Hey. Hope you don't mind me posting here, but thought this would be a good place to find some Transport Tycoon fans. It was one of my favourite games growing up, and I've built a game inspired by it that runs right here in reddit. It's currently in closed alpha, and I'm looking for people to playtest it. I think currently the core issue is it needs balancing, but that's hard to test with bots.

If you're interested please request to join the dev subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/iron_commons_dev/

* Generative AI Disclosure

I'm an experienced game dev who has been working in games long before chatgpt came along. I did however get claude to write some scripts for generating the isometric art as svgs to help me along. I had to adjust the output / recreate in Affinity to get it right, so its a mix of hand made and generated I suppose (also chatgpt for the logo, again edited in GIMP, and for the record I hate it, it's ugly...).

But they are placeholders, I plan on paying an artist to replace them in time. Claude also helped with the HTML/CSS parts of the UI as my web dev skills are not strong. But programming is my thing really, I just used it to fill in the gaps, so don't judge too harshly :)

These are my screenshots of the mighty machines event of the Tycoon Empire game.

I hate when games play themselves.

In a lot of sims you somehow know exactly what your competitors are doing. What everyone thinks of you. Even what will happen before you make a decision.

So how much should a sim tell you before it stops being fun to figure things out yourself? Any sims that got this really right or really wrong?

Longer version below if you're curious.

I want to experiment and figure things out. Sometimes make terrible decisions because I didn't know enough. Something a bit closer to how business actually works.

Don't get me wrong. I love numbers. But in real life I mostly have my own. Sales, conversions and that kind of thing. I dont have stats on what competitors are planning or what clients really think of me. I have to figure it out by talking to people.

So I'm building Red Creek. A Western business sim/RPG.

It's a hobby project next to my day job. I have a master's in economics and spent 13 years as a startup CEO and advisor. Before that I worked with government data modelling. So I've probably gone a bit overboard on the economy 😅

The model is built around 180+ townspeople. Each has their own money, job, business, family, assets, motivations and relationships. They make decisions on their own and stuff happens whether you're involved or not. You can influence how things turn out though. Right now there are 23 in the game for testing. Build housing and create jobs and more people move in.

But you don't get to see the model.

You only know what you see or hear and what you manage to figure out.

Say a merchant is desperate for cash. If you find out you might be able to help him or negotiate a better deal. Or take advantage of it. If you never find out those options don't show up.

The journal keeps track of what you've learned and the ledger keeps track of your money. I don't expect people to remember every conversation. But you won't get popups or relationship scores explaining what's going on.

You can build businesses, trade, speculate, invest, work for people, become a criminal, or live in the desert with only your pet turtle for company. Personally I play toward money and influence until I can shape how the town grows. But that's just me.

There aren't really any rails. Unless you build a railroad.

I keep going back and forth on how much to tell players. I want mistakes to happen because you don't have all the information. But I don't want people spending hours wondering what the hell just happened.

So yeah. Where would you draw the line?

AI disclosure: I am new to game development, Blender and Unity so I use AI to help with coding, generating and refining some game graphics and polishing dialogue for those characters who need better English articulation than I can provide of course I am reviewing everything (most of the fun in building it is when everything clicks, dont want to miss those moments). I use it to improve my English, including this post, since it is not my first language. The economic model, game design and ideas are my own.

Hi tycoon community!

It's been a while since our last post, and we're back with some news! Many Redditors across different communities have been asking for Sandbox Mode in our city-building and economic strategy game, Age After Age. So we've added it to our demo! Feel free to try it out and share your feedback.

We've also updated the UI in preparation for upcoming controller support.

Right now, you can play a short Story Mode, Challenges (including Steampunk steam pressure management), and Sandbox Mode:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/438570/Age_After_Age_Demo/

And there's more! We've released a new gameplay video and would love to hear your thoughts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLfBWqYj_xE

Disclaimer: No AI was used in the making of this game. All art, code and assets are fully human made, same as localization of pages(game is still in process).

Thanks!
Farom Studio Team

I feel like the type of person to like Tycoon games are ones that enjoy running businesses in real life + money. How many people actually ended up becoming business owners? Do you feel like Tycoon games influenced this desire?

I posted already today lol sorry for the spam but genuinely curious. Going first myself - I wouldn't say I'm a "successful" business owner but I am in real estate and olive oil.

First Party is a tycoon about running a games company. You can start in any year from 1980 to 2025 and play on to 2050.

• The real industry happens around you: real games and consoles, and the real news, from the 1983 crash to the 2025 tariffs and the AI boom's memory crunch. Events move your market, so a recession or a chip shortage hits your sales and costs.
• You make games, but you can also design your own consoles: pick the chips, lay out the board, pass the heat test, choose the case size, then fight the platform wars.
• Publish in boxes, on digital stores, free to play, take a subscription deal, or open your own store.
• The screen changes with the era, and so does the news: The Cartridge on a felt desk in 1983, the Scanlines magazine in 1995, savepoint.net in 2008, the Daily Quest app in 2017, and The Render, an AI feed over a small generated world, from 2025.

It's heading to Steam Early Access (Mac and Windows), Mobile version coming soon. I'd love to hear what you'd want from a games-industry tycoon that the others don't.

Disclaimer: Ai was used for development

This is completely subjective - it doesn't have to be in absolute terms. For example when I was 13 or 14, I thought Railroad Tycoon 2 was pretty difficult.