Falling Off the Tycoon Game Wagon

Games
#1

Two weeks ago I heard about this Lemonade Stand game. It sounded kinda dumb and whould be the type of game either a four or forty-year old would enjoy. Not for me.

But then again, Peggle sounded pretty dumb to me at first, too.

And this l’il Flash game with it’s awful graphics (you couldn’t even call them good drawings) hooked me. Bad. But I wanted more. More!

I grabbed the original Apple game it was based on - this one has marketing! I carried it on my thumb drive and played it at work.

I scowered HOTU for more economic tycoon fixes.

I tracked down a copy of Lemonade Tycoon 2 in a beat-up box at Wal-Mart on the discount games shelf.

I dug up SimGolf.

I stopped going to work and feeding my cat.

So my question is, are there any tycoon games on DS, and when are they porting Lemonade Tycoon?

Oh, I also bought 1701 and the Buccaneer’s Bounty pack. I need to purge.

#2

Hooray!

#3

I’ve always been a fan of the series, though they’ve never been that popular here.

Ooh, fancy-pants quoting.

double edit: that horizontal rule is too big.

#4

Fairy Godmother Tycoon is really good, better than the Lemonade stuff, IMO.

#5

I once found a free copy of Big Biz Tycoon somewhere, took it home, and installed it. That story ended much differently than the one about Lemonade Tycoon. I’m not sure if the game was even possible.

#6

I suggest “Santa Paravia e Fiumaccio”, see http://www.mobygames.com/game/trs-80/santa-paravia-and-fiumaccio and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Paravia_en_Fiumaccio.

There are various versions available for different platforms. If you’re feeling particularly hardcore, buy a TRS-80 Model I on eBay and play it on that machine.

#7

Zoo Tycoon is on the DS.

#8

I have it. Never installed it though. :\

#9

For I can never get past the third level. At that point everything starts to get ugly: There’s no food, no tobacco, no alcohol and just as riots spread across the island I discover that I forgot to research fire fighters.
I just started a new game on easy with no competition. I’ll see if I can get to the fourth level somehow.

#10

I played Lemonade Stand a lot on the old Apple iie back in the day after school and such. It was a nice little business sim.

#11

Lemonade Stand was one of the first computer games I ever played.

Some of my favorite tycoon games: Port Royale, Railroad Tycoon, and Earth Orbit Stations. There’s tons of great games in this genre, MULE, Democracy, Capitalism, etc, but I don’t know what’s on the DS other than Settlers, Theme Park and Harvest Moon.

#12

I’ll give Democracy a try. There’s a sequel now, right?

God dammit! I just lost three hours to SimGolf.

I dunno, the more complex these games get the less I like them, for the most part.

I have that space station XBLA game - any good?

#13

It’s a “Your Mileage May Vary” type of game. I personally didn’t care for it. I hate feeling rushed, and probably would have liked it more if it wasn’t real-time. But one of my friends who loves lite-strategy games really loved that one. You’re constantly trying to keep your customers happy while trying to make enough money that you can keep making repairs and keep earning more money.

#14

We need more of these.

Favourite to date: Patrician III.

Actually, favourite to date: that space trader game on my Amstrad - like a very (very) cut-down version of Elite. Can’t remember the name at all, but you moved around in space trying to get through black holes to the next galaxy in search of the myesterious Mr. Hoo, and could make a fortune from buying up all the food from a planet and then selling it at a huge markup after the inevitable famine that followed.

Not one to teach the kids ethical trade policy, admittedly.

#15

A couple of my favorites were Transport Tycoon and A-Train

#16

I actually think I only checked it out from reading about it here: Fairy Godmother Tycoon remains one of my favorite games nobody has ever heard about. It’s marketed to kids and the extremely-casual market, but the gameplay is solid, addictive tycoon stuff and the writing is honestly some of the best I’ve ever seen in a computer game. I’ve played it through twice already, and these days I hardly even bother finishing any games.

Anyone remember Pizza Tycoon? Really deep game for its time. You can probably find it at the underdogs, doubt it’s still for sale.

#17

I didn’t know SimGolf was considered a tycoon game, but that is one of my favorite games of all time. I tried the demo of RailRoad Tycoon 2 or 3(don’t remember which one) but I couldn’t get into it.

That’s the first postive impression I’ve heard of Fairy Godmother tycoon, which I remember getting a 1 out of 5 from XPlay.

#18

While the gameplay is nothing innovative and it’s obviously low budget, a 1/5 almost seems like the reviewer just took a look at the cover and 60 seconds of gameplay and assumed it was as shitty as the rest of budgetware titles.

#19

Yeah, that game was great. I remember obsessing about the game all day at school because my cash was coming up short. When I got home I checked the files of all my employees and found that one of them had a criminal record. I fired him and the skimming stopped.

#20

How about asking the weapons dealer for “ice cream”, then blowing up your competitors’ restaurants? :)