Project Highrise

I think the lack of system spontaneity meant there was no swing to the systems so no challenging course correction. The tower will gradually get dirty over time but it's not a decline that is fast enough and nor are there enough forms of decline to make it a complex challenge to solve? Or at least not interesting in the way a Oxygen Included or City Skylines can remain for far longer. I played sim towers a lot way back and I remember it was broken, but I also remember the random events and the somehow more memorable visuals making it hold my attention far longer despite probably also having simpler systems than this game. Admittedly it has been a while since I played though. I did like the little thoughts the people would have, it injected a bit of life into them.

This is a good game, polished, and it is fun to play. It deserves it's "Very Positive" rating and if you like the concept, you'll enjoy the game, I'm sure. Plus the devs/mods are active on the forums answering questions, even nine years after launch and that is OUTSTANDING service! [h1]TL DR[/h1] ______________________ The game is FUN. But the early parts of the game are a SLOG to get through. Slow gameplay, no ability to AFK due to needing to press ONE button every so often, and no in-game tools to plan and help pass the time which can lead to frustration and costly errors. The game's early difficulties quickly feel artificial as the game ultimately is far more fun than challenging. That creates a feeling that the initial time put into the "waiting around" during each new game is unneeded or worse simply wasted. This makes starting over a difficult prospect (whether for a new game or working through 10 scenarios for the achievement) and it can make a player pause and reconsider if they want to hit "New Game" or play something else. But, if you play in sandbox and/or easy difficulty, you'll get to the fun quickly and not notice this nearly as much. If not, you'll have to sacrifice a bit more for the same end result of freedom in your tower building. However, once you break through the profit margin, you'll soon realize that you can break the habit of thinking you must "paint the map" with a tower and instead let your creative designs start shining through and that is where PH shines. Either way, if you want to build a resource management tower, this game is FUN and deep down it is truly worth the cost! ________________________ If you are going to play Project Highrise (PH) at normal or harder difficulties with no sandbox, you MUST be willing to sit and wait and the let the game come to you. In the early game especially, but even into the mid-game, you will have plenty of time in the "Waiting Place" as Dr. Seuss called it. And the speed-options, while better than nothing, are SLOW!! Worse yet, while in the beginning of the game, you can't AFK to help with the lack of funds because you have to babysit a single button click to have maintenance crews do their job. So while you wait, you are seemingly meant to think and plan out your tower. And that is important because PH will punish mistakes. And those mistakes can be physically hard, economically painful, or just really annoying to fix. It is easy to miss a click or misjudge a build by a mere rectangle or two and this can jam up an entire floor's (or more) plans. [h2]This is where the biggest downfall (IMHO) of this game is revealed[/h2] Unlike Prison Architect (another building game that uses this sit/wait playstyle) which has a blueprint tool you can use to outline your design and fill it in later, PH has nothing like that. So there's no way to check that your layout or dream tower will work until you get into building it for real. This means that PH demands a lot of trial and error, while it can also be quite punishing of mistakes. The game has no problem letting you trap yourself after hours of gameplay before causing you to realize that a newly unlocked building isn't going to fit and your layout is messed up. Puzzles and new challenges in games are great, but here they end up feeling unfair or that they are meant to trick the player--they aren't I don't think, it feels that way though. Instead you are simply stuck waiting. and that's the second downfall of this otherwise fun game. You have to wait a lot to play the game. The first part of the game is TEDIOUS (and if you are running for achievements doing the early game 10 times it is spirit-crushing). It leaves you spending a lot of time in the early "hardest part" of the game NOT playing. And then you spend a whole lot of time playing the game in the easiest part. That gives a sinking feeling as you play. It makes you ask, "Why make it so hard to get into the game? The game isn't really that hard at all. We could have jumped straight into the fun part." The difficulty seems artificial, which makes the time put into it feel like it was unneeded or wasted. The learning curve is backward. Instead of gliding you up to a pinnacle and then taking you up and down through the game's challenges, it forces you to climb a cliff first. Then, instead of rewarding you by letting you use that knowledge to overcome a challenge, it drops the curve right back down into a grassy meadow with only the occasional hill or two to think about. UNTIL you fall into a concealed pit under the grass that you can get out from but again it makes you wonder why was that even there in the first place? But that grassy meadow is wonderful. With money in hand you can build anything you want, create whatever kind of tower you want to design. You do NOT have to paint the map with room after room, you can build a tower that has architectural features and not just a big rectangle. PH shines when it finally lets you go run free in the game. There's no good reason NOT to buy this game if you like the concept. So, I know most of that sounds negative and it is, but the negative part truly only takes up 20-30% of a build. So why be so negative about this part. Because it is a LONG and TEDIOUS 20-30% of each build. It is more than enough to stop a player from sticking around to get to the good content. Because this is not about skill (or gettin' gud), it is literally about the time required to sit and wait. It takes the wind out of the sails for a long time before it lets you really play. So, if you buy this game you MUST be ready to sink the time into it to actually get to the part that has earned PH its great rating. If you are not, skip it.

I'd recommend it on Beginner mode yes, anything above that it becomes a slow moving micro-management hell where you're shouting at your builders for how the game randomly decides which thing to build first and there is no option to "rush this thing" for building things that are urgently needed.

The game has a few small bugs, but otherwise it is extremely well-put-together and has an extremely beautiful art style with tons of period-relevant details to soak in at the closest zoom levels. <3

amazing game but no planes to blow the tower up.

Fun game to play for a few hours.

great building game!

if you're old like me you may remember sim tower, yoot tower even. this is that thang. is great.