sea vessels?
Please don't get me wrong: I love AirlineSim - and I spend way too much time playing around here. But I want to spend more time playing. :)
So, I am looking for a cargo / passenger ship simulation game where I can run my company shipping goods over the seven seas. Is there any such game?
Like airlinesim im not sure about. But there is a container ship game called shipping manager on facebook its like airline manager if you ever played that on facebook. Not sure if this helps you in what your looking for.
Like airlinesim im not sure about. But there is a container ship game called shipping manager on facebook its like airline manager if you ever played that on facebook. Not sure if this helps you in what your looking for.
I play it, but it isn’t NEARLY as fun or comprehensive as AS. I’d go so far as to say that it’s one of those freemium games where the objective is to get the user to spend money for credits. I log in exactly once a day, for the daily gift of credits, because I sure as heck refuse to buy any. My daily process is: log in; refuel & dispatch any ships that are sitting around in a port; give my staff a raise, because they earn $6000/day each, but giving more money is the only way to keep them productive and motivated, unless you spend 750 credits to reset their salaries and boost productivity to 100%; purchase more fuel if I need it, but can’t stock up too much, because the 8000ton fuel storage limit can only be expanded by spending credits.
If you’re looking for a cargo type game, how about opening up a cargo airline within AS?
Your right its not as fun as AS nor did i try to compare the two. and i also tried it, played it (shipping manager) for about a week and gave it up. But the OP was asking about Sea vessel games and that was the only one i could recall.
German classic http://store.steampowered.com/app/33570/ .
You`re the owner of a medieval shipping company and have to trade across the baltic sea.
100% offline - not completly free but 1,25 € is less then half a month of airlinesim :)
Trans Ocean the shipping company game
Trans Ocean the shipping company game
Interesting looking screenshots. Never heard of it before.
I loved to play Ports of Call back 25 years ago and a bit later played “Der Reeder”.
How does this game compare to these two old school sims?
@timmn2002: I gave up Facebook back in 2010, so that's not an option - but it's interesting info. Thanks!
@eky & RoyRoy: Thanks a lot for the ideas. Both games look promising - although not really AirlineSim-like. Now, all I hope for is a rainy summer - so that I can play without guilt :)
I'd make a "ShippingSim" version of AS if it weren't for the fact that I kind of swore to myself that I'll never make a (multiplayer) transport simulation again ;)
Some years ago, while working on a container vessel, I developed a board game with this subject. First it was very simple and only pastime for us, but it evolved to a respectable, but of course turn-based simulation. Maybe I should reactivate it and we meet somewhere to play a round or two? Anyone? ;)
@helios: That sounds very interesting! If you reactivate that game, count me in.
A ship version of AS would be AMAZING
@helios: A board game version seems to nicely circumvent the issues I see with multiplayer transport simulations like AirlineSim. Since a board game is typically limited to a very short, rather fixed amount of time, problems like the tendency to monopolies and absolute competition can't become the long-term issue they are with persistent game worlds like in AS. Although I still see it as a game design challenge to build a game that doesn't feel and work like Monopoly, in that the luckiest early mover amasses all the wealth, rendering the rest of the game a "last man standing" kind of affair that isn't all that enjoyable to the losing players.
Anyhow, if anyone would force me to make another online transport sim again, I'd probably take as much inspiration from board games as possible and make the "game worlds" time limited. And maybe even spontaneous, private games for relatively small groups of players. Should fix a lot of issues :)
@Martin well if thats the case i would like to take this moment and force you into making one (as long as it wouldn’t take to much time away from AS) as you and the others have made a great airline game i personally think if you made a ship version it would be just as good
@martin: It was never my intention to compare an even sophisticated board game with a multiplayer online simulation game, and especially not my shipping company game with airlinesim. Although "very short time" is a loose concept if you are living together in a small group for several months with only a small number of recreational activities available, your are absolutly right about the playing time. And even with enough time it just does not make any fun after a while. It is the whole concept of board games, the need to control every action and every movement by hand, that gives a very strict limit to competition, monopolies, and so on.
Time limited game worlds, or predefined object sounds like a good concept, not only to limit the amount of work to get the balance, but also to bring more fun into the game for a larger group of players.
I wonder if there is a train game similar to this. It could be quite fun where you decide how many carriage of firstclass you may have, routes you take, whether it is direct or multi stop.
E.g Euston to Glasgow - do i go for the more premium, quicker direct option- can charge more… Or go for one that stops in brimingham, manchester, carlisle along the way. Slower, cheaper but goves you access to passengers at 3 other cities also.
This would be an unbelievable game
I'd be equally interested in making a simulation game about railways. But I doubt it would work the way AirlineSim does in that there are game worlds with hundreds of players. Traditionally, the amount of actors in the rail world is even lower than in aviation, so a world with too many players would immediately feel "crowded". An approach like the one mentioned above - having ad-hoc game worlds players open to play with a small group - might help to circumvent this issue, though.
i do think a shipping version of AS would work with relative similarities. It could be based around the similar hub concept of AS which what happens in real life (Hamburg, Rotterdam tend to be major transhipment ports where the big ships arrive in around the world and then feeders operate from there to smaller ports.
You have several options for train games:
Mobile: http://www.trainstationgame.com/
Browser Multiplayer: http://www.rail-nation.com/
Standalone: http://www.train-fever.com/
the last one is coming along quite nicely.