![]() In terms of presentation, Two Point Hospital is exemplary. Progression seems to operate on a familiar action RPG cadence, which feels sort of novel for a genre typically dependent on a trial and error style of play. ![]() The game methodically doles out new concepts as they become relevant, but players still have the option of discovering how these systems work on their own. That’s why Two Point Hospital‘s campaign-style experience feels so smart and welcoming. Throwing average players in the deep end from the outset is almost never a good way to encourage extended play. Perhaps the most significant barrier to entry of many simulation management games is the numerous systems players have to worry about at any given time. Thanks to some of the original developers at British studio Two Point and publisher Sega, we now a worthy successor to a beloved game in Two Point Hospital. It’s the sort of game where someone could have an acute case third-degree sideburns, which is precisely what it sounds like. One simulation management game due for a dramatic update was Theme Hospital, a game where players managed a hospital with the goal of curing the fictitious and comical diseases of their patient population. Games like Game Dev Tycoon have taken a meta approach to the genre, putting players in the shoes of game developers, a sorely needed empathy source considering the pitiful outcry over a reduced puddle in Marvel’s Spider-Man. Theme park management simulator RollerCoaster Tycoon is in the DNA of Planet Coaster and, more recently, Jurassic World Evolution. Not surprisingly, developers turned to the past for popular management games ripe for modernization. Colossal Order’s Cities: Skylines served as the opening salvo of the genre’s contemporary resurgence, providing direct answers to all the questions begged by SimCity‘s missteps. The bumpy start for SimCity’s mainstream return, mainly driven by a bewildering requirement of online DRM and city plot size restriction, left room for lesser known developers to innovate. Alternatively, a player may want to make their city a green utopia, exclusively using alternative energy sources to power their metropolis, but a much less expensive coal mine will sit, calling them, from a submenu whenever they want to expand. One player, for instance, may not feel particularly driven to pump funding into their city’s educational institutions, but only at the cost of increased lawlessness and decreased technological innovation. While it’s impossible to claim any game is free of its creator’s editorial biases, SimCity‘s design always seemed to challenge partisanship. Until its rocky 2013 reboot, Maxis’s SimCity was the relatively uncontested torchbearer of the genre. At their best, simulation management games offer a Koyaanisqatsi-esque view of humming, nuanced human systems and the fraught decision points leading to their creation.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |