Home Tycoon’s New Heights: An Inteview With Hellfire Games’ Ben Lewis
by Burbie52, HSM team writer
Do you like roller coasters?
I think most of us do, or at least we did when we were younger. Cedar Point in Ohio is the biggest amusement park that is close to me, and people there will spend an hour in line to ride a coaster that lasts for two minutes. Coasters come in all sizes and types now but the original ones were all made of wood.
In their most recent update, Hellfire Games brought us another addition to Home Tycoon: New Heights. Not only have they reached new heights because of the type of addition this is, they have reached them because of the substance of what they have brought us — views from a different perspective.
The new packs they have given us are an amusement park and a helicopter ride. One of the things that was missing in all of the buildings we have been given so far was the ability to actually enter and interact with them. That has changed with their addition of this amusement park because you can actually ride the rides provided. You heard me: you can now ride a roller coaster in Home, and it is a fun ride. They have also given us a Ferris Wheel and something that reminds me of the Demon Drop ride at Cedar Point. All of these can be used by both you and your guests and I really enjoyed myself trying them out. The amusement park even lights up if you choose to make it night in your city, a very nice touch.
These new add on packs also prove that Hellfire listens to us and what we want. Here is a wishlist article I wrote a year ago about this, and I am sure they have heard similar things from others as well.
These new additions to Tycoon are a welcome change in the strategy they have had so far when adding new material to the game. I asked Hellfire’s Ben Lewis a few questions about this:
HSM: This new addition of an amusement park and helicopter ride is a big change from your previous two additions. Tell us a little (if you can) of how the idea for New Heights began.
Hellfire: In addition to the general game play and city design improvements we wanted to implement after the Rising Revenues update, we turned to community feedback to decide what should come next for Home Tycoon. A lot of our fans asked for an amusement park and flying vehicles and we thought interactive thrill rides and helicopters would be the most fun additions we could make. We also wanted to deliver a lot of value so we spent a long time building rewards and un-lockables for the two expansion packs we created for the New Heights update. So far the community response has been wonderful.
It lights up at night, cool!
HSM: The biggest obstacle you must face are Home’s memory constraints; how much more can we expect to see in Home Tycoon?
Hellfire: We have to be creative to stuff more and more into the memory we have to work with, so it is too soon to say. We have some ideas on our wishlist and we are always listening to our players for more.
HSM: The ability to interact with the buildings and other areas in Home Tycoon was a big concern for the community; are the features in this new addition a reaction to that concern?
Hellfire: Because of memory constraints we weren’t able to make every building in the game interactive. We know this bugged some player but our hands were essentially tied. However with the addition of the amusement park in the Thrill Ride expansion we were able to make the roller coaster, drop towers and Ferris wheel a hundred-percent interactive for four to sixteen users at a time and people seem to be really happy with the results. Plus anyone can enjoy the rides when they visit any city that has them so it is a big win for everyone.
HSM: Diversification is always a welcome sight when it comes to Home games and spaces. Can we expect varieties of buildings and interactivity in the future?
Hellfire: I think it is too soon to tell. We need to step back and evaluate what we have to work with before we figure out what we can get in there.
HSM: One of Tycoon’s drawbacks is the feeling of emptiness the place invokes; are there plans to address this particular issue in the future?
Hellfire: Another side effect of limited memory ws not being able to add pedestrian NPC’s walking around in everyone’s cities, though we were able to add cars to the streets, with more cars showing up as your population increases. Fortunately one big update with the New Heights upgrade is the addition of full animations for the windmills, oil wells, construction cranes, Transutopia wind arrays, and the GlobalSyn Motor dealerships. Of course, the amusement park and rides are also fully animated and any city really comes alive when you have up to sixteen visitors running wild in it.
HSM: It seemed as if the last two updates were rather labor intensive and forced people to change their cities a great deal in ways they didn’t necessarily want to. Is this new addition of fun things and quests going to be the game plan for Home Tycoon from now on (as opposed to grinding)?
Hellfire: The missions in our last two expansions, Aggressive Promotions and Big Science, were actually based on suggestions from players who said they wanted more complex goals to reach so they felt like they were really building an impressive metropolis. So we wanted to add a few lofty objectives and some of the coolest buildings to date, but some of the players weren’t happy with the amount of time it took to reach those goals and didn’t want to adjust their cities so much to earn rewards. We figured the best approach for the New Heights update was to deliver big, fun expansions with a ton of value that anyone can access up front, and it seems to be going over well. But again, it is too early to say what is next; especially with New Heights launching so recently.
HSM: Overall, how would the Hellfire team compare the success of Home Tycoon to Novus Prime?
Flying around your city can be fun.
Hellfire: Novus Prime was a really great premiere for us in PlayStation Home, with over 1.3 million unique players jumping in over the years, and plenty of super-dedicated fans still blasting bots every day. We just recently had another player (DarkNexus360) crack the 100 million point mark on the All-Time leaderboard. Of course Home Tycoon is an entirely different game with a more accessible theme and it launched to a much wider audience than when Novus Prime came to the scene, so it is not quite a fair comparison. We have been very pleased with Home Tycoon’s performer overall, and we are glad to hear from so many layers who love it as much as we do.
I want to thank Hellfire Games for their frank answers to some hard questions. I can only hope that their vision and passion for Home Tycoon continues as Home continues to grow into the next year.
November 28th, 2013 by Burbie52 | 1 comment
Burbie52 is a 62 year-old published author and founder of the Grey Gamers group within Home. Born and raised in Michigan, she has lived there her entire life, with the exception of a twelve-year residency on the Big Island of Hawaii. She enjoys reading and writing, as well as video games, especially RPG's. She has one son in his twenties.
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How big is this theme park and side stands? I’m Guessing 2Blocks x 3Blocks and the Side stands are 1 block? Did I guess right Hellfire?