Best Tycoon Games For PC Archives

Not every mobile game has to be about battle and conflict. The best tycoon games allow you to flex your management skills and brain power doing something more constructive.

Tycoon games — which include everything from business simulators to city builders —  let you unleash the mogul within. Found your own mega-corporation, build a town from the ground up, or sail the starry dark of space in search of fortune with the best tycoon games for your iPhone or Android device.

Best tycoon games for Android and iOS

Pocket City

A pint-sized city builder without the pitfalls of free-to-play monetization, Pocket City captures the magic of a proper urban planning game like SimCity, but in a $3.99 mobile-friendly package. 

As mayor of a fledgling town, it's up to you to see to the needs of your citizens, laying down roads, zones, and utilities to attract new residents while keeping an eye on your tax income, spending, traffic congestion, and other variables. It may sound like a handful, but a lot of information is accessible in easy-to-read infographics and charts. With a quick look at your city's needs and problems, you can get waste no time addressing issues that pop up. 

Pocket City includes a progression system that unlocks new buildings and upgrades as you level up your city; there's also a light layer of sidequests and objectives to satisfy as your city keeps growing.

Download Pocket City: Android, iOS

Project Highrise

Construct the skyscraper of your dreams in Project Highrise, a $3.99 building management sim that's made the jump from PC to mobile devices and onto our list of best tycoon games. 

You build, manage and develop your own high rise tower over hours of gameplay that includes adding restaurants, stores, apartments, and offices, all while trying to balance the budget and keep your tenants happy. Players can engage in a variety of story scenarios or play the game in sandbox mode, and the mobile version of the game comes with all of the extra content added into the PC version, such as the Tokyo Towers, Miami Malls, and Las Vegas expansion packs.

Download Project Highrise: Android, iOS

Tropico

It's time to lead the people to prosperity in Tropico, the infamous tongue-in-cheek tycoon game that puts you in command of your own Cold War island paradise. As the island's newly elected ruler, you'll have to balance your economy, tourism, global considerations and local politics, doing whatever it takes to stay in power and assure a bright future for your island nation. 

Featuring a redesigned interface for tablet play, Tropico includes a basic and advanced tutorial to quickly show budding dictators the ropes, while a campaign mode has you achieving objectives and unlocking new islands to play in. You can step into the shoes of historical presidents, revolutionaries and dictators, or even customize your own avatar's traits and unleash them upon the world in an expansive sandbox mode. The $11.99 game also works on phones, though you'll need a newer device with some serious horsepower under the hood to keep up with Tropico.

Download Tropico: Android, iOS

Stardew Valley

For something less intense than deciding the fate of entire nations, check out Stardew Valley, the hit indie farming RPG which has finally made the jump from PC to mobile phones. 

In this $7.99 download, players inherit a run-down old farm, which they can turn into the farm of their dreams. You plant crops, bring in the harvest, and reinvest your profits into expanding your farm and adding livestock. The game is more than just farming, though, with a neighboring community to visit and befriend, fishing spots to explore, and caves full of monsters and resources to check out.

Download Stardew Valley: Android, iOS

Graveyard Keeper

Graveyard Keeper isn’t exactly your everyday tycoon game. Transported to a fantasy world, you find yourself managing a down-on-its luck rural graveyard. Like Stardew Valley but with a morbid sense of humor, Graveyard Keeper has you trying to milk the most profit out of every opportunity, such as selling organs, meat, and blood of the deceased to merchants and less scrupulous types to serve up as sausages for the next festival. 

You’ll explore the surroundings to discover new resources and technologies, so that you can craft new decorations and improvements to slowly spruce up your graveyard and attached church. While the tech trees and crafting can seem bewildering, the $9.99 Graveyard Keeper rewards players willing to explore its macabre world.

Download Graveyard Keeper: Android, iOS

Farming Simulator 20

Stardew Valley isn't the only pick among the best tycoon games to let you try your hand at farming. In the $5.99 Farming Simulator 20, you test your green thumb in a hardcore farming sim that's all about delivering a crunchy but playable mobile farming simulator. 

Players plant and harvest different varieties of crops, manage livestock, and go behind the wheel of a fleet of high end agricultural vehicles from a variety of real-world tractor makers. You can play through the game solo with AI assistants providing backup, but the game also supports local multiplayer through Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

Download Farming Simulator 20: Android, iOS

RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic 

RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic marks the return of the classic theme park management game, combining RollerCoaster Tycoon 1 & 2 into a single $5.99 mobile port that dispenses with the in-app purchase and advertising monetization of the later mobile games. 

As the owner of your own theme park, you’ll take the lead in laying out your park’s signature rollercoaster attractions. You can stick to pre-generated rides, or take the initiative to design your own stomach lurchers. You can also lay out the scenery, amenities, food and drink stores, and transport rides. 

The game includes 95 different scenarios from RollerCoaster Tycoon 1 & 2, and in-app purchases can unlock additional expansions, such as the Wacky Worlds and Time Twister expansions, and the Toolkit which allows you to create and share your own theme park scenarios.

Download RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic: Android, iOS

Star Traders: Frontiers

The Trese Brothers return to the far future with Star Traders: Frontiers, a rollicking interstellar adventure that's also one of the best tycoon games in the vein of classics like Elite and Privateer. 

As inheritor of a Star Trader charter, it’s up to you to decide what you’ll do with your ancestral vessel, as you navigate through a perilous sector of space. Will you go after dangerous bounties, explore alien worlds, haul valuable cargo, or dabble in the politics of the sector’s rival factions? 

While the original Star Traders RPG was pretty low on the audio and visual frills, the $4.99 Frontiers is a vast improvement, with customizable ships, captains and crew members that you can take into battle or into the nearest trading port.

Download Star Traders: Frontiers: Android, iOS

Prison Architect

Design, build and manage your own high-security lockup in the free mobile version of Prison Architect. Players take charge of everything from laying down the cell blocks to managing the staff and keeping the place from rioting. You'll need to balance the happiness and needs of the staff and your prisoners, while at the same time keeping an eye out for security risks — all while trying to keep your fledgling operation within the budget. 

The game takes the freemium approach on mobile, with players given the basics of the campaign; more story chapters and game features become available through in-app purchases.

Download Prison Architect: Android, iOS

Concrete Jungle

For a slightly more abstract take on the best tycoon games, check out Concrete Jungle, which uses tile-laying and deckbuilding mechanics to mimic the challenges of urban planning. 

Players must balance housing, economy, and expenditures to develop their city. Houses and apartments score points, while factories and economic buildings can affect the score of adjacent tiles. As your economy grows, you can unlock advanced cards with powerful abilities, but as you use more and more expensive tiles, the minimum score requirement for each row of buildings increases. 

The $4.99 game comes with a fully-voiced single-player mode, custom games and even a competitive mode where opposing planners try to score points while interfering with the other player's plans.

Download Concrete Jungle: Android, iOS

Steam: Rails to Riches

Another excellent board game port that's also evocative of the business management theme, the $4.99 Steam: Rails to Riches challenges players to become the richest railroad baron ever by connecting routes and moving goods while at the same time edging out your competitors. 

Each turn, players take out loans to fund their operations, bid for turn order, and build tracks, develop towns, and set up shipments, while carefully dividing income between investing for future improvements and collecting victory points for the endgame. The app features different levels of AI difficulty, as well as support for pass-and-play local multiplayer gaming. 

Download Steam: Rails to Riches: Android, iOS

Big Chief

The $2.99 Big Chief almost seems like a parody of the best tycoon games, taking a light approaching to sending up corporate culture. The game combines the Tinder-like swipe gameplay pioneered by Reigns but with a Muppets-esque cartoon aesthetic. 

Each turn, one of your employees shows up with a brilliant idea (that might also be stupid, illegal, or possibly just boring). Swipe right to accept, or swipe left to fire, and then you'll see how your decisions affect your relations with the public, your employees and shareholders. It's simple fun that's good for a few laughs.

Download Big Chief: Android, iOS

Game Dev Story

Just as it says in the title, Game Dev Story gives players the opportunity to craft their own story as a game developer. Granted, the "story" basically involves assigning staff members to craft a video game with stats driving the results. But it's still fairly addictive, especially if you possess some knowledge of the video game industry and its history. 

This inside baseball element gives the game a lot of appeal, but what keeps you playing Game Dev Story is that eager anticipation of results: waiting to see what your staff puts out and the fulfillment of critical praise (or the disappointment of a critical drubbing).

The Android version costs $2.49, while iOS players will have to pony up $4.99.

Download Game Dev Story: Android, iOS

Transport Tycoon

Even with the addition of a modern touch UI, this is not exactly the most attractive game on our list of best tycoon games. However, if you give it a fair shake, the $6.99 Transport Tycoon will consume whole afternoons. 

With a business loan you need to pay soon, you'll start buying vehicles and setting up the infrastructure on your journey to become the emperor of land, sea and air travel. Each level is a scenario with its own transportation problems to solve, but also act as open sandboxes to indulge in. If you love the freedom to experiment and have an obsession with details, Transport Tycoon is for you.

Download Transport Tycoon: Android, iOS

Fiz: Brewery Management Game

Beer aficionados will work up a mighty thirst with Fiz: Brewery Management Game. As head of your own micro-brewery in this $1.99 download, you start out with a tiny operation selling small batches to local stores. As you grow in experience and develop new brewing recipes, you can make a name for yourself in brewing competitions, discover larger markets and improve your facilities and staff. 

Behind the cute pixelated exterior and the monotonous chiptune is a decent stat engine in Fiz that allows you to fiddle with the quality of your beer, track sales figures and feedback and run market research in your quest to become a powerhouse brewery.

Download Fiz: Brewery Management Game: Android, iOS

Golf Club Manager

Take control of the finances of a struggling golf club and turn it around into a championship-worthy course in the $1.99 Golf Club Manager. You'll need to carefully marshal your tiny earnings at the beginning, which requires some strategic thinking when it comes to upgrading your club facilities, spending on advertising and amenities, and building up the reputation of your 18-hole course. 

While the graphics in Golf Club Manager are pretty basic, there's a good amount of crunch to work through here that should provide an interesting experience for business sim game aficionados and golf fans with a strategic bent.

Download Golf Club Manager: Android, iOS

Football Manager 2020 Mobile

Stat junkies will get a blast out of Football Manager 2020 Mobile, the latest in Sega's long-running soccer sim series. You're in the manager's seat of your own club, making the big choices when it comes to hiring, training, and trading your star players while setting up the perfect lineup and tactics for each match. 

You can choose from 60 different leagues across 21 different football powerhouse nations, including the debut of Danish and Greek leagues in the franchise. You'll need more than soccer know-how to triumph, as you also must manage training, trading, and strategy on and off the pitch while keeping fans, players and owners happy and your club's bottom line in the black.

This $8.99 version is built for smartphones, but the more expensive Football Manager Touch is ideal for tablets.

Download Football Manager 2020: Android, iOS

Motosport Manager 3 

OpenTTD requires a separate base graphics set to run, which can be downloaded through the installer (Windows) or on first run (Windows, Linux). In case you want to manually download and install it, some options are:

• OpenGFX (graphics)
• The Transport Tycoon Deluxe data files can be used as base graphics set. You must own a version of Transport Tycoon Deluxe; they cannot be downloaded.

Sound and music sets are recommended (but not necessary). OpenSFX (sound), and OpenMSX (music) can be installed via the installer or - if you own the CD - also the Transport Tycoon Deluxe sound and music.

Additional graphics, sound, and music sets can be downloaded via the ingame content download manager.

Please refer to the readme for more information.

For all binaries officially released by us we publish the MD5, SHA1, and SHA256 checksums. You can use these checksums to check whether the file you downloaded has been modified. All three checksums should match the file you downloaded; if this is not the case it means that either the file didn't come from us or that it got broken during transport. Either way it might possibly contain dangerous modifications and the file should therefore not be trusted!

Also For
Amiga, Linux, Macintosh, Windows
Developed by
Cybernetic Corporation
Published by
MicroProse Software, Inc.
Released
1994

Pacing
Real-Time
Perspective
Top-down
Narrative
Comedy, Crime
Genre
Simulation, Strategy/Tactics
Interface
Point and Select
Gameplay
City Building / Construction Simulation, Managerial / Business Simulation

Description

Pizza Tycoon is a strategy game where you are an aspiring pizza chef, who wants to start the best pizza chain in the world. You begin by choosing a character you want to be (they differ in appearance and abilities, but the most important factor is the amount of money they have at the start).

Then you choose one of the cities in the USA or Europe, where you will rent the building that will become your first pizza restaurant. Before you open it, however, you have to buy furniture, decor and floors (there's a huge choice); hire some cooks and waiters; add some pizzas to your menu, and buy ingredients (you can buy at various shops, which offer various quality of the ingredients). Once this is all ready, you can open your first restaurant and then advertise it via fliers, billboards, newspaper or TV ads.

Creating your own pizzas, either to include into your menu or to take part in pizza-making competitions, is an important part of the game. You begin with an empty dough, and you're free to add a lot of various vegetables, meat, fruits or herb onto it. Remember that various people like various ingredients - if your restaurant is in a district populated mostly by kids, you can expect that a pizza made of sweet things will be popular. Also, specific ingredients rise and fall in popularity; if the newspaper announces that pineapples are bad for health, then sales of your Pineapple Pizza might plummet!

But while earning money as a honest citizen can be fun, it's even more exciting to get involved with the Underworld and buy weapons to devastate your competitor's restaurant, or do missions for the Mafia (which usually involve picking up something at a specific place at a specific time, and bringing it somewhere else at a different time). But beware, as this can bring you problems, either from the law or from the Mafia itself.

From Mobygames.com. Original Entry