Management – Random Game Reviews

Planet Coaster – Console Edition

January 4, 2023January 3, 2023Random Game ReviewsLeave a comment

The Game

Planet Coaster developed by Frontier Developments was released in 2016 and saw a lot of success since then as a spiritual successor to RollerCoaster Tycoon. The game did so well it was followed up with Planet Zoo in 2019. As should be obvious from the title, the game is all about managing a theme park and building some truly amazing rollercoasters. The game’s campaign mode has 12 scenarios with 3 objectives in each. Generally this takes around 10-15 hours to complete, after which you can look at challenge mode maps where you have to manage your own park by starting out with a limited amount of cash and building up from there. Alternatively if you just want to mess around or build without the limitations of cash you can always try the sandbox mode.

The game offers a huge variety of of coasters and theming options. From classic wooden and children coasters all the way to high speed steel winged coasters with inversions and loops. The themes also include classics like pirate, adventure, spooky, sci-fi and festive. The theme editor allow for the creation of highly detailed and unique scenery, there is also a Frontier workshop showcasing some of the finest creations by other players that you can add to your own collection and use in your own parks. The workshop also features various parks and rollercoaster designs uploaded by others, however you may find that quite a few of these aren’t compatible with console due to the more limited performance.

Worth it?

Considering the game came out in 2016 it has held up very well and as the console version was a little more recent it will still set you back around £17-20 if you get it on sale. As for the PC version you can find CD Keys for around £5-10 which is definitely worth doing. The game is an amazing playground in which to let your creative juices flow. The editor allows for some truly awe-inspiring builds and the only limit is one’s patience and imagination. Naturally the PC version will always be superior due to access to the steam workshop – this is issue is slightly alleviated for consoles by the presence of the Frontier workshop, although even then certain maps or builds won’t work on your console. Controls have been fairly well adapted for console, although when creating more detailed props/scenes it can be a bit tricky at times. The new approach to theming and the way props and decorations are created really do make this game stand out and cement is place in a long line of theme park simulation games.

Tips

Some props are grid based others can be freely placed – you can tell these apart by the grid in the background of the image.
If a ride’s queue scenery is at 100% you can charge the maximum for tickets (this will still depend on the ride’s prestige).
Sending staff on training courses will boost their happiness, but will also mean you need to probably raise their salary.
You can smooth a ride out by selecting a part and then selecting adjacent ones by holding X (PS) – you can then select the smooth option from the quick action menu.
Free camera allows you to zoom in and look at things even closer.
Make sure your staff rooms are within a reasonable distance for staff.
Use work rosters to manage where and how your staff work – especially useful for janitors.
After around 10 year of operating a ride will become a “Classic” meaning it will be at its highest prestige level – allowing you to charge the most you can for it.
A good rollercoaster with high values and good prestige can charge around $20-25. Whereas flat rides will vary from around $7-15 depending on the ride.

Useful Links

Planet Coaster Wiki: https://planetcoaster.fandom.com/wiki/Planet_Coaster_Wiki
Kinguin Cheap CD keys
JLW Games – YouTube series on challenge map, highly detailed parks: https://www.youtube.com/@JLWGames

MMA Manager

November 30, 2020November 30, 2020Random Game Reviews1 Comment

The Game

MMA Manager by Prey Studios is a mobile game based around running an MMA gym and building a roster of fighters. The game let’s you build and customise your gym, the equipment you choose will let you train your fighters in different disciplines. Of course you’ll need trainers and coaches as well to boost specific stats from each discipline. You can set your fighters to train for either a short or long period of time (minutes or hours).

Once you’re confident in your fighters ability you can take them to the arena and choose from a selection of fight modes. Campaign provides a good challenge but little rewards, whereas the quick match gives a somewhat decent reward and if you have a good fighter you can go on some good winning streaks. Tournaments consists of a series of fights at various time intervals – a few hours apart. They offer a great payout if you can make it to the end. Gym fights are 7v7 mode where you take on other player’s gyms – the matchmaking on these feels a little imbalanced and you also want to make sure most of your fighters are the same level.

The game offers some great gym customisation options and potential for upgrades. Fighters also feature a talent tree that you can unlock as you level them up. There are 3 main “special” martial arts – BJJ, Wrestling and Muay Thai, they allow you to upgrade the most stats. There are also more specific routines for less stats upgraded. This is where the short and long training sessions are useful. If you are looking to be fairly active, do a few fights, check back in the gym – then you can set a short training sessions. If you’re going to be offline for a while, use the long ones. Before each fight you will get an overview of your opponent and you can adapt your strategy going into the fight. The fights themselves can be quite fun to watch and can deliver some pretty exciting results (the fighters are not player controlled), but there is a skip option should you get bored of them.

Worth it?

The gatcha element isn’t too bad on this one, you can get on fine without needing to worry about premium currency and while cashflow can be a bit challenging at times, a good winning spree and completing daily quests can help in that department.

Overall the gameplay can get a bit repetitive, it’s also an always online so you won’t be able to play it without internet. Initial progress can be quite fast before hitting the first major hurdles. Other than that however it offers a good deal of gameplay and a nice element of strategy, as well customisation. It’s worth it if you’re looking to play a few active sessions a day and it’ll keep you coming back for a good while, but will eventually begin to feel a bit repetitive.

Tips

Avoid Gym vs Gym unless most of your characters are around the same level (you will need 7 to do this)
Check and ensure that the trainers you hire will work with any equipment as well as actually contribute to the fighter’s stats (after a while a fighter will outgrow the trainer and will no longer gain stats)
Leaving a player idle for a while will give them a training boost – this allows you to receive double stats awards on short trainings
Buy decoration for your gym as it’s the best way to get prestige – more expensive doesn’t necessarily mean more prestige
When fighting other players – look at the types of hits they’ve made the most of statistically and block/defend against those.

Useful Links

Wiki: https://mmamanager.gamepedia.com/Fighter#Roster
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/261174574412865/
Developer Site: https://preystudios.com/
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.preystudios.mmam&hl=en_GB&gl=US
Apple Store: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/mma-manager-2020/id1218811124

TAP! DIG! MY MUSEUM!

July 27, 2020August 3, 2020Random Game ReviewsLeave a comment

The Game

Tap! Dig! My Museum! by Oridio Inc is a simple but addictive game in which you dig up and collect dinosaur skeletons. Manage your museum by putting anything you find on display. The game has a very simple core gameplay loop in which you excavate bones on a hexagonal grid. Your pickaxe starts out fairly weak and you only have a limited number of taps to uncover all bones on the level. Once you start making money you will be able to upgrade your digging abilities. Upgrades are limited at first, but y There are also some premium boost items that can be used to help both in your excavations and in the museum, a little bit more on those later.

The are three tiers of dinos to excavate, various species and types ranging form marine life to therapods or pterosauria. You will gradually turn your dusty old museum into the most dino-packed building imaginable. Upgrade rooms, shuffle exhibits around, change the lighting and much more. The game offers a decent range of customisation for the rooms and you can group or theme your rooms as you please.

Worth it?

Overall this is a very addictive game, the completionist in me just wants to keep digging for more and more dinos. The game can be a bit repetetive, but that’s to be expected given the simplicity. When running low on cash or digs you may resort to video watching, and that can become quite a big part of the early game. I’m not against video watching as a whole, but the occasional free power up or an ad free version would be nice options. A few less videos to watch or a ad-free version could help.

I also feel this is a bit of a missed opportunity on an educational front, even just some bullet points with facts in the dinosaur book in-game. Overall though I would say a very fun, addictive and quite rewarding game – digging those massive dinosaurs out bone by bone and piecing them together really keeps you coming back.

Tips

Upgrade your digging ability as much as possible at first
Sell old exhibits or redo them when you can clear the level quite easily
For the secret fossils you can keep digging or reset as specific dinosaur until you collect all secret fossils from the specific location – check the wiki for more details on that.

Useful Links

Wiki: https://tap-dig-my-museum-wiki.fandom.com/wiki/Tap!_Dig!_My_Museum!_Wiki

Apple Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tap-dig-my-museum/id1460645640

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.oridio.museum&hl=en_GB

Game Dev Tycoon

July 18, 2020July 21, 2020Random Game Reviews1 Comment

The Game

Game Dev Tycoon was released in 2012 by Greenheart games and was an instant hit amongst Tycoon-game players. The game lets you create and manage your very own Game Dev Studio (the clue is in the title). You start out as most start-ups in a dingy garage, coding away on your own, smashing out new titles every few months. You will be able to choose your platform and game genre and theme. Then you will need to manage your time spent on the various elements of the game – get all of these combinations and balances right and you might just land yourself a smash-hit success that gets 10s across the board. However, if you get something like the theme and genre combination wrong, you could be facing a serious loss that may even put you out of business.

The game allows you to research better game engines, features and themes. You will eventually be able to make AAA games, have a maturity rating and release on multiple platforms simultaneously. You will also grow your office and recruit new members of staff to help you build better games (and to keep you from overworking yourself – don’t forget that occasional holiday). In the late game you will be able to fund an R&D lab and give them special projects, as well as your very own Hardware lab, which will allow you to make and sell your very own console (and of course put games onto it).

Worth it?

The game costs £4.99 for iOS or Android and it is available for £6.99 on Steam (with the added benefit of mod support). Is it worth it? Absolutely. The game offers a good deal of replay value, especially as your first few companies may tank – all part of business, as long as you learn from your mistakes.

Having a PC experience on mobile for a 5er is money well spent, my only criticism would be that once you do get to the end-game and you’ve got your own hardware, there really isn’t that much more to do – you can train your staff and do all the research, but at this stage the game cycle is already a bit repetitive. However I would say there’s a good few days, possibly even weeks of play before getting to that point. Not only that but if you have the PC version you will be able to mod it to your hearts content.

Overall a great tycoon and management sim, reinvigorating the genre and a great PC-like experience available on your phone, should you opt for that version.

Tips

Don’t rush into upgrading your offices or hiring new staff – the bills can add up very quick and sink you before you know it
Train your employees – late game you will want specialists for each of the major game components, also don’t forget to send them away when they are overworked
Know what makes good game/genre combinations – use a bit of common sense and real life experience here
You can turn tips on/off for second playthroughs – can be very useful in knowing what’s needed to deliver a hit game as often as possible, it is based on your previous attempts and the analysis of what has worked and what not

Useful Links

Wiki: https://gamedevtycoon.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page

Developer’s Site: https://www.greenheartgames.com/app/game-dev-tycoon/

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/239820/Game_Dev_Tycoon/

Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.greenheartgames.gdt&hl=en_GB

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/game-dev-tycoon/id1162580001

Pocket City

July 10, 2020July 14, 2020Random Game ReviewsLeave a comment

The Game

Ever wanted to play a city builder on the go? But you can’t deal with all the gatchas and pay to wins? Pocket City by Codebrew Games is exactly that. Its aesthetically pleasing isometric cartoon art style and the smooth delivery of classic city building mechanics make this a great choice for anyone looking to build some amazing cityscapes.

The game relies on familiar city building requirements such as zoning for residential/commercial/industrial, as well as maintaining services and resources for your citizens. Keep your city pretty with parks and various types of special buildings, make use of the sky rail, bus or airport to transport people around your city. The game does a nice job of providing a wide variety of specialist buildings from animal pastures to banks and some neat landmarks as well. You can also invest in various policies that will make your life easier. But watch out for the disasters (which you can inflict on yourself if you are so inclined).

The game also has an awesome quest system with objectives you can work towards. And once you have built up your amazing city you can start a new one in the same region and gain income from your neighbouring cities.

Worth it?

There are both a free and a paid version available, it’s £2.99 for the full version and it’s absolutely worth it giving you full access to all buildings and sandbox mode. There are no transactions in the game, no wait times, no BS.

The game plays great in both portrait and landscape, has a huge variety of buildings, models, events and quests. Grow multiple cities within the region. Overall it’s a solid city builder with nice graphics and good controls. The game has a lot to offer and for that price it’s a no-brainer.

Useful Links

Use events to gain decent chunks of XP.
Monitor your income and expenses through the stats tab – make sure you’re making more than you’re spending.
Keep an eye on your goods tab, because if certain goods can’t be sourced locally they will be imported, which can get quite expensive.
Having excess goods is a good thing as you will export any extra and help boost your income.
Complete quests for good chunks of XP or cash, some involve finding things on the map – so zoom in and look around, you’ll be amazed at the details.

Tips

Wiki: https://pocketcity.fandom.com/wiki/PocketCity_Wiki

Pocket City Free Google Play:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.codebrewgames.pocketcity&hl=en_GB

Pocket City Full Version Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.codebrewgames.pocketcitygame&hl=en_GB

Pocket City Full Version Apple Store:
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/pocket-city/id1330451888

Developer Site: https://pocketcitygame.com/

Mini Metro

July 7, 2020July 7, 2020Random Game ReviewsLeave a comment

The Game

Mini Metro by Dinosaur Polo Club released in 2014 was an instant classic. With its clean minimalist design and simple gameplay it’s a great game for either a casual 5 minutes to kill or a longer more in depth session.

The game is a Metro (or Subway) system simulation game. The aim of the game is to set up and maintain your public transport network in the most efficient and effective way. You control the Metro lines and can manage the amount of trains and carriages each of them carries. The game features 4 modes: Normal, Extreme, Endless and Creative and also features a Daily challenge on a random map in a random mode.

The game is easy to pick up, but hard to master. Your network will quickly grow from 3-4 stops to a sprawling metropolis. Normal and Extreme mode will both end when you overcrowd any one of your stations. The difference being that in Extreme you can’t move tracks or trains. Endless allows you to tinker and aim for the most efficient set up possible, while Creative just lets you do whatever you want.

Huge selection of levels, game modes and a daily challenge.

Worth it?

Put simply – absolutely. However it’s worth noting the price differences between platforms – the cheapest you can get it is on Android, currently that will set you back around £1, whereas iOS is charging £3.99 and on Steam you are looking at £6.99. However, the game is frequently on sale as well so that’s probably your best bet.

For that price on Android/Mobile the game is absolutely worth it – a great time killer, works offline too – perfect for a flight. It can be played in short sessions or you can keep tinkering on your endless map to get it to the optimal efficiency, up to you.

Tips

Don’t have too many of the same type of station in a consecutive order
Try to vary the types of station present on a single line as much as possible
Try to keep lines short or doing very specific routes that cover a good variety of stops
Using circular lines can be very helpful in certain situations, but in those cases it’s probably good to have 2 trains running in opposite directions

Useful Links

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/287980/Mini_Metro/

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=nz.co.codepoint.minimetro&hl=en_GB

Apple Store: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/mini-metro/id837860959

Developer Website: https://dinopoloclub.com/careers/

RollerCoaster Tycoon® Classic (Mobile)

June 24, 2020September 23, 2022Random Game ReviewsLeave a comment

The Game

An all time Atari Classic is now available on your phone! One of the first games I ever played and absolutely favourite of mine the RollerCoaster Tycoon series has had it’s ups and downs over the years, but this version takes you back to the golden age.

The game offers 95 classic scenarios to play through from RollerCoaster Tycoon 1 and 2. Fully functioning custom rider builder, hundreds of ride designs, shops, stalls and of course most importantly Roller coasters.

For those new or who have somehow managed to miss RCT this is THE theme park simulation game. You manage your finances, your visitors demands and the maintenance of your park. Some scenarios are time constrained, others pose different challenges. Flex your design skills, make your parks look pretty an master the running of a successful theme park.

95 scenarios from the RCT 1 and 2, and additional DLC maps as well.

Worth it?

The amount of levels you get are 100% worth the money. At £5.99 it is a deal you cannot pass up, it’s cheaper than it is on Steam. The one tiny downside is there is no sandbox mode, however there are several maps that could function as such once the objectives have been met.

The expansion packs offer 14 and 17 new scenarios respectively. These scenarios are on massive maps, some of which heavily themed already – if you are still itching for a few extra scenarios they are worth checking out, although it would be nice to get something a little extra with the purchase.

Overall, this is a great mobile version of a classic and absolutely worth buying. However it is also worth noting that things like OpenRCT exist – a free open-source community maintained version for RCT which can be played on PC and android (do note that it does actually require an original copy of RCT2).

Tips

Pause the game to understand what’s required to win the scenario
Focus on small reliable rides before moving on to building roller-coasters – you want to ensure you’ve got a good cash flow and money in the bank
For attendance objectives make sure you are using advertising campaigns
Map out routes for your handymen in order to maintain a clean park, although also worth having 1-2 free roaming to pick up any missed areas

Useful Links

Wiki/Walkthroughs/Guides: https://rct.fandom.com/wiki/RollerCoaster_Tycoon_Classic

Google Play Store:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.atari.mobile.rctclassic&hl=en_GB

App Store:
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/rollercoaster-tycoon-classic/id1113736426

OpenRCT:

https://openrct2.org/downloads/releases/latest