ShipOS 1994

So the idea of this game, is you inherited a shipping company and a million in debt. The game is made in the visual style of the retro windows 3 windowed games, except it is like that on purpose. It pretends to be a a desktop operating system, which is a pretty cute concept. It needs some more polishing to really stand out, hopefully we will see some new features as the game development evolves to make it really addictive. It has some passing similarities transport themed tycoon games, and is not too difficult to figure out how to play. It makes for a fun casual game if you really have some time to spare but really don't want to be thinking too hard. Gameplay Synopsis: You have a little capital left over, enough to buy a ship. Where the rest of the million dollars went isn't really explained, in my head space, I just assumed the player inherited the company from some relatives who blew it all on girls, vices and gambling or something. From there you need to develop profitable shipping routes. As you progress you gain upgrade points, and funds which you can invest into unlocking improvements to your ships or ports, and to give you access to new ships and additional port locations. After you have a few ships on reliable routes, you can give them standing orders in the way of "automation" which auto sails to a list of ports you specify, and it will automatically refuel/repair and load/unload. At that point you can focus on monitoring and accepting contracts that suit your current automated port destinations and ship types. You will have a few setbacks, each ship will likely require you increasing your bank loan, but once you sort out your routes, it will roughly take about 10-13 days of in game time (each day represents a "turn" you press end day at around 20:00 hour each turn) with a big enough transport network to pay off your million dollar loan. At that point you can focus on building funds and upgrade points to unlock more ports, or upgrade the ships. At that point you are making a profit, and after a few more days you will probably have unlocked most of the top tier ships and upgrades. After that if you increase your number of ships and routes, you should find all of the steam achievements unlocked. At that point you have essentially completed that play through unless additional game features are added later. Conclusions: The game seems interesting enough, although depending on your domestic currency, the price point might seem a little ambitious. Certainly with a bit more polish, such as adding NPCs, further gameplay elements for after you pay off the starting debt, or even some sort of basic multiplayer (Even just a simple 'hot seat' / 'turn based' systen, like how the old civilisation 1 game worked, where player one has a turn, then player two takes the mouse for their turn then back to player 1 again would probably work well) and the game would likely be good value for money. All things considered, for a first effort by a new one person developer, it is certainly worth praise. The original sid meyers civilisation game started out much like this. Hopefully we can expect great things from this developer in future. Certainly even adding something as simple as being able to build your own ports or research/find new additional products to ship, and this game would be a business builder game just as addictive as the style of civilisation.

Fun game. Fun concept. Needs some polish for the late game where the contract list is long. There should be a select all button for the contract menus. There also seems to be stuttering when the contract list gets to large.

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