Turmoil

Since I am very interested in the topic of oil production and its history, I decided to give the game a go. However, the game is a very simplistic time-management chore, presented by nice graphics, but overall resembling a mobile game. Do not expect any depth or historic realism, just 2-d drilling, flow management and selling to the highest bidder, rinse and repeat over and over, with a few straightforward upgrades tossed in to freshen up the grind a bit.

The mechanics of this 2D oil drilling game are pretty simple. You bid for a patch of land, hire dowsers to find oil, build oil towers and drill until you hit an oil reservoir. Then, you transport the oil from the tower to tanks, or sell it at two factories. The oil price you can sell it for changes over time which results in boring busy work to make sure you don't miss a high price period. After one year, you return to the town, buy upgrades and bid for the next patch of land, or buy shares of the town. New upgrades and game mechanics like rocks and gas reservoirs only slightly change the basic formula, so that in the end the game ends up being pretty repetitive. Still, if you are looking for a relaxing game that you can play without too much thought, you may want to give this a shot. I wouldn't recommend it for the current full 10 EUR price tag, but this is very decent sale material.

Picky gamer here but full disclosure: I have a soft spot for minimalist design, media that has roots in American "Western" era and I like money management. Now having said that, I would say that this game is a decent casual game to pickup and play in short bursts. The game itself is fairly easy and most of the in-game upgrades are not really needed once you get the hang of production so in one way this creates a no stress game. In another way, this game is fairly shallow and a bit boring. Thankfully, the game does offer a feature to speed up the game. Overall I think what made this game fun for me is very subjective and I understand why many people would not like it. I would only really recommend this game to people that are looking for a simple money management game that is quickly finished and does not offer too much in the way of gameplay variety. The bad parts of this game that I don't think anyone could argue with are as follows: the AI is dumb and doesn't pose much of a challenge, the game is very repetitive with very little variety, the game is short and many of the in-game upgrades are not needed. Despite these short comings, I found this game worth my time and money. The game isn't amazing but if you have an interest in money/resource management games and like the "Western" look I would recommend this game. My subjective rating for this game goes as follows: 1 star for the sound and visual design of the game, 1 star for the easy to learn and straight forward controls, 1 star for being a stress-free resource management game.

Old version without multiplayer and other newer features. Fun little game anyway, but don't buy at full price!