Rise of Industry

Looks great, runs fine. Feels incredibly clunky with a real lack of depth. There are some really interesting features in there - a dynamic region economy and towns responding to how you build/expand - but the actual gameplay just isn't there. You are given a dynamic economy, but then the 'tech tree' specialisation system pigeonholes you into a single type of industry, leaving you unable to actually respond to the economy until much later. I hope this game gets good, but it needs much more polish before it is ready for prime time.

The game looks great and starting a new game feels grand. Setting up first, most basic, 3 building, chain ruins everything. Every single aspect is so clunky, requiring clicking through so many little menus, scrolling through resources list, clicking tiny pluses and minuses, Building roads is painful. Nothing is automated, you have to micromanage the most minute details (in clunky menus). And even clicking sucks, with eaten prompts and seeming delay between menu coming up and buttons in it "activating". There is some solid economy backobone in this game, multiple chains and resources, loads of logistics. But even thinking about building a sprawling, well ticking empire in this game is painful. And at this point in development I'm not sure if bringing the UI to reasonable level is even possible.

As other reviewers already stated, gameplay is thin and it is all buried in way too many menus, making it seem way more complex than it really is. It is just frustrating to play. I had higher hopes for this but it is still alpha and it might still turn into something great. The base of a good game is there (good music, nice graphics, controls well) it just needs more work and more meat on the bones. Considering Openttd is free, this game got an uphill battle to fight. Perhaps I see you again rise of industry, sometime in the future. I am keeping an eye on you.

Square cities, simplified transportation, bland map generation, automatic manufactoring, stable market demand, monocromatic grass, pointy trees, everything is over simplified. Playing the game sums up in deciding where you put down your buildings, which is near the automated collecting building, that automatically sends them to the closer shop for a fixed price, or automatically sends them to the next factory, then automatically collects them and automatically sells them. Meanwhile you wait for the money to come (slowly) in to build more automatical things. One kind of truck, one kind of train, one kind of anything. The research tree is used to slow down your progression as there is little to discover as regards manufacturing. People who compare this game to OpenTTD haven't played it. OpenTTD has a slew of different transportation means. Power, speed, consumption change and must be taken into consideration when you buy your next truck or train. Train need to be formed and organised. Rise of Industry has only ONE type of each transportation means, no need to take into account consumption or ageing, no need to replace them after a while. A shallow management game that can be a decent time waster because you don't need to think at all while playing.