Sure, I guess with 2D you lose the realism angle. But I think the dearth of this kind of General game type, a nonviolent game, it’s worth calling out games that may lack some of the more superficial qualities. Waking Mars is one worth calling out.
Planet Coaster is great for building rides, terrible for management.
Parkitect is great for building rides and a DREAM for management.
The latest RCT (which I’ve not played) apparently is a pile of hot garbage.
I mentioned this in the “what game do you want to see made?” thread, but an open world non-violent MMO that combines Flight Sim, Truck Sim, Farming Sim, Construction Sim, Train Sim, Bus Sim, etc, where players are building a world and relying on each other to gather resources, make deliveries, etc, would be pretty awesome.
The downside is having a game sit in Early Access for twenty years due to its complexity, but aside from that…
When it comes out in 20 years, the graphics will look like European Truck Simulator 2, while modern AAA games 20 years from now will look really incredible in comparison.
This is how I feel about most open world games to be honest. The developers give you a big space to wander around in and explore… then cram it with (mostly) banal repetitive crap to do which I rarely find that interesting or satisfying and, if anything, gets in the way of exploring.
Tangentially: one of the reasons I appreciate ‘walking simulators’ (and why I hate that phrase so much) is because they’re comfortable with not padding the experience out with fluff. They’re more than happy with ‘exploring’ being the key (and often the only) verb. It’s the difference between Animal Crossing and the new Pocket Camp on mobile. One’s super laid back and confident with itself, the other one’s needy and insecure showering you with rewards for fetching laundry lists of items. The latter has a lot to do but most of it’s shit, quite frankly, and it really damages the hitherto super chill experience of Animal Crossing.
Thanks for mentioning Bully @Mr_Bismarck. I was gifted it a while back but I’ve never checked it out.
That’s my dream game. Some kind of economy/transport MMO.
Have you looked into albion online?
Release was a mess and I haven’t been back since, but it’s got an involved economy and transport plays a big part of it.
I got pretty excited about it and played it before release, but never went back after 20 or so hours. I really liked the economy aspect of it, but I was turned off by all the PvP. I’m drawn to and then repelled from Eve Online for the same reason.
It’s more than just transport, though. I’d like to try and do something cool with the logistical aspect of the economy, too. Like, you have players who are moving stuff from one place to another, but the reason they’re doing that is because you have to have two resources in one place in order to create a third one, which can be combined with a few others to make, I dunno, new brakes or something. At the same time as players are running those missions, you have other players who are setting up those supply chains, paying the transporters, and selling the brakes.
Black Desert Online plays around with logistics a little bit too… I feel like a lot of games do one part of my vision well, but nothing comes close to realizing it as a whole. And it probably only appeals to like ten people worldwide anyway.