Available on PC
There are quite a few games whose premises don’t really sound that fun. Take The Sims for instance or Animal Crossing. Doing menial tasks is what those games are all about, but once you start playing, you realize the game is really fun. This is the same with Industry Manager – Future Technologies, which is about running a company and bringing product to market. Sounds boring right? Well, it’s not. It’s actually really fun.
The Gameplay
Just as in The Sims or Civilization games, there is no story Industry Manager. Instead you sort of make up your own story based on how you play. At the beginning of the game, you select a CEO with different traits that might affect how the company is run. Then you decide what type of products you want to produce and you’re on your way. The process of bringing a product to market is pretty complex, as I’m sure it is in real life. Luckily, Industry Manager has a beefy tutorial to help learn a lot of the complexities.
Once you’ve decided what your company is all about you can get started producing things. There are multiple buildings you’ll need from taking your product from concept to reality. You need to build warehouses and factories in addition to resource-producers like farms to get the ingredients you need to produce your product. When you’re getting started with any product, you can see what ingredients are needed. This process gets more and more complex as you progress in the game as you need to start refining ingredients in order to use them. Then there are the logistics of the factories and warehouses. You need to decide how many workers to higher, how many things they will produce, and the quality of the products they produce, which affects their price. In the warehouse you need to manage incoming and outgoing shipments, making sure everything gets sent to the right place. On top of all of those things is the financial element which includes loans, banks and even a stock market to consider. Plus there’s a chance to research now products.
This game is really, really, complex. In my time with it, I only felt like I was just learning how to make things work. But as someone who loves games like Civilization, I was having a really good time.
The Rating
Industry Manager – Future Technologies hasn’t been rated by the ESRB. There’s no language or violence, but there is reading involved and the complex nature of the game may make it difficult for younger kids without someone to help them.
Takeaway
Industry Manager – Future Technologies was really fun. It still seems weird saying that. I enjoyed the ability to micromanage every detail of the company I created. I got lost and had to stop myself, or I would have played much, much, longer. If you like games like Sim City or Civilization, you’ll probably enjoy this. It has the same type of complex gameplay, but in a new way.
