tycoon games: what schools would teach if influenced more by Will Wright than Noah Webster

A computer game Genre where players have the goal of creating a thriving ecosystem by managing and transforming small and unstable amounts and diversity of territory, structures, and Units on a Map into large and stable amounts and diversity, in a real-time environment.

(See System Content: The Seven Models in a Sim.)

Tycoon games. In Theme Hospital, players manage medical facilities and staff. Age of Empires, The Movies, Zoo Tycoon, Railrood Tycoon and Roller Coaster Tycoon are other examples of tycoon games.

The player Actions include:

• building and upgrading units and structures (often to minimize movement and cost of travel);
• creating paths;
• filling roles;
• refining old Processes, and researching and implementing new processes;
• gathering, extracting, consuming, and allocating balanced resources;
• managing profitability;
• directing people; and
• handling alerts.
• Map locations tend to have different values, and some are of high value. But there may also be global conditions or capability.

Typically, the units themselves perform necessary activities. Some units may be a form of constituent, either political, employee, or consumer. Tycoon games also feature AI or real competitors.

The Level design tends to be variations of a back loaded sandbox mode, and players may strive for awards. Failure in tycoon games tends to be stagnation, rather than death.

The display on tycoon games use an overhead or isometric view. They also tend to use mixed scales and radars to ease navigation.

Tycoon games tend to focus on developing Big Skills including applying economic, value, and governing models, nurturing /stewardship, probing, project management, and negotiation and Middle Skills including long-term planning, budgeting, ownership, estimating cost, and estimating benefit.

Sometimes referred to as builder games. Play [McDonald's game].

Compare to interactive spreadsheets: they are wonk-ariffic, real time strategy (RTS): the original "serious game", and book.