite prepared for,
so he put it off a bit, and unfortunately it
hit that point. He was using sort of roller coaster
tycoon mechanics where you sort of build rails that way

(01:16:05):
you build a coaster. Oh yeah, it's disgusting. It was
sort of between generations as well, so it had sort
of the aging look that pixel art without without being pixely,
but didn't quite It missed the market. It was a failure.
I really didn't enjoy it. The train building was horrible
and uh it's pretty shit.

Speaker 3 (01:16:26):
Okay, right, thank you for that depressing insight.

Speaker 4 (01:16:28):
But don't worry. Atari's got the IP now, so surely
they'll make a good game.

Speaker 1 (01:16:32):
Chris Sawyer, he must he might be like the you
talked about TTD being the goad and that's hard to
argue with. But was that mean by Chris Sawyer. Yes, yeah,
because he's probably the tycoon gay right, I mean he's
just a man.

Speaker 3 (01:16:47):
Well money are the most successful ones ast? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:16:49):
Yeah, because I could rattle off my list. I mean
on my list, by the way, I guess it's me next.

Speaker 4 (01:16:52):
So I have a long list, but I want Sims,
SIMS one, SIMS two, Siems three.

Speaker 1 (01:16:59):
No, it's not there. I have like a lot of
honorable mentions that I won't talk too much about. Here's
a question though, because it's on my list. I didn't
see this until now, But I have Evil Genius here
is that? Okay? So I'm starting to realize about myself
is that I like. What I like is a game
where you have money and you build like some kind
of prison or hospital or base, and you make money

(01:17:21):
somehow to continue to build more to expand, which is
not necessarily a tycoon game, at least by Zi's But yeah, anyway,
I had Evil Juice something.

Speaker 4 (01:17:30):
So you like to be up a middle management that's
like your dream and life.

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
Well, I'm I have some other ones on there. I
have Industry Giant too, which is very similar to TTV right,
just more focused on the warehouse side of things, I think,
the production side of things instead of being the trends.
I never played this, Oh, Industry Giant. Oh it's great,
So the modern equivalent will be Rise of Industry. It's average,
And we haven't talked about Rise of Industry, which I

(01:17:54):
think would be like another great Tycoon game. It fits
the mold for b Alex said, where you're starting like
one city and then you expand to different cities, you
build up production chains.

Speaker 3 (01:18:03):
Oh that game.

Speaker 4 (01:18:04):
Yeah, yeah, okay, beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:18:05):
Yeah, Rise of Industry. There's recently released Rise of Industry too.
Wait really, Oh I didn't know that, Yeah, just recently.
I haven't checked it out yet, but I should. I
will in the next weeks. There's oh yeah. So I
wanted to talk about Airport's CEO, which is honorable mention
for that because I actually enjoyed that so surprising. I
was surprised how much I enjoyed that, which might be
more expectation management than Airport Ceo being a good game.

(01:18:28):
But that harkens back to what she was saying about
his Airline Tycoon game that he enjoyed. So I think
that I've enjoyed Airport CEO probably in a similar vein
Prison Architect. It's a game that I go back to still,
So that's I enjoyed that. Yeah again, I just really
enjoyed these games where you're building some kind of building.
Then now, okay, closing in on the greats for me,

(01:18:51):
Aerobits Supersonic. I've talked about it a lot on this
podcast already. I'm pretty sure. But that is to me
the original game tycoon game I played and has had
the biggest impact. I played it with my father, I
have played it a lot. I have come back to
it for more modern Tycoon games. I also would give
a strong honorable mention to gear City if you can

(01:19:12):
get into its complexity. It's got every knob that a
Tycoon game should have. So that might be overwhelming for
a lot of people. I left, Yeah, I mean not
just left, pretty much like ninety nine percent of the population.

Speaker 3 (01:19:24):
You dumb people like me.

Speaker 1 (01:19:25):
Yeah, I understand ninety nine point nine percent of the
world dummies. And then there's just Z standing with Ilechius
Victorious on the other side.

Speaker 4 (01:19:35):
Oh look, Ale speak he made the steam trains work.

Speaker 1 (01:19:37):
Yeah, he's nuts. So for me, going back to the
final thing I think my goat is Roller Coaster Tycoon.
That game is just I just First of all, I
actually played the original, the pretesto server from it. It
was the Apple only version, don't even remember the name
of it. It was called like what like theme Park?
I think it was called theme Park, but it predates

(01:19:59):
Roller Coaster Tycoons.

Speaker 2 (01:19:59):
The park is not Apple only on the soup and
I played. I had theme Park on I'm gonna I'm
a console gamer. I had Theme Park on PlayStation one.

Speaker 1 (01:20:08):
Okay, well I played it. I have the songs of
the of the Merry Ground from that like stuck in
my head to this day, identify it and proximizing. Yeah, anyway,
so I think that that and so Roller Coaster Tycoon.
Those have been like some of the games I've spent
the most time in, at least from a Tycoon game perspective.
I don't have much more to say about any of those,

(01:20:30):
but those are like my short list for if I
was to think about games Tycoon games which I've enjoyed,
that would be my list. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Speaker 2 (01:20:37):
I got to say, there's a lot of Tycoon games
for such a dour industry that's dying.

Speaker 1 (01:20:42):
Well, let's also take a look at how many of
those are modern.

Speaker 3 (01:20:44):
I mean, yeah, that's true.

Speaker 1 (01:20:46):
Rise of Industry and honestly, Industry Giant is in my opinion,
better than Rise of Industry. But Rise of Industry has
a really sleek interface so it's easier to play. And
then Prison Architect. Yeah, I guess there is a dying industry.

Speaker 2 (01:20:59):
I don't know. I'm probably posted the executive movie in
this through Tycoon game.

Speaker 1 (01:21:03):
But all these remakes are just garbage.

Speaker 2 (01:21:04):
Have you played it?

Speaker 4 (01:21:05):
I think they're coming back. I went out of fashion
for a little while, but based on need, the volume
of slope out there, I think it's coming back. We'll
see demand for it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:14):
Yeah, well, not much demand, we'll see the early day
is still.

Speaker 4 (01:21:17):
Block of change, not really early days. Industry has been
round before years.

Speaker 3 (01:21:22):
I don't know, that's still early I'm brother, Yeah, think
about what our grandkids.

Speaker 2 (01:21:26):
Will be playing, you know, nothing, They'll be playing kick
the can of irradiated Coca cola across the you know,
the blown out remnants of the city.

Speaker 3 (01:21:39):
Speaking of that loss of optimism that.

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
Well, when I want to play a Tycoon game, I
just immerse myself in Rule the Waves.

Speaker 2 (01:21:45):
I mean I jokingly sent a message saying, is it
a Tycoon game?

Speaker 4 (01:21:49):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:21:49):
I don't think so because it's focused on, you know,
designing ships. It's not.

Speaker 2 (01:21:54):
But it would be a better game if it was.

Speaker 1 (01:21:56):
I actually agree with that.

Speaker 3 (01:21:57):
Yeah, you're just selling this ship.

Speaker 2 (01:22:00):
No, if you were running like a shipyard like you were.

Speaker 1 (01:22:04):
Exactly, Yeah, I'm sold. Actually, this is an idea that
you guys, we got to cut this out, edit it out.
I'll never make it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:13):
I mean, my whole idea before Arms Trade Tycoon came out,
Like I have like several pages written up of a
game I was gonna call military industrial complex where you
were going to run like an aviation company from like
World War Two to the modern era, kind of like
my my model was game dev Tycoon, but for military it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:31):
Would have been similar to Arms Trade Tycoon. Tanks, right, I.

Speaker 2 (01:22:34):
Mean probably not. I don't. I had never would have
had you driving around a tank. I'm going to keep that.

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
Yeah, but yeah, no, it's a really I think that's
a compelling idea. The problem is apparently there's not enough
demand for this kind of game that it doesn't never
get made.

Speaker 2 (01:22:50):
Manhattan Project Tycoon manage Los Alamos. I was gonna say,
do you have to oppenheimer the game?

Speaker 3 (01:22:57):
This is like game dev Tycoon. Do you have to
have your Nativity bubbles to generate the nuke? Like, I
gotta gets some real creative guys to make weapons of
mass destruction. Yeah, that's do.

Speaker 1 (01:23:13):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:23:13):
I'm running out of tritium. I need to build a
new factory to get more tritium.

Speaker 3 (01:23:18):
No, I mean yeah, I can see the appeal.

Speaker 2 (01:23:20):
And now we're on a watch list somewhere. Alright, I'm
back check this. I'm going to send this link. We'll
do our outro on a sec. But check this game out.
It literally looks like they ripped the logo from ARMS.

Speaker 1 (01:23:36):
It's the same exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:23:38):
Yeah, look at the menu.

Speaker 1 (01:23:43):
Is this an essay playway?

Speaker 2 (01:23:45):
No Awful Waffles Studio, which they got the first This
looks so bad. They haven't got like the little training
ground section ex after you're shooting your gun. Oh my god, everything.

Speaker 4 (01:23:57):
I think this can become a real fun game.

Speaker 2 (01:23:59):
Great, pretend we're a little critical of armstraight Taikoon tanks,
but it's not this ze.

Speaker 1 (01:24:04):
It's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast.
Just in case people are interested in watching your channel,
can you spell out that name for us again? Oh
you didn't expect that. You didn't expect me to try
to spotlight your YouTube channel which is just about to
make a comeback.

Speaker 4 (01:24:17):
Yeah, look what one of these days, One of these
days will come back, but not today. So I just
sign up to THHG and the Tortooga Power. They have
the ones to follow.

Speaker 2 (01:24:28):
Absolutely correct, great job.

Speaker 1 (01:24:30):
Okay, well let any outro touch stuff from you, anything
you want to point to.

Speaker 3 (01:24:35):
No, No, I think we bretty much run the world
dry here. Thank you for having me on here again.

Speaker 2 (01:24:41):
Lef Bill I said, thank you very much for coming
on Tortuga, thank you for hosting. I hope you guys
all have a great one And until next time, this
is the single Malt strategy podcast. My name is Matt,
but you can call me the Historical Gamer. And until
next time, we're out.

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Tycoon Games | Single Malt Strategy | Episode 91

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Tycoon Games | Single Malt Strategy | Episode 91