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nerdybookahs · 5 years

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I bought Project Highrise back in 2016 and have played it for 54 hours. This number seems oddly low as I thought I’d sunk in much more time than that. I also bought all of the game’s DLCs. So when I saw the announcement for Mad Tower Tycoon, I was a bit skeptical. A second tower-building game? At first glance, these games were identical only with different graphics. However, I love simulation games and I love this theme, so I kept looking at the game’s Steam page again and again. The main question I had on my mind was: How is it different from Project Highrise? Is it worth buying Mad Tower Tycoon when I already own Project Highrise? Do we even need two games like this? Why should I spend money on another game like this if it’s exactly the same? Except for the graphics, of course.

There has also been an interview (written in German as well as English) with a developer from EggCode Games and he was also asked how his game Mad Tower Tycoon differs from Project Highrise. It seems to be something a lot of people ask (also visible when you take a look at the Steam community forums).

This post isn’t about bashing Mad Tower Tycoon, though, or its developer for being boring and copying Project Highrise. I did actually end up buying Mad Tower Tycoon when it was on sale last month. Also, for everything I write about, please keep in mind that Mad Tower Tycoon is still in Early Access and subject to change while Project Highrise has been out for a few years and I may be mentioning some features or content that’s not in the base game but requires the DLC. Also, from here on, Mad Tower Tycoon will be MTT and Project Highrise will be PH, so I don’t have to type their full names over and over again.

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Let’s start with a look at the prices and the developers behind these two games. MTT costs 14.99 €. The Steam Early Access page says they currently have no plans of increasing the price after release. The game has already been on sale previously (and it is currently on sale on Fanatical until the end of Monday, German time… sorry, I’m bad with time zones). Release was scheduled for Q1/Q2 2019. This date has already passed, obviously. But from my personal experience, the game is fully playable, so I didn’t even think of checking when the full release will be until I started writing this blog post. The developers are EggCode Games and you may know them from their previous game Mad Games Tycoon. They’re actually based in Germany which I didn’t know until I looked at their website now. I have no idea how many developers there are, but they’re definitely an indie company. It may be that the company consists of only one person as the interview above has him talk about himself only when mentioning the development of the game.

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The base game of PH costs 19.99 € (it is also currently on sale on Fanatical! A coincidence, by the way. I didn’t know that they were when I wrote this). It also has one small expansion (Las Vegas, priced at 6.99 €) and four DLCs: Miami Malls, Tokyo Towers, London Life and Brilliant Berlin (price ranging between 1.59 € and 1.99 €). The developers are SomaSim. They are also indie developers and made 1849, a city management game, before they released PH. They’re based in Chicago, USA. Not that the country matters, but as I mentioned it above, I thought I should mention it for them as well.

The graphics are, as always, highly subjective. I like them in both games. And in both games, I am not a big fan of how the people look. In PH I find them too stiff and lifeless. In MTT they are too cute. If I had to choose one game over the other simply because of the graphics, I’d choose MTT. I can’t say anything about the soundtracks in both games, because I always turn off the music. But I’ve never heard somebody say that they bought one game and not the other because it had a better soundtrack. So, I’d say while the first can be a deciding factor, it’s something you can decide by looking at videos and screenshots and the other isn’t that relevant.

I haven’t experienced any bugs or crashes in either of these games. Both seem to be very stable, at least on my PC.

One of the main differences that you will encounter first is that PH has more micro management in general. I’ve seen people call MTT more “arcady” and I guess they’re right. In PH, you put wiring and plumbing closets on each floor. Then you place pipes and lines on each floor where they’re needed. Both games require you to place rooms that produce enough electricity, water, etc. But MTT leaves it at that and connects everything automatically. In PH, if you run out of money before finishing the electrical lines, your tenants are without electricity (if you were silly enough to request the tenant before finishing that part). Also, your tenants have specific needs. You may rent your office to insurance companies which only require electricity and copy services, or you choose an accounting company which also wants courier services. Later on, other tenants that offer a higher rent will also require more facilities and services in your building. On top of that, you will also unlock bigger offices later. And just when I was typing this paragraph, while starting a new tower in PH, an earthquake happened in-game and all tenants were without electricity. That’s within the first five minutes into the game.

Another big difference is the transport system. In PH, you build elevators and the people stand in front of one, disappear and reappear on their chosen floor – a bit like a teleporter system. In MTT, they also stand in front of one, wait for it to travel back to their floor, get in and then you can see the elevator move to their chosen floor. In other words: If there are people waiting on different floors, it doesn’t matter in PH while it does matter in MTT. An elevator that is full won’t transport more people and they need to wait for it to move to their floor. You build the elevators (and the stairs) in front of rooms, though, so you can add more when you need to. On the other hand, they cause noise and not everybody is happy having an elevator or stairs in front of their room. Careful planning is still necessary here!

When it comes to building, in PH you build a floor and stairs or elevators, then add what kind of rooms you want on that floor (and add the lines for electricity etc. as already mentioned). Once it is built, you click on the room and choose a tenant. Rent varies depending on what tenant you choose, but they all have different needs and expectations that need to be met. In MTT, you directly build what you want there, e.g., an office, without having to first add the floor itself. The construction workers still need stairs or elevators to get to the construction site, of course. Once it’s built, some tenant will automatically move in there. You have no control over which tenant. A small office is simply a small office.

What I don’t like in PH is the interface. Not everything is bad here, but I frequently get lost trying to find some item I want to build or trying to remember what I need to do in order to unlock something for my tower. I wish they would condense the options somehow – although it may be less of an issue if I played the game more regularly. You also need to open the utilities report in order to see how much of the available electricity etc. you’re using. In MTT it’s part of the upper tool bar. You also get more horizontal building space in MTT which I like.

PH lets you freely build a tower or play scenarios/missions. The interview I linked to above has the developer of MTT mention missions for his game as a feature he’s planning to implement. So, as it is now, if you want to play missions with certain goals you need to reach, PH is the game for you! PH also had mod support. I always forget about that, because I’m not using any mods here. It seems that MTT won’t get mod support.

What you currently get for your money: A very complete game with PH, but the base game is a bit more expensive and some features only come with the paid DLCs. MTT, on the other hand, is cheaper, but it’s also in Early Access, so it’s future is unknown. It also doesn’t have mod support and we don’t know if we’ll get DLC and thus, if it gets as much content as PH currently has.

So, these are the main differences in my opinion. PH has more micro management in general (I left out some features like booking singers for a concert etc. in your tower as it’s part of DLC) than MTT. MTT is more realistic when it comes to elevators and stairs, so their micro management is in getting your visitors and occupants to easily navigate around in your tower.

If I could choose only one game and wasn’t allowed to play the other ever again, I would probably choose Mad Tower Tycoon (but only then and it’d be a difficult decision). Not because Project Highrise is a bad game or even worse than Mad Tower Tycoon, but because I slightly prefer the graphics and so far, prefer the focus on the transport system instead of having to take care of the wiring for my tenants. Project Highrise is the older game, though, and has more content which may lead to a better long-term investment when looking at entertainment gained per Euro spent. I also quite like that you can choose tenants and their specific needs.

I hope this helps anybody who may ask themselves the same question: Should I buy Mad Tower Tycoon or Project Highrise (or both)? Also, feel free to ask any questions about the games. Maybe I can answer them. 🙂

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with any of the games mentioned here nor with Steam, Fanatical or any other game stores. I bought all games with my own money and am not getting paid to write about the games. My opinion is my own (and if I ever start disliking these games, you’ll be the first to hear it)!

Mad Tower Tycoon and Project Highrise - What's the difference? #blaugust2019 #madtowertycoon #projecthighrise I bought Project Highrise back in 2016 and have played it for 54 hours. This number seems oddly low as I thought I'd sunk in much more time than that.

#blaugust 2019 #early access game #eggcode games #Indie Developer #indie game #mad tower tycoon #project highrise #simulation game #somasim

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nerdybookahs · 5 years

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Screenshot Saturday: 7 years of GW2

Screenshot Saturday: 7 years of GW2 #blaugust2019 #guildwars2

The first characters that were created during the headstart are celebrating their 7th birthday. Now my warrior is proudly wearing armor that’s worth more than 700 gold only because of the dyes applied!

Every character that reaches their 7th birthday receives a Victorious Dye Kitwhich lets you choose dyes from the Zhaitan Dye Kit, the Mordremoth Dye Kit, the Kralkatorrik Dye Kit or the Sacred Dye…

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#blaugust 2019 #Guild Wars 2 #Screenshot Saturday

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nerdybookahs · 5 years

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Bookahneer's Geekwatch (August 2019): Who wants my money?

Bookahneer's Geekwatch (August 2019): Who wants my money? #blaugust2019

Two Point Hospital announced their next DLC, Close Encounters, a couple of days ago. It’ll release on August 29 and is currently on sale both at Steam and at Fanatical (no idea if it’s available anywhere else). I love this game and have sunk a lot of hours into it and pre-purchased the two previous DLCs as soon as they were announced. But with this one, I’m not sure. For one, I actually only play…

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#blaugust 2019 #Bookahneer&039;s Geekwatch #Telling Lies #the dark eye #the dark eye: book of heroes #two point hospital

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nerdybookahs · 5 years

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A co-worker of bookahnerk’s is thinking of trying out an action RPG. He has never played a game in this genre and asked him if he could recommend Grim Dawn. He had apparently seen it in some “Let’s Play” and it looked interesting. Since I’ve been playing it a lot more than bookahnerk, he asked me for advice. What I didn’t know at first was that he’s never played such a game and doesn’t know if he’ll really like the genre.

So then it got me thinking: Would I recommend Grim Dawn to a beginner? And yes, I assume that he is smart enough to figure out features on his own, do google searches, read through forums, and understand the game – or any game. So it’s not about “can somebody without prior ARPG understand this game?” – Of course they can! But the thing here is: I think that Grim Dawn with its dual-class setup and devotion skills is not exactly the easiest to play and get a feeling for the genre. Yes, it’s an amazing game! But I wouldn’t say it’s a good game for somebody who wants to see if he likes action RPGs. Once they have decided that they do, I would definitely recommend Grim Dawn!

But back to somebody who’s wondering “Do I like action RPGs”: My mind immediately came up with Torchlight or Torchlight II. It’s much easier to find your way around in this game (and the game’s world). The story is easier to follow, if you ask me, there aren’t dual-classes and in general less classes to choose from. So, it’s easier to jump into the game and focus on whether you’d like such a game or not. In fact, you start the game, create a character, hop in and play and don’t need to think about anything at all or search the internet etc.

On the other hand, maybe starting with a more complicated game than Torchlight is exactly the right thing to do? Because a lot of these game are more complex and it’s part of their allure. That is, a lot of them don’t allow you to respect whenever you wish. It’s part of the experience to carefully plan your character!

Obviously, I would also recommend Diablo (1 or 2, maybe even 3 – hey, I like it!), because you don’t know action RPGs if you’ve never even played the original Diablo games if you ask me. But should a beginner start with that? – Now that I see this question written here… it’s not a bad way to start. Bookahnerk went and bought me Diablo 2 several years ago, because I said that I’d like to play some RPG game. I did have to search the internet a few times, but it wasn’t that bad!

We’ll definitely still recommend Torchlight 2 to him! Because if it’s your first action RPG or not, it’s a good game (as is Grim Dawn, as are the original Diablo games…).

Which action RPG for a beginner? #blaugust2019 A co-worker of bookahnerk's is thinking of trying out an action RPG. He has never played a game in this genre and asked him if he could recommend Grim Dawn.

#Action RPG #arpg #blaugust 2019 #diablo #grim dawn #Torchlight Series

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nerdybookahs · 5 years

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After posting my mini mes yesterday, I realized that I’ll have to add another post today in order to show you the next ones. It hadn’t been clear to me whether we would get to reserve our character names only or already create the characters we want to play when WoW Classic launches. It was the latter.

I’d thought of making a side-by-side comparison to the old characters and the new ones now. However, Blizzard disabled the feature of having the old character models. Some of the new models are okay, but some I actually dislike. They changed their facial expressions too much and it’s not the expression I wanted for them. Anyway, it doesn’t make much sense now as it would feel like comparing apples to pears.

My little Ghamina will be deleted once Classic launches. I wanted that name and I wanted it for my mage, but on the live servers, it’s my Draenei mage and in my mind, “Ghamina” is not a name for a little gnome. I’ll have to come up with another name for her. Ghamina will probably be used for my human paladin – if I decide to make her a human. My dwarf priest hasn’t been created yet either, but I’ve got a few names on my mind that are usually not taken by others, so I’m not too worried about that.

But my gnome warlock has been! I am pretty certain that this is the final look. I like the black hair. Also, everybody will have the cotton ball pink hair, so she’ll be standing out as different. Much more fitting to a warlock, if you ask me!

On Horde side, Paeroka will be an undead priest and part of a duo with bookahnerk who’s going to play a warrior. We’re planning on doing dungeons together. Tank and healer, looking for group. Shouldn’t be hard to do!

Since you can play around in the character creation screen of WoW Classic, I can at least show you what my future dwarf priest will look like. Actually, she will look exactly like my old dwarf priest looked like. The first character I called my main. And with whom I made the first experiences with other online players… back then, I was surprised by how friendly people were to each other (read: me). It took me a while to realize this wasn’t general behavior so much as behavior towards somebody that plays a healer. My experiences, once I switched to warlock, were a lot different. Not unfriendly or anything, but players were a lot quieter and didn’t put me on their friends list immediately after finishing a dungeon. I’ll get to relive this experience again, levelling both priest and warlock!

My Classic Mini-Mes #wowclassic #blaugust2019 After posting my mini mes yesterday, I realized that I'll have to add another post today in order to show you the next ones.

#blaugust 2019 #priest #warlock #World of Warcraft #wow classic

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nerdybookahs · 5 years

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This is the third “Me and my Mini-Mes” posting that I’m doing. The first was for Blaugust 2015. And then I did another last year, for International Picture Posting Month. Can you sense a pattern here, maybe?

So here I am, wondering which games to take my Mini-Mes from. I decided not to include Guild Wars 2 this time, because I haven’t seriously played the game in quite a while. The same goes for Rift. Instead, World of Warcraft is back in – but with the retail version, as classic won’t be until the end of August. So basically, World of Warcraft switches places with Guild Wars 2. Lord of the Rings Online and Elder Scrolls Online are still on my list of MMOs I play regularly.

Last year, I wrote that my main in ESO was a dragonknight and that I actually wanted an argonian as my main. I did have an argonian templar at the time, but didn’t like her look much. I have since deleted her and rolled another argonian templar with a much better look. Gechi-Ra has been my main ever since. The recent expansion also introduced a new class, the necromancer. I haven’t played her much yet, but I really enjoyed the class when I did.

In LotRO, I still focus on my guardian. I would love to play my runekeeper as well, but I actually don’t enjoy levelling as much in Lotro as I do in other games.

And last, because it’s the “new” one: My characters in World of Warcraft. My first main characters were a dwarf priest and an undead warlock. Both never hit level cap. So, I’m now levelling my warlock because after so many years, she deserves to get there… well, if I can get her to 120 before WoW Classic launches, as I actually want to play that version and not so much the current game. She’s currently level 118. Not that much more to level cap!

My Mini-Mes (August 2019) #wow #eso #lotro #blaugust2019 This is the third "Me and my Mini-Mes" posting that I'm doing. The first was for…

#blaugust 2019 #Elder Scrolls Online #eso #Lord of the Rings Online #lotro #mini me #World of Warcraft #wow

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nerdybookahs · 5 years

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Ulisses and their partners announced a new computer game today: The Dark Eye – Book of Heroes. It seems that Wild River will be the publisher. The game is developed by Random Potion, a Finish company. I haven’t found much about the developers as it seems that they haven’t yet finished any games. But this press release from March 2018 about their game concept “Project Scoundrel” sounds as if that is the basis of the game Book of Heroes.

We don’t know a lot about the game yet, but we have been shown a few scenes from the game. It will be a single player game that can also be played with friends. So multiplayer will be in and it may be an important part. What they said was that they want to bring the tabletop feeling into the computer game. I especially like the part in their game concept’s press release about being able to avoid combat by other means. The Dark Eye is heavily focused on interaction and while yes, combat is obviously a part of it, the whole interaction – with NPCs, but also with the characters your friends are playing – is the whole foundation of the game.

They said that they would upload the video to their YouTube channel later, but in the meantime, you can also watch the video on Twitch. The part about Book of Heroes starts at about 2:16:00. Parts of it are in English, so just continue watching and ignore the German when you hear it. The (very short!) gameplay video starts at 2:19:25. The big text on the image above says “with your own story”, by the way.

In case you have no idea who Ulisses are or what The Dark Eye is all about: It’s a German pen & paper game that was published in 1984. Think “Dungeons & Dragons”, but with less of a focus on combat. Some adventures are all about socializing, getting information that way etc. Or, you know, you’re just there to find a dog that ran away (well, as part of the adventure, at least!). You can easily play a character that can’t fight and are still a viable asset to your group! Just to give you an idea. Your character could be very knowledgeable, for example, and get you to places where you couldn’t go if you were just a group of warriors. Now, I don’t know how much of this will be important in Book of Heroes, but since they say that they want to have the soul of TDE in the PC game, they can’t just be all about combat and nothing else.

Some additional info we got: There will be 12 classes in the game to choose from and all 4 common playable races (human, elf, half-elf, dwarf). I already mentioned that the game will have a single player mode which lets you hire henchmen to accompany you. And then there is the online coop mode which lets you play with up to three other players. The developer team consists of ten people at the moment. They hired Winifred Philips for the soundtrack who’s also worked on games like Assassin’s Creed, Total War and Little Big Planet. The guy from the publishing company said that they have a budget set and a deadline and they’re trying to keep everything in the scope of that.

The audience also got to ask a few questions: One was about the game’s genre to which the developer replied that it is “dungeon-crawlish”, but less focus on combat than you’d usually have, and instead also puzzles or tasks you’ve got to solve. It’s not an open world game, but instanced. You’re sitting in a tavern and then go on single adventures. That is, you click on a region on the map where you want to do an adventure. They stress again that the point of the game is not to run from fight to fight. But of course, there will be fights! It’s apparently rather balanced between fights and other tasks. The game is basically the “dungeon master” for you and your group. An adventure can last between one hour and three hours. But this is all in development, so it’s not set in stone yet and they can’t say which adventure will be the shortest or the longest. Parts of the game will also be canon or become canon later on, but not everything will be. Another question was whether there’d be a level or map editor for players to create their own adventures. The developer replied with “no”, the publisher said “not now”. Basically, their plan is to release this game now and continue with other games set in the world later on. The fights in the game will be in real-time, not turn-based. The game will be German and English when it launches. If other languages are added depends on the success of the game. The last question was about monetization of the game (this is when the audience starts to applaud): You will buy the game, then you will own it. There won’t be a cash shop or anything like that added.

Book of Heroes will appear on Steam at the end of August, but the game won’t be released before 2020. In Q2 2020, to be more precise, as one of the guys on the stage later specifies.

I am not sure yet whether I’m excited or not, because I’d like more information first. But I am carefully optimistic, at least. I’d just really like a good PC game that captures the spirit of the game well. That is, I want a rich deep storyline with meaningful choices. So, we’ll have to see…

The Dark Eye: Book of Heroes #DSA #TDE #DasSchwarzeAuge #TheDarkEye #blaugust2019 Ulisses and their partners announced a new computer game today: The Dark Eye - Book of Heroes.

#blaugust 2019 #book of heroes #das schwarze auge #dsa #pen & paper #pencil drawings #roleplaying game #the dark eye #the dark eye: book of heroes #ulisses

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