Alright, hour two! This time, I want to talk to you guys about my favorite kind of games ever. The kind that get my lil heart pounding, the kind that makes me dizzy, the kind I hunt down for hours at the time in the hope of finding a good one.
I am going to tell you about management games. Yes, I know a bunch of you expected me to say "visual novels" or "fate games" but nope I'm a city-builder kinda lad. There's a reason why I got an entire tab on this blog dedicated to them. All my love to people who keep recommending me mobile games but I don't actually play those I've been playing Caesar III for twenty years.
There are a fuckton of management games out there though. From civ-like 4x to rpg-like stardew valley, there's stuff for everyone. I'm gonna share with you guys my own criteria to be balling when it comes to management games though, and here they are:
The tutorial
Or, more broadly speaking, how easy the mechanics are to grasp. To be clear I'm not talking about whether a game is easy to play or not. I'm talking about how long it'll take me to actually get to boot up the game and play. I'm bringing this up because a lot of management games have a separate tutorial tab you're expected to go through, and then give you access to campaigns and free games and whatnot (Surviving Mars and Dawn Of Man are the two exemples I can think of.) And these tutorials are about as exciting as a college lecture. I mean you can start the game on your own if you want but you'll usually get really frustrated cuz nothing will work correctly.
This sucks. This sucks major balls. Not that I want instant gratification 24/7, but I think it's reasonable to ask for a video game to be meant to be fun to actually be fun without 30 minutes of doozy. And I know it's reasonable because plenty of games manage to do it! Caesar III, Megaquarium, Planet Zoo all incorporate a tutorial in their main campaign, so you not only get a bit of story, but also an objective and generally the opportunity to fuck around as you please. Since it's the very first thing I see in a game, you'll understand that a fun tutorial (even if it's bad regarding everything else) is pretty important for a game.
The progression
Some people like management games for the pleasure of building something. For the ability to model, craft, customize, to make the most pleasing or aesthetic thing they can.
I am not one of these people. I like to build shit, but I need to build shit for a certain goal, else I end up with a distinct feeling of "now what?" Which is why I require some sense of progression as I play. Unlocking new things as I go, hopefully new mechanics or new stuff that grants better rewards, so I can lay content in the permanent mindset of "I need to plan x thing so I can get y so I can then set my z plan in motion." Very good exemple of that sort of gameplay would be Megaquarium: you start with small warm water fish. Then you get bigger fish with higher demands. Then you get cold water fish. Then you get even bigger fish with special tank needs. The way you play changes over the course of the game; you can't apply a late-game startegy early on, and you can't keep playing the same way in the late game. Compare and contrast with Planet Zoo, which has most things unlocked from the get-go. Once you've built the three different sort of exhibits in the game (vanilla/exhibit with water/exhibit with shit to climb) that's it, you've done everything the game could possibly offer you. I have no incentive to keep playing since I've already built all I could build. I need an aim of sorts, or I get bored.
The free game
Campaign modes are well and good, but once you're done you're done. Most management games have some sort of free game feature where you can just fuck around as you please (actually, the only one I can think of who doesn't is Dawn of Man, which is extremely surprising to me, and also quite unfortunate because the game doesn't even offer much in the way of campaigns lmao.) So having one is important, and having some sort of customization is always a plus. Megaquarium is extremely customizeable (much more than I need it to personally tbh but I do appreciate the effort in that mode), Caesar III has dozens of pre-made maps for you to discover, and Planet Zoo... Planet Zoo only have a very basic one, which sucks mad balls because that means the only part of the game that really gives me a challenge are 2-3 maps from the campaign, but I've already talked about this game at length in its own post. Either way, you get me. The free game is where the players are gonna hang out when the campaign is over, a management game is incomplete without it.
The soundtrack
I usually don't bring up things like graphics or soundtracks when I'm talking about games. First of all because I don't normally pay that much attention to it, but also and most importantly because I think a game should stand by the strength of its gameplay. It's unfair to judge it harshly based on other things. I do have to bring up the soundtrack here however because a stupid amount of management games just... don't have music? At all? They have background noises or animal cries, but no actual music. (Iirc the first Zoo Tycoon was like this.) I'm sure it works for many people, but personally I need some sort of background music to keep me focused, otherwise everything just feels empty and uncanny.
So now you know what makes me enjoy or not enjoy a game, and next time I talk about management games you can think back to this post and compare with your own tastes to see if you can trust me or not. You guys should check out Against the Storm btw I still need to make a full post about it but it fucks mad tits.
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