I rarely cite myself in gaming reviews but when I do it to 90% it is management simulation.
This time I bring you my impressions on Indoor, management simulator of an indoor amusement park, developed by Pixelsplit.
The game released on July 14th is in version early access and will remain until the release of version 1.0 whose date will depend on the feedback that the community itself will give to allow the development of a game that meets the expectations of video players.
Indoorlands is an indoor park simulator where you can control your rides and freely design your rooms. Manage, expand and develop your park to inspire your visitors. Meet the needs of your visitors by unlocking and searching for new buildings, rides and more!
To lovers of the most famous Coster Tycon Saga Roller, I say immediately, that for content and concept, the title differs and absolutely does not want to be a competitor. The idea of the management of indoor parks could make you twist your nose, in Italy it is difficult to find one, so the concept turns out to us not real, but nevertheless remains an attractive product.
The current game allows the development of a park on a maximum surface of nine lots of land,three building from the opening of the park and other six purchaseable in the progress of the game.
My gaming experience is 15 hours articulated in one project. Initially, the approach was not the best, the first three hits of the game, during which I tried the tutorial, went to coincide with the same crashes. However, after leaving the tutorial, the game showed great reliability.
Installed on SSD with processor intel i7 7700 and 16gb of Ram guaranteed very fast saves, almost instantaneous, and a load speed worthy of note.
The management interface is very intuitive and easy to use. The management of the park is divided into three main areas: search, construction and customization. Initially you will have to distract between the limited cash fund and a very demanding audience. At this first stage I had the feeling that my choices were almost mandatory, as if I had no full powers in choosing what to develop first and then. Afterwards, however, overcome the first moments of play, this feeling completely disappears giving full freedom to your free will and inventiveness.
The game play focuses mainly on one big goal: satisfy your customers. The only real obsession that leads to more development of its project is therefore to try to increase as much as possible the percentages of visitors' enjoyment of the park. In this regard, the game offers us eleven areas, three concerning attractions (Complexity, Intensity, Exclusivity), three concerning catering (Menu, Taste, Ambience) three concerning shops (Selection, Quality, Novelty) and two concerning the general aspects of the structure (Water, Clealiness).
All areas correspond to the same characteristics of the various structures that you will build, therefore in general to build for example shops that guarantee more "quality" will allow to increase the pleasure of guests in the within of the "quality" of the shops. This equation, however, is not always accurate, as no more and more structures with the same characteristic allow the immediate increase of the gradient percentages. That said, however, I did not understand what to do to improve certain percentages, as, when it reached maximum development in terms of occupied land, some gradients were still low and difficult to rise. Another notable thing is that despite, in general, customers had a low rate of liking, such as the "taste" (taste), some of the restaurants that guaranteed more "taste" points were not almost completely visited. This makes me think that the position that is given to the various structures can be decisive, but it is something I am absolutely not sure of.
In addition to these there are two other bonus areas (park impression, favorite) which are influenced by the general trend of all the other eleven areas.
As said, the only real goal remains the satisfaction of its customers, but that does not mean that it will be the only thing to think about. The economic problem in my view is less decisive than other titles. From 2 hours of play onwards I had no big liquidity issues every time I wanted to create a structure. Of course you do not think you can have everything and immediately, as the game timing is determined, more than from the budget, by the four levelling modes: Experience, Research, Maximum Visitors, Portraits.
I Experience points increase with the flow of time and with the creation of the various structures; it is the levelling scale easier to carry on.
I Research are one of the decisive aspects of the game that give more longevity to your game run. Accumulating research points will ensure the development of new structures in the specific section. To accumulate them you will have the opportunity to create two search facilities that will guarantee you 2 search points every day of the game.
The levelling of maximum visitors is easy to intuition. The maximum capacity of your property will be dictated by the size of your parking spaces and the transport links to the structure. These characteristics are exclusively dependent on the transport research section. You will not have to build anything, just develop the search for ever bigger parking spaces, bus stations and trains.
The levelling of attraction will not depend solely on the creation of the various rides. This levelling is closely connected with the customization of the game, the strength of this title. Every attraction of yours will have to be decorated in detail, from the colors of floors, structures and walls, to the creation of attractive themed settings. Each component added to the various rooms will have as a characteristic of the "attractive points" that will increase your level. Here we understand why the economic aspect has little value. The attractions you will customize will have to be rich in details, and you can choose and buy hundreds of components that are currently divided into six themed environments (City, Pirates, FarWest, Space, Japan, Vikings). This will take you away most of the game time. You will enjoy customizing landscapes and settings, with a wide choice.
Whenever you reach a level in one of these four leveling scales, you will receive money, experience points and search points.
The advice is not to neglect any of the four so that you can carry out all the research in parallel to the expansion of your project.
The contour music is pleasant, the graphics suitable for a management, little heavy but quite attractive. Some small bug is present but to be a early access is a game that has with it a huge amount of experience possible.
The negative points are exclusively part of some aspects of the game play that I think should be balanced. Too easy to increase the "experience points", too complicated to increase the "research points". The limit of the two research structures is too binding. My gaming experience makes me think that maybe it would be better to give you the way to earn more experience points and maybe less money. In order to alternate search and construction.
Time is poorly defined. They should implement a clock,the succession of day and night and a sort of calendar so that they have a clearer picture of their performance over time.
It would also need more clarification on how to satisfy visitors and increase the gradient percentages. If for bathrooms and cleaning the speech seems linear, for the rest it is as if you never could satisfy. This and all the other aspects that I have not understood in my opinion should be explained in a good tutorial.
The strength as mentioned, is the huge possibility of customizing the game that brings the game play to a different level than any other management and makes the game really longevous. If to this will be added other attractions and facilities combined with the possibility to go beyond the nine plots of land, I'm sure, that could become a flagship game in the vast park of simulative management.
The game is currently exclusively in English and German, but easy to understand thanks to the amount of icons that accompany textual words.
The current price is 12.99 € and I can say that it already applies every single euro with the prospect of a development that will go to fix bugs and will bring new content and functionality.
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