Game Tycoon 1.5 is a rerelease of Game Tycoon, a game-building simulator published and widely-criticized in 2006. While Sunlight Games certainly had the opportunity to capitalize on the growth of interest in the genre in more recent years and fix the game, playing Game Tycoon 1.5 is a frustrating experience and one has to wonder why Sunlight Games did not simply start from scratch.

The visual aspects of the game fluctuate between "passable for a low-budget PC game developed a decade ago" and downright laughable. In some parts of the game, text is pre-rendered as graphics. In other parts of the game, text consists of blue Times New Roman on a white screen. Think hyperlinks on the most basic webpages out of the early 2000s. The music is similar; some is passable, but some borders on the absurd. One track of the game is a six-second loop, but it doesn't loop properly. There is a delay between each loop, breaking any possible sense of immersion. It's like a bad Vine.

The functionality is, of course, entirely broken. A tooltip will demand that you name your engine even after a name is provided. Buttons and boxes will not work, and progressing in the game requires a lot of rebooting, backing out of menu and, perhaps for some, copious amounts of praying. Easily, however, the worst aspect of this game is its ridiculous mechanics. There are many different actions that the player may take to fund or advertise their game, develop it, recruit staff and so on, more, than one might even expect from a low-budget game. Unfortunately, most time spent in this game will consist of your character walking between the advertising agencies, the university, the bank and so on because yes, that is how this game is played. You do not navigate menus, you walk slowly in a psuedo-3D world in order to get to where you need to go. It is tedious and, miraculously, it manages to be worse than any escort mission because it serves zero purpose.

I know of four games in the game-building genre and this, as a game that isn't even in early access, is by far the worst. Your other options include Game Dev Tycoon and Mad Games Tycoon on the PC and Game Dev Story (personal favorite) on mobile devices. All of these games look, sound and play better than Game Tycoon 1.5, and you would be far better off to save yourself from the circle of hell that is Game Tycoon 1.5. Even if you get it in a bundle, don’t bother. It lacks any redeeming quality and ought to have been forgotten a decade ago.

Game Tycoon 1.5 is a rerelease of Game Tycoon, a game-building simulator published and widely-criticized in 2006. While Sunlight Games certainly had the opportunity to capitalize on the growth of interest in the genre in more recent years and fix the game, playing Game Tycoon 1.5 is a frustrating experience and one has to wonder why Sunlight Games did not simply start from scratch. The visual aspects of the game fluctuate between "passable for a low-budget PC game developed a decade ago" and downright laughable. In some parts of the game, text is pre-rendered as graphics. In other parts of the game, text consists of blue Times New Roman on a white screen. Think hyperlinks on the most basic webpages out of the early 2000s. The music is similar; some is passable, but some borders on the absurd. One track of the game is a six-second loop, but it doesn't loop properly. There is a delay between each loop, breaking any possible sense of immersion. It's like a bad Vine. The functionality is, of course, entirely broken. A tooltip will demand that you name your engine even after a name is provided. Buttons and boxes will not work, and progressing in the game requires a lot of rebooting, backing out of menu and, perhaps for some, copious amounts of praying. Easily, however, the worst aspect of this game is its ridiculous mechanics. There are many different actions that the player may take to fund or advertise their game, develop it, recruit staff and so on, more, than one might even expect from a low-budget game. Unfortunately, most time spent in this game will consist of your character walking between the advertising agencies, the university, the bank and so on because yes, that is how this game is played. You do not navigate menus, you walk slowly in a psuedo-3D world in order to get to where you need to go. It is tedious and, miraculously, it manages to be worse than any escort mission because it serves zero purpose. I know of four games in the game-building genre and this, as a game that isn't even in early access, is by far the worst. Your other options include Game Dev Tycoon and Mad Games Tycoon on the PC and Game Dev Story (personal favorite) on mobile devices. All of these games look, sound and play better than Game Tycoon 1.5, and you would be far better off to save yourself from the circle of hell that is Game Tycoon 1.5. Even if you get it in a bundle, don’t bother. It lacks any redeeming quality and ought to have been forgotten a decade ago.