“Tycoon” games tend to amuse me.  A series of challenges that go from relatively easy to impossibly difficult, a whole new world to discover and help grow, managing crises as they come up.  Fun.  Even when there are significant problems in the game, as there are with Game Tycoon 1.5, they tend to be fun.

The opening animation for Game Tycoon 1.5 starts off innocently enough, just a fun little peak at what’s in store for you if you play.  The graphics for the animation certainly could have used a little more work, because while they’re cute they seem incredibly dated.

But, that’s just the opening, I thought, let’s not be too hasty.  The first scenario available to you is a tutorial.  A wise move for anyone not familiar with a specific game is always to look at that first, so I clicked on it, and that’s when the disaster began.

The tutorial has a not-so-helpful character pop-up on the lower left hand side of the screen that guides you through making and distributing your first game.  A nice enough idea that is horrifically executed. 

Once your character arrives at a destination, the tutor seems to deliver his speeches with a pre-determined amount of time between.  Additionally, he doesn’t stop speaking once he starts on a tip.  This causes some serious problems.  For instance, the first task you are given is to go to the bank to get a loan, Once you enter the bank the tutor starts a whole speech.  The banker also has a dialog box up as soon as you enter. 

Should you decide to click on one of the interactions with the banker, he will start talking at the exact same time and volume as the tutor, making it impossible to understand either.  Additionally, sometimes the advice you are given is cryptic and unintelligible.  I spent 15 minutes trying to decipher where he was telling me to go next, and only was successful in determining my destination by visiting every single place available in the game until I randomly chose the correct one.

He actually also gives wrong advice, telling the player to “click three times” to bring up a certain screen when only one click is required.  Not helpful.

As for the actual game play itself, it’s just as confusing.  One of the first tasks in a scenario is to create an “engine” for your game to run on.  This is done by clicking on a computer screen in the game and filling out various bits of information: entering a name for the engine, deciding what type of characteristics it should have (side scrolling, save features, sound), etc.