Home Tycoon: Upgrade Through Downgrade
by BONZO, HSM Editor
Home Tycoon is an innovation for Home, but not for gaming. At least not directly.
When the teaser images popped up at the virtual E3 booth, the first thing which struck me were the graphics. After seeing more images I was struck by how some of the graphics were more cleaned up. They looked better, more polished. Since entering the game and trying it out for the first time, I was blown away by the expansiveness of it, and the freedom it presented with in the restrictions of Home. But once the “oohs and aahs” wore off, I was once again facing minimal graphics. From the textures, to the polygon counts to the the particle effects of fire, and water. Suddenly this major innovation and upgrade to the Home platform was downgraded in my perspective, since I have been so spoiled by this generation’s photo-realistic graphics.
Here’s a confession that isn’t really so revealing – I am a graphics junkie. I love super-polished graphics, and I suck up new information on the next generation of rendering engines; it is eye candy to me.
The last generation of super rich, highly polished graphics have spoiled me to expect hyper-realism in every game I play, and to some extend have robbed me of the joy of a classic platformer. But this limitation in my ever-narrowing field of hungry expectations has not robbed me of the joy of this game. Home Tycoon is limited in graphics, but rich in experience. I tried to play it for five minutes just to get a taste for it, and then walk away. Cut to two hours later, and I was still playing it, wondering where the last two hours went. This suddenly became a temporal Bermuda triangle, and I found it difficult to break away.
Last Generation of Graphics
The strengths of this game is the control it gives you. From building roads, to edifices, and even the little details of parks and farms. But the most powerful feature of it is the ability to explore the city itself at ground level. From the shores of the beach, to the middle of the parks. It is a great casual game, with some time devouring fun features which, just let you create and explore while the hands on that clock keep spinning and you obliviously persist on in your efforts to grow your population and expand your city.
Home Tycoon does have some features I didn’t care for though. No, graphics was not one of them. The graphics are limited, very last generation, but not terrible. Some textures are actually very cool, like the cracks on the sidewalk or embossed decorative details on the street lamps. But the environmental controls are premium options. It was expecting to have premium content – building packs, car packs, and different features of the game – as upgrades themselves. However, I never expected the environmental controls to be one of them. The option tab for the controls is of a cloud with lightning, which misleads you into thinking it is weather control, but the environmental controls are limited to temporal controls for time of day, or pausing and resuming said flow of time. And it costs you coins every time you use it.
We knew we wouldn’t see people walking the streets, or visibly present in any other form but cars driving around. I didn’t realize how much I would miss this feature until you realize you don’t have it. Even with cars driving around, the streets are very lonely. The city is lifeless, and the cars popping in and out of existence don’t do much to compensate for that feeling. The missions are quick, and the ties into the Novus Prime game are ingenuous. I truly enjoyed playing the game – when I was able to.
Here is where the game limits itself. When you run through your workers, you can’t do anymore. You can wait for your workers to regenerate, which takes five minutes for the first, then the time increases for all the remaining workers. But the regeneration is only active during the time you spend in the city. Which means if you log off and come back the next day, you still have to wait for your workers to regenerate. This however, is a known bug, and not by design, which the Hellfire Games team is working on. You can buy more workers, but they cost gold coins. This affects just about everything you can do in the game. You can’t build more without workers, and you can’t collect revenue without workers.
While you wait for your workers to regenerate, you can play the 911 ambulance mission. Which consists of collecting infected zombies represented by a floating bubble with a sick green face, and transporting them to the Hospital. You can also play test drive, but that’s a premium feature, so you’ll have to buy it. You can play the firefighter missions, which only consist of putting out three buildings of fires, and then you’re done. The game encourages exploration of your city though; in fact it rewards you for it. Throughout the city, briefcases will spawn with small amounts of cash, and sometimes workers, to add to your workforce, and even rarer discounts for some of the premium content. If you find these, take advantage of them. They will expire once you end your current playing session, and while you can find them again, they are rare to find. So far, I’ve found discounts for the police expansion, and the zoo expansion.
Home Tycoon has a lot of features which you have to pay gold coins for. There are users up in arms already about this restriction, but before you get the rage fired up consider this. Hellfire games is giving away the farm here by letting you play for free and you can still do plenty. This is how the freemium platform works. You give a large portion away, and count on micro-transactions to enhance the experience and progression of the game. I know you want it a hundred percent free, but get real, there’s already a lot you can do for free. Producing these games is not cheap, and nearly two years have gone into the development of this game.
The more petulant complaints will call out the fifty dollar coin packs, which are not permanent upgrades, but will likely overlook the permanent upgrades you can buy. This includes virtual items that increase the generation of the work force, the amount of pollution your city produces, and the amount of money you can collect in revenue. These items range in price from a dollar fifty to seven dollars. If you buy multiple portions of these wearable and decorative items, they will add up, but these are permanent items as well. Not to mention that for fifty dollars, you do get a substantial amount of coins.
Paid Feature
I was annoyed by the restrictions once I hit the limits of progression, but I understand the amount of work that went into this game, and a few upgrades are worth the price. You can still play this game for free, however, you have to put a little more work into to it to play it. Namely, wait long enough to regenerate your work force until that bug is fixed, and play the missions to get more workers.
While I have enjoyed the tie-in to Novus Prime, I was a bit thrown off to some of the missions being contingent on being a certain level in that game. I like the fact that you can play Novus Prime and it will benefit you in Home Tycoon, but I don’t agree with the requirement. I love Novus Prime myself, but for those who’ve never played it and never got into it, now you will have to.
Home Tycoon is a great game. I love it for what it is: an imperfect platform with some amazing features that break the constraints we have become accustomed to in Home, and in other gaming platforms. If you can spend any money, the briefcase which increases the speed you generate a work force is well worth it at seven dollars, and the great benefit of the golden coins is that you can gift them to friends as well. This game may not be perfect, but it still remains an amazing creative collective experience.
October 5th, 2012 by BONZO | 8 comments
BONZO is an editor and artist for HomeStation Magazine.
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Very nice write-up, Bonzo. I have to agree that the graphics aren’t much to look at, but the game is so much fun to play that it’s not all that noticeable. I do miss NPC’s though. I’m sure it’s a memory issue, because it always is, but I would love to see an occasional person walking into a building or waiting for a bus.
A fair write up. I’m not quite as impressed though. I wasn’t of the understanding that the majority of the game would be locked up in so many money boxes. I understand the freemium model but some of the price structures here are really off the mark. It shouldn’t cost more than a dollar for a 25% increase in worker regeneration. You’re talking about such a small increase it’s a bit like paying an extra $3 for a polystyrene (*edit* Styrofoam) cup with your “FREE” coffee in the mornings. And paying for single-use in-game time control!? I’m sorry but, WHAT!?
I’m not sure if this is a case of Hellfire not knowing what functions are generally normal or even expected in a game, or if they’re being intentionally greedy but really, I dare someone to buy everything to give the game full throttle, as-it-should-be functionally and tell me how much it costs. Then compare that to a six dollar PC game with better graphics.
Micro transactions ain’t “micro” when they cost as much as a pack of smokes; IMO.
I agree, the day/night pay thing won’t work at all. Most people, if not all, won’t do it anyway and just let it cycle through on its own like I do.
I think they need to rethink the revenue collecting as well. Paying five coins to do it all at once, which costs real money, or using workers for each individual buildings collection. They should offer a choice of either coins or a certain amount of workers to have the taxes collected all at once. Say 2 coins and/or 10 workers. This would be a much more palatable option for many, as some people already don’t like this at all.
Once they fix the worker regeneration it will be a much better experience for everyone. I bought some stuff, a coin pack to be specific, but now that they are dwindling I am wroth to buy more knowing the uses they will be for outside of actual city building purchases.
For those of us who aren’t leaderboard chasers, this can be a very fun experience, albeit a slower one.
P.S. Nice review Bonzo.
Another tip I can give people is tell your friends to visit your city if possible briefly each day. You get 200 dollars to spend for each visitor that comes to your city. I went in last night and found that 58 people had looked at mine, and since I left mine public, I didn’t even know most of them! I netted over 11,000 dollars this way. You can only do this once a day, so plan accordingly.
This can help with giving you needed capital to build. You find the “Tourist revenue” under revenue same as your taxes in the planning menu.
Nice to know. Where do you set the access level, Burbie? And is there any way to get a base level of Workers higher than 30?
Bon this is a very nice write up. I liked Burbie’s too but this really gets to the issues of the game… I love graphics too… if you are going to spend money on a game you want to developer to deliver- I mean to say if you want me to spend dollars it darn well better be a pleasant atmosphere… some people are gonna play just because they play everything -me I have limited personal time so I need the developer to step up if they want me to spend a commodity like “Time” in their game. I have money -what I don’t have is time -and if I am not in a decent fantasy -I mean why go there right?
how do i reach private (level 6) in novus prime?