So, here we go with this first look at Indoorlands. Greetings gamers and spectators alike. Today, I have a showcase on a game coming soon to Steam in an early-access stage. I’ve acquired access to the game via my community at Indie Game Collective.
I have a fondness for sims and a passion for indie games. So, I am mentally ready to try out Indoorlands I think. This is a concept with high sophistication for such an independent effort. And its bells and whistles are as shiny as the top contenders.
Tilt-A-Whirl
I’d say I’ve probably been to amusement parks about twenty or so times if you count waterparks too. It always amazes me when I meet somebody who has never been to one. Perhaps one reason for this is I grew up in an area where there is basically nothing to do outside your imagination. At least for local landmarks. When we drove two to three hours to go somewhere fun, it really meant something, because who knows if it will ever happen again.
And it’s true too. It lives in legend, at least currently. I don’t totally know what a visit to such a place these days would do for my equilibrium! It’d certainly be different. For a variety of reasons. One of the reasons happens to be that for some reason in my adulthood I developed a Pavlovian petrification reflex with heights. But back then? Triple loop rides ten times in a row!
Indoorlands provides an interesting approach to the amusement park sim idea that I have not seen before this. The idea that the park is entirely indoors is almost nonchalant, however, pretty critical to how the game works and hence its name. As I play, I’m thinking what is the reason for the indoor aspect. I puzzle through the tutorial and think, hmm, if I put this here it does this, and change this it does that.
I’ll talk a little more about how it works. Before I do that, let me quickly run through a list of features straight from the developer.
List of Features
- Build your own indoor amusement park from scratch.
- The player takes on the tasks of the park manager, the designer as well as the ride operator.
- As a manager, you have to satisfy the guests‘ needs, keep the economy running, expand & maintain the park, and research further buildings, objects, and rides.
- Use research centers to unlock more restaurants, shops, halls, and rides.
- Flat rides take center stage: As a ride operator, you control your rides and record unique ride programs that put a smile on your guests‘ faces.
- All themes and objects are freely combinable, so each hall is unique due to the individual design choices.
- There is no limit to your creativity: 500 decoration objects from various themes
- Blueprint System: Show your creativity & share your hall interior designs and compositions with other players.
- Planning the park’s architecture is a challenging task. Space is limited and maintenance buildings should be built apart from the flow of visitors.
- Different tools like the feedback report, attractivity heatmap, ticket price adjustment, or individual visitor details provide all the information needed.
Indoors and Indoorlands
If you know of theme park sims and know classic games like Will Wright’s Sim City, you’ll probably know some of the basic mechanics of Indoorlands. Each area is essentially a plot of land for rides or attractions. The tutorial starts off with basically an entrance garden, one ride hall, and a parking lot. After you familiarize yourself, you’ll create a new hall and start the process of creating rides. Aside from the necessary structure to house a hall, there are several customization options that compel the player to engage. The advantage of an indoor park is everything is quite literally modifiable. Once you’ve actually made the ride, change the backdrop of the walls, select music, and paint things. I really like this.
There is always more to a game such as this that seems to know how to hook you into it and cause you to become an omnipotent micro-manager for bills and skills. Spending money in the game creates a change in funds, which creates a need to create new things to make more money. The tutorial is pretty forgiving, I suggest opening up the allowed capacity from the beginning because it won’t really hurt anything and you’ll benefit from the cash.
Getting Serious
There are several side attractions to appease the visitors to the park, like restaurants and shops to toilets and paths. An important chunk of the game takes place in the research building as well. You unlock new rides, new shops, and theme objects. and other utilities. There is an extensive customizing structure here that you could definitely come back to again and again for replay value. Beyond the scope of this showcase, you can really do some neat stuff with Indoorlands it looks like.
So long as you pay attention to the visitor info bubbles, that you’ll get by clicking on random guests, you’ll have a good idea of what is going on. Take time to look through and try the different structures and research trees. Whether you want a well-fed space fortress or a tidy cowboy complex, there’s room to experiment. As usual, I have a video of how my gameplay went below. I include these in all posts, they may help you get an idea of what I’m reviewing, so look for them! Here is the one for this post below.
Looking Forward to Indoorlands
Indie games attract people like us because they have those small touches. For the diligent indie gamer, this is a wonderful option for someone who is seeing this genre in the indie category for the first time. I know I looked for an indie tycoon in the past, and they probably do exist, but this is the first one like this I have seen. It is a nice game for a Twitch session (although I’m mostly a lurker there.) It’s a really fun concept too, and I assure you there are going to be some happy responses to your followers if you talk about this game.
Well, that’s it. I’ve managed to stay on track all week. *takes a bow* I hope you enjoy this article and be sure to wishlist the game on Steam at the link below, it really helps the developer.
Thank you so much for reading MrDavePizza.com. Lots to see and lots to cover, so stay tuned, and please have a look around!
