Tag Archives: Business Simulator

Is Computer Tycoon a Business Simulation Or a Grand Strategy Game?

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Computer Tycoon – A Computer Business Simulator on a Grand Strategy Level

So in descriptions usually I mention that it’s a business strategy game on a grand strategy level. But what does it mean exactly? To answer this question, I think I should first focus on telling that what is a grand strategy game at all (or what it is in my understanding).

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Grand Strategy Games

On Wikipedia you could find something that a grand strategy game is a wargame, a strategy game where you command a bigger entity such as a country, an empire, a planet, a nation or something like that, meanwhile, your focus is on your resources and usually you watch a map to control the whole thing. Another aspect that usually this entity is followed during a longer period of time. (for example the devastating world wars)

To me, Grand Strategy games are all about maps. I’m a big fan of the genre including games like the Civilization series or paradox games. One of my biggest favorites is Romance Of The Three Kingdom III. It’s about the dynastic wars in China, and I can tell you that this game is very very old. In fact usually, I play it on a Dos Box emulator. It has many sequels, but somehow my fav is the third one and this is mainly because it has all of the major features that it should have added with some unique twists AND because it has such a lovely map. I can see everything on a simple map that is not way too chilly to me, nothing distracts me from my aim: getting every possible territory. Seeing your empire growing on a map is one of the most rewarding things in games.

And here comes my core thought:

Well, what if a company is that entity that you should control in a grand strategy? Such an entity has its resources, right? The computer industry does exist for a longer time of period, right? And what if you could control your computer empire on a map? Well this is something that isn’t so far from business simulation games, right?

The only missing component is that it’s still a business simulator and not a wargame. But business is a war from my own experience: you have opponents (enemies and allies), you have marketing (weapons), you have employees (army), you must research for better tools… for the aim to reach something: DOMINANCE (Victory). Commercial dominance or military dominance, I think you got my point.

So here we are. Still, I’m not sure if I should market the game as a business simulator or a grand strategy game, but I guess it’s a perfect hybrid… and as far as I know, there are no other precedents to such a fusion like that. Computer Tycoon is going to be the first game about the computer manufacturing industry and as well the first business oriented grand strategy game. What an excitement, I’d love to play this game already, haha!

I have so many ideas, and unfortunately a strict scope. I’d love to create the sequel already!

Check out, how big is the world! (Oh you can rotate the whole globe in the game)

As it should be, you can expand from country to country for “logistic points” and money of course. I was thinking about building into the game the Soviet (the Iron Curtain) era and country border changes as well, but unfortunately, that will wait for a sequel as well, so in the game, you won’t have Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia for example. Still, it’s awesome to see how your Computer Empire grows.

Also, I know how important for you to play with a character that you can relate to, especially when you can start from your own country to rule the market… so I tried to get some diversity in that question. I wish I could implement even more characters. Let me show you some optional computer Emperors for you!

Computer Tycoon Characters

And for being politically correct, and thinking about women players I have a wonderful Empress as well (do you see her nice clothes from the era? 🙂 ):

Computer Tycoon on IndieDB

The future of Tablets and Desktop Computers

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First of all, don’t forget to sign up to win a copy of the game here:

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So basically Computer Tycoon starts in the 70s and ends up in the near future. You have the option to create two types of “main” computer such as “home computers” and “personal computer”, next to laptops and eventually tablets.

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As time pass in the game, you develop more and more advanced products. Computers are not even faster but smaller by time. It’s nothing new for you, right? What’s the story in that?

Well, before the tablets we had PDAs, and today we also have smartphones. What if our main computers could be so small and fast already, that making (big) desktop computers is going to be unnecessary? Our current smartphones have unbelievable computing capacities compared to old computers. For example, an 80286 CPU runs at 12Mhz. What’s that compared to an iPhone7 with Quad-core 2.34 GHz? I remember playing Master Of Orion II on my old Samsung Omnia using a dos box emulator lol! 🙂

So the question is that will we keep the desktop size, or Tablets or Smartphones will rule the market in the future? Or what if we will have crystal and light-based computers instead?
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Well, my vote is that we always will have a desktop version. Why? Well because it will be always cheaper and faster than making it smaller. That’s it. We already could have got rid of desktop computers, couldn’t we?

What’s _your_ opinion? Will desktops survive? Will we use tablets in the future or we will have chips under our skin instead?

Don’t forget to follow my project to see that in my game yourself!
Computer Tycoon Ultimate Computer

Computer Tycoon

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I posted this article on reddit, but I feel like I should have made it here. Anyways… That’s a story about me (András Illés) and my next game Computer Tycoon.BannerVersionFinal_center_1500_500

Business simulators are awesome, right? In those games, we can show to the world how good we are, how far could we go if we had the chance and the budget, right? Also, for some Computers are like our friends in our life, don’t you agree? Maybe I’m way too sentimental?

My name is András Illés and a year ago I started my indie game studio, we are working on an indie business simulator game called Computer Tycoon:

http://www.indiedb.com/games/computer-tycoon

BUT what’s the story in that?

Those good old games

My first business simulator game was SimCity. Do you remember to it?

The first SimCity running on DOS. My PC that time was a 286DX with a 20Mb hard disk drive. Of course, SimCity was a city building game (obvious haha), but from a game design/financial point of view, it’s still a business simulator. You must build, invest and expand. Your service is the city itself!

After that, I remember playing Transport Tycoon when I was around 10-11 years old. I was playing it on a 486DX computer. I was so impressed and so eager to get that money in the game and build bigger and bigger trains. Oh and the 2.5D! Isometric graphics, oh my god! I truly loved it.

Rollercoaster Tycoon? Does it mean something for you? In fact, my 486DX wasn’t fast enough to handle the graphics anymore. My solution was to watch the trees in the corner while I was doing nothing, but waiting for some cash. That was a lot of time (especially on a slow machine)… Still, I loved the game, especially the building part. What a creative and fun game! And yes, here we are again: I loved to make money.

Sometimes the sequels were awesome, sometimes I was disappointed. For example, SimCity 2000 and 3000 were awesome, but after that, the franchise is not so fun to me anymore. Or we got openttd that is just awesome!

The game dev tycoon is really a newcomer, but I really enjoyed it. Or we have now the TV Empire Tycoon (ok it’s a remake, but a very nice one), or Prison Tycoon, Blueprint Tycoon, Plant Tycoon and so on!

Somehow I feel like the games I like today are very similar somehow to the old ones. What do you think? Don’t you think that games tend to be more stupid year after year?

Those lovely computers
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As years passed by I got better and better PCs, and I played more and more games. In fact, my first computer was Commodore 64, not the IBM 286DX. I changed the parts years after years, I had a 386DX, and a 486, several Intel Pentium 1 compatible PCs and so on, and so on.

With the Commodore64 I used a small TV from the soviet block called “Junost”:

But my actual first monitor was a CGA compatible monster! Oh wow in graphic mode it was able to use 4 colors, but in text mode, it was able to produce 16 colors! (I think my eyes got a strong damage from this monster haha!)

The other parameters of my systems were going up as well. Fun-fact that all of my computers were totally outdated all of the time. Partially because I live in Hungary and basically we didn’t have the stuff that people had years before us in the states or in west Europe (oh commercial was totally different those times), and the second reason that we were poor, so I had to “work” with those things that I was able to get. Poor here means likely even poorer than you think. Don’t assume that “hey this guy had computers what is he complaining about?” When I got the 286DX my classmates already had Pentium 1 computers at home. Still, I remember how excited I was before buying it. I had been reading books about DOS for weeks before that! It’s ok by the way, I learned this way a lot.

Just imagine my face when I connected the power supply cables to the motherboard inversely! The motherboard and the CPU died. Jep, today I know that blacks should have gotten to the middle. Well, that was a lesson to learn, that made me just more eager to study. Don’t be strict I was around 8-9 years old that time and nobody helped me to do these things.

Eventually, I ended being an IT guy. What a surprise, right? Today I have a kickass PC sitting next to me. 

After this journey here is the deal:

There are three things in my life that I always had a passion for: Computers, simulator/strategy games, and music.

Well, the third is slightly less important in my story now, but the first two had a huge impact on my life. That’s why I joined the IT industry: I always wanted to be a game developer.

Unfortunately, my financial background didn’t give me the chance to be a game developer in Hungary, so I went into the business sector and games and game development stayed to be a hobby. I reached over 10 years of experience a “solution architect” position so far, but something happened a year ago,- I decided to change my life and to share my life. To give something to the people around me, especially for youngsters. They will never have the chance to do what I did. The IT sector develops just way too fast for that since the 70s.

I’d like to push everything into a game. About games, about computers, about the poor kid’s dream of making money haha) Computer Tycoon is going to be my first real child. (oh yes, I’d love to have real ones in the future, but I’m just burning my career right now haha! ) Being a bit more serious, this is my BIG business game now, but it’s not a simulation anymore, and the difficulty is _hard_.

The indie scene is just perfect now for creating such a game with old qualities. But **I really need your support!** With opinions, with sharing my stuff and even testing my game. Please join to my newsletter so you can be informed about the game, or later even win a free copy:

http://progorion.us14.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=71ce8f5703d536ba25d34f07e&id=ed1846b02a

But first of all, tell me about YOUR computers, and YOUR favorite simulator games. What did you like in them? What are your memories? In Computer Tycoon you will be able to replay these memories again, so I’d like to get as many impressions from you as I can.