Big Ambitions

I'm so obsessed with this game that I created a whole excel workbook with multiple spreadsheets to better track the inventory / purchasing I needed to do per week. And then they updated it to improve the in-game tracking, making my workbook obsolete. 10/10 would waste another 72 hours coding again.

I want to start this off by saying the game is great so far and I only have 6 hours. I don't commonly review games and decided to review this one because I really appreciate the vision of the game and believe it can be really good. The Good: The loop is clear to understand for the game and the first few hours have been very enjoyable. There is a very easy time setting the goal of becoming rich and progressively increasing the amount of money The Bad: There are common tedious processes such as getting food that seemingly have no way to resolve. I have a playable character which is very cool for a game like this but my body is essentially a useless vessel, there is no way to improve my characters skills or appreciate the life-sim aspect of the game which could be completely amazing if expanded. I have seen a lot of comments referring to a similar feeling of wanting this game to be great but eventually feeling that the loop is too simple and that there is nothing to do with your character. I think the simple loop would be great if there were more social things to do with your character such as improving skills, or starting a family. I believe this is a spoiler but eventually your character can die, it would be cool to have a similar system to CK3 (Crusader Kings 3), where there is family and you eventually transfer your character to your child and proceed with the business, it would provide a lot of aspects for players to work for and if skills/stats are added alongside this system that can be lightly manipulated (sending children to school to increase stats and prepare for your death, children that are innately bad at certain stat aspects etc.) I have also seen that there was a potential idea to add crime to the game, this could meld in with the legacy/family idea very well. Overall I see a huge amount of dedication put into the game and I hope for it to improve and for my review to be received as constructive criticism. I will continue to play the game in my free time but I wanted to write this since I feel the patterns begin to form for this game right now (at around 6 hours), and see issues that seemingly have no solution. If there is not more expanse to the life-sim aspect of the game, I suggest potentially removing it and making it more of a 'god-sim' business management game so it doesn't frustrate players. I gravitate towards life-sim/rpg games more and the life-sim aspect feels bare bones to the point where it is somewhat frustrating that I have a character.

I´ve played a serious amount of managing games. It´s my favorite type of game. What this folks done with this game (that is still expansion) is out of everything I have ever played before. It is required for you to be a serious Manager in every way - schedules, inventory, price speculation, stock management, ettttc, and still you have to manage your own character in terms of tiredness, hunger and happiness. It mixes a bit of Sim´s, GTA (you have to drive through the city of NY with it´s traffic, but you can´t kill anyone lol) and loads of real deal management. I am a manager in real life and therefore I can tell you this game excels in reality regarding business management. It has amazing details, it is undoubtely my favorite game. Bought the game and already have 6 days of playing - and when I say playing, sometimes I turn on the game and don´t do any "playing" per se - what this means is, I´m for like 2 hours managing stocks and schedules and wharehouses and etc and not ridding or visiting stores or any ASDW playing. Give this game a try if you understood how good this game is by reading this. Oh, and there´s a casino every friday where your character gets in a boat for international waters and you can play slots, blackjack, roulette...yeah it´s crazy. Congrats to the team that build this...really

忍了这么久，终于还是打算给出我的第一个中差评。尤其是出了抢先版11之后。 我1-10陪伴将近三年多一路走来，总体来说还算是可以的，除去开发者更新太慢三年多了正式版还没有发售，每次更新的内容都还是很丰富的。但第一个问题就是bug多，每次更都在修复但是永远修复不完。对于这种不吃建模的来说就非常影响游戏体验。 其次就是内容方面，不知道作者的目标或者目标方向到底是什么？到底是想把这个游戏做成一个什么类型的游戏。你说如果是想让玩家们赚钱，那么你的引擎至少应该真实一点，比如你的楼为什么满租了之后不能升值？说好的盘下纽约，卖一栋楼至少就是亏百万起步，所以大家才会说只能租店铺划算一点。还有再比如那些竞争对手，价格战的时候就这一块实在是做的太麻烦了真不亚于给自己晚上找了个班上挨个看店，最后那几周还亏麻了等等等等。如果你的目标是想让玩家们体验感拉满，各个领域比如开车，赌博，游乐园，那你就算是困难模式也应该降低搞钱的难度，我每天不看点电视玩点电脑去公园玩玩我的上千名员工都要受影响，每周五好不容易有点时间起床之后打算今晚去赌场了，凌晨一点物流经理发消息来说库存问题，六点赌完出来看到自己被撞得稀巴烂的跑车还要拖去修天价不说还有bug，心情瞬间很不美丽。所以你到底是要玩家盘下纽约为主还是体验生活为主，鱼与熊掌不可得兼，后面更新的内容质量越出越烂，你属于是这也沾一点那也沾一点啥也没做到位。 最后再说11版本，mod这事就是纯烂我说实话。高情商：玩家自己diy，实际上就是自己懒。一个开发者竟然把自己的工程文件直接甩出来然后让玩家去加，最后还来提示一句注意兼容风险，你自己怎么不做？？？本来这个游戏玩家体量就很小，你以为是能有隐藏的技术大佬然后搞点那种高质量的mod且大家都能peace游玩了吗？我本人还只是下载了你官方给出的example mod就直接把我的存档全部毁了，我所有的员工都不能正常工作了全部要自动离职，还好我有自动存档，回去找了一天前的recover存档才变正常，带mod的直接删光。我现在连自己去做这个mod我自己都不敢安装了，我难道还去安装别的玩家的？所以你也知道mod兼容性是一个很大的问题还要搞mod，又搞出推崇“自由性”一说了，已经完完全全不知道你要干点啥了，属于是好好的一个略解压的大展宏图最后变成四不像。 最后提醒大家慎装mod以及你要是要玩这，就当个乐子得了。另外一定要保存好存档，无论任何情况。

Since I have to pick from two ratings, then I do not recommend this game. Game is technically sound, the tutorial is not in your face, there are no glaring engine or bug-related issues, it has a nice premise initially, it is nice to control. It just gets insanely tedious, and the game does not offer any fun worthwhile upgrades or improved mechanics. I can understand that it is hard to balance a game that infinitely prints money, so there have to be some pricey roadblocks. Or some solutions that are gated by progression and size of your empire. But it is just unpleasant fight with the way mechanics are implemented, and the UI. In no particular order: - high installation fees push you to build yourself, but you need to tirelessly cart stuff back and forth constantly, and you can't build from the delivery storage directly - installation fees are so inflated, and hauling is so tedious, you get to build uninspired shops akin to crack houses (because those are cheap and ugly, but can efficiently cover daily traffic / shoppers per hour) - game naturally starts at the micromanagement level, but never lets it go - for every carrot that could be your potential solution, there are 5 sticks that get shoved right up your bumhole - game taunts you with managers, that do not solve problems in a satisfying way - you need to hire a manager, then assign him a task, you can't because he is not on schedule, so you need to schedule him first, go back to plan. Let's say this manager is for purchases. I did not see any obvious overall stock / sale report, so you need to gather all sell data in order to perform a good shipment plan, then go back. Logistics? You can't make a singular macro-level delivery plan that requires X managers, and Y amount of driver shifts. No, instead of entering the macro stage, you still tirelessly hold on to tedious micro management, so you only plan a limited short delivery, for that one particular manager. HR? I guess you need to personally assign each employee to him personally, otherwise he will not take the hint and do what he was hired for. New employee added? Hell yeah, micromanagement strikes back where you need to revisit assigned employees, and assign it to the HR manager. - Once your manager gets trained, you guessed correctly, we need to micromanage this resource again. Locate that more experienced person, check if his skill is big enough, and gracefully handle one additional measly delivery. Oh, manager wants a phone now? Yes, let the CEO drive to him directly, and personally hand him the phone and company monitor. New person? Back to the UI forest again, in order to assign employee to an HR person... - Some of the employee headaches are solved by the Headhunters, or HR managers, but it was still insanely annoying to figure out which employee must be unassigned from work (effectively breaking schedule) so he can train, or where do I need to add the replacement once employee quits. - I am all for modding, and I especially appreciate expansions - like stores, or product types - but when most popular mods address all of the mid/end game solutions, then something is wrong. Price adjusters, schedule organizers, shopping managers, better overview UI. All of these should be handled by the game, or games managers. - Regarding UI, let's say I am browsing current stock of shops. With stock / delivery / daily sale view open, whenever you click the next shop, you remain in that view and can continue browsing the stock of next shop. But when the next building is an HQ or a Warehouse, you get switched, and on the next shop you are not returned to that tab. Which adds another bit of tedium. I dunno, with every step taken, you encounter a little bit of tedium more. At some point the game falls off until it is too annoying to deal with and no longer satisfying to play.

Забавно, но в игре про экономику нет экономики. Все заскриптовано и не от чего не зависит, ты не чувствуешь конкурентов, не чувствуешь цен. Как разраб все установил, так все и будет. В итоге твоя игра быстро превращается в день сурка и становится скучно. У тебя есть микробизнес, который дает тебе доход и все хорошо. Можно развиваться дальше, но действительность такова - можно, а зачем?

I want the ability to build whatever shop I want, and make money anyway I feel like. The game gatekeeps a lot of the businesses behind "importing" and "factories" which are both fairly late game unlocks. Not to mention the mid game can be terribly grind-y, where your making $5k a week and need to get to $100k until the next "lesson". I miss the beta versions where it was more sandbox-y and less restrictions on what business you could open. I don't want to grind to open a theatre to sell popcorn, nor do I want to have to play 20+hours just to open up a liquor store- for a joke because I want to call it "Liqa Sto'"

Die Sims für Männer: Im echten Leben ein Versager, dafür im Spiel erfolgreich. Was will man mehr? Nun werde ich meine Familie im echten Leben vernachlässigen und dafür im Game erfolgreich werden.