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3 years ago
The upcoming tycoonist car factory game Production Line [official site] has been travelling along the development assembly line since its announcement in September last year, getting bits and pieces welded on by creator Positech. Now it's ready for the next phase. The giant machine-like claws of Steam early access are waiting to tear it asunder and put it back together again from May 18. “This…
You can have any genre, says Positech, as long as it’s management. Production Line [official site] will be the studio’s new game of building cars on a long assembly line with the penny-pinching efficiency of Henry Ford. “I never used to care about cars,” said Cliffski, the creator of Democracy and Gratuitous Space Battles, in his announcement. “Then I bought a nice hybrid one (Lexus)…
4 years ago
Over and above its management and strategy groundings, Big Pharma [official site] shines a light on the billion dollar, often unscrupulous, pharmaceutical industry. While Alec enjoyed his hands-on time with Twice Circled's medicine manufacturing sim last year, he noted it didn't "go for pharmaceutical industry’s jugular". Its first expansion - Marketing and Malpractice - takes a distinguished step towards doing exactly that by introducing dodgy…
When Big Pharma [official site] appeared last year, Alec approved but pointed out it perhaps went a little easy on a severely dodgy target. Today's announced expansion, Marketing And Malpractice, looks like it might add a few more teeth to the management satire. With your drug developed, you now need to ensure doctors think it's the right one for their patients. "Take them to dinner,…
Big Pharma [official site] is “part business sim, part logistics puzzle”, where you're dealing with balancing three competing resources: the limited space you have for the machinery that makes your drugs; the money you make from selling those drugs and spend to buy new machines; and your own conscience as you get reports back on the side effects of your pills. It's out today. Do…
5 years ago
The real treat of TV show How It's Made is watching production lines whizzing parts around, washing and squeezing and roasting and compressing and mixing and drilling them along a series of conveyor belts. In games, a well-designed Factorio is a treat to observe, Infinifactory is a lark, and I would adore a walking simulator set around an endless procedurally-generated production line. Druggy game Big…
Feature: Pusherman
I’ve never much thought about what goes into the little white tablet I swallow when I’m hungover, have the sniffles or another bout of Geek’s Disease.* It’s just chalky magic, right? Well, no: it’s the result of millions of dollars, aggressive R&D, production facilities of breathtaking size and precision, ruthless marketeering and impossibly sinister downplaying and mitigation of side effects. While medicine-themed management game Big…
Big Pharma is "part business sim, part logistics puzzle", set in the cutthroat world of throat lozenge development. Like Theme Hospital, Big Pharma looks at the price of healthcare through the lens of a management sim, and it seems likely that it'll bring a strong dose of gallows humour to help the medicine go down. Being totally altruistic may not be the best BUSINESS PLAN.…
