Desolation Tycoon
Iron Boar Labs Ltd. · 2022 · Trading, Resource Management, Sandbox, Pixel Graphics, Strategy
PC
Positive86% · 28
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About Desolation Tycoon
The world has ended, but life moves on. Your home is a wasteland scoured by winds blowing in from a caustic sea. Most large mammals are extinct, and insects have filled their roles.
You are a merchant traveling this land in search of profit. Each character you play starts with a randomly generated history and traits. And eventually, each character's career will come to an end — whether through successful retirement or tragic death.
The game remembers everything you do, and the world is persistent across characters. As a consequence of your actions, civilization will slowly grow and rebuild. Accomplishments accrued across any number of characters will unlock new cities, new crew units, new challenges, and so on.
There is no fixed storyline. Instead, you have a setting, a set of gameplay mechanics, and complete freedom to do with that what you will.
Core features:
Example challenges:
This is not an action-oriented game. Time doesn't pass unless you're doing something, and there are no real-time challenges. Instead, gameplay is strictly about the making of intelligent trade-offs in an open-world setting with many potential courses of action.
You are a merchant traveling this land in search of profit. Each character you play starts with a randomly generated history and traits. And eventually, each character's career will come to an end — whether through successful retirement or tragic death.
The game remembers everything you do, and the world is persistent across characters. As a consequence of your actions, civilization will slowly grow and rebuild. Accomplishments accrued across any number of characters will unlock new cities, new crew units, new challenges, and so on.
There is no fixed storyline. Instead, you have a setting, a set of gameplay mechanics, and complete freedom to do with that what you will.
Core features:
- Travel, trade, and defend your cargo from dangers.
- Improve your skills through usage.
- Find and explore places that are worth plundering.
- Build relationships with city notables, and co-operate with them on various schemes.
- Rebuild a persistent world across multiple lifetimes.
- Make trade-offs in encounters that are purely decision-driven, and avoid grindy minigames.
- Enjoy a high-information user interface that doesn't ask you to remember things unnecessarily.
Example challenges:
- Local climate calamities.
- Giant insects, bandits, and much worse.
- Each character will automatically retire if they live long enough; this does not leave enough time to develop all possible skills.
- Networks of supply and demand are randomized between playthroughs.
- You can't stay in a trade route rut, because trading with the same cities too much will make it less profitable.
- You and your crew can become injured or sick — and possibly die as a result.
- The locals that you trade and scheme with have minds of their own, and may betray you.
- Performance-enhancing symbiotes may seem like a great idea, but can lead to unfortunate side-effects.
- Oh, and there are also demons. They complicate everything.
This is not an action-oriented game. Time doesn't pass unless you're doing something, and there are no real-time challenges. Instead, gameplay is strictly about the making of intelligent trade-offs in an open-world setting with many potential courses of action.
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
The game seems simple at first, but as you play it you become aware of more and more decisions, so it gets more interesting. It is very minimalist in its design, so that won't be for everyone, although the game does have an addictive loop, a "one more turn" effect much like Civilization (1 and 2 especially). On my first run, it felt pretty dumb and pointless, but the hypnotic atmosphere made me want to try and improve my run. It seemed like I simply could not heal enough to keep up with the encounters. I think my second run was similar. Eventually I figured out that I could re-roll when creating the character to try to have more healing ability. The next thing I learned was how to actually make a profit. For my first several runs I would start out by getting a crew and running up a large debt. I found that once I found some excavation site I could switch gears and get into the green. This was my approach for a couple of runs, until I realized how the maps work. You can see which direction has buyers for the goods before you purchase them, so that's a simple way to decide what to buy and what direction to go. After that, I was able to turn the 1000 naulds (the currency) you ge…1 found this helpful
First round played in one 5h session. Nice minimalist trading game.1 found this helpful
I am really enjoying this game so far! It's very clean and focused, I like the simplicity and clarity. The music is nice and the pixel graphics are charming. I like the tone/mood, it does feel sort of desolate. I really enjoy it, but I can see that it's not for everyone. The gameplay loop is a little bit repetitive, and the only activities are really walking, trading, and excavating. (as I said, I like the clarity) There isn't a tutorial, but the tooltips are very helpful and so I think one isn't really necessary. So far I've had a number of characters and only one has survived to retirement. I like that dying doesn't feel devastating, you can mostly pick things up again fairly quickly. I think the move speed is Perfect, it doesn't take too long to get between towns (unless you plan poorly) and I enjoy planning routes to get to different places, and the little surprise encounters on the way! Definitely a steal if you get it on sale!
⢀⠔⠉⠉⠢⣀⠔⠉⠉⠹⣦ ⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⣿⠇ ⠡⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣼⡟ ⠀⠈⠢⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⡾⠋ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠙⠲⣦⠞⠋ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⠠⠂⠉⣴⣿⠏ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡠⠊⠀⢀⡤⠞⠛⠋⠉⣩⣿⡿ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⠀⠀⠀⠀⡠⠊⠀⡠⠞⠁⠀⠀⣀⣴⣾⠟⠋ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⡠⠒⠉⠁⠀⠀⣊⣀⣤⣴⠿⠛⠋⠁ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣠⠊⠀⠂⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢿⡆ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠙⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣾⠇ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⠳⢦⣄⡀⠀⠠⢴⣅ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠸⠀⡔⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⣀⣉⡻⢦ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢁⠀⠀⠀⢀⡾⠉⠀⠀⠀⠻⡄ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡘⠀⠀⠀⣿⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠹⠦⣄ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣰⠁⠀⢀⣴⣿⡄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣨⣤⡿ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠹⠶⠖⠋⠀⠈⠻⢶⣤⣤⣤⠞⠋ This game very simple (no key rebinds, grindy, has some good ideas). I like it due to my personal tastes but as a game its def in the lower than 5$ and feels simple (unpolished, has good ideas but not implemented properly)
Desolation Tycoon is a decent indie game. It's minimalist but nicely streamlined.
This is like one of those games where your friend insists that it's great because he played a flash version of it in 2012, but since you don't have his nostalgia it doesn't do it for you. It's just incredibly bare bones. I've not looked but I'm pretty sure there are plenty of games for free that are like this, and if you're looking for a trading sim there are much better options out there. Even on sale for under $5 I just don't see it.
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