YPSH : We're chatting today with Ben Lewis of Hellfire Games. Thanks for speaking with us today Ben! Hellfire : My pleasure! YPSH : We are all familiar with the game space, Novus Prime, produced by Hellfire Games for PlayStation Home. Now, Hellfire is about to introduce its next big project for PS Home, Home Tycoon. On the surface, it seems like a game we all know, The Sims. Is this a correct assumption? Tell us all about the main concept of Home Tycoon. Hellfire : Home Tycoon is closer to a mash-up of a few different genres: city-building simulation, third-person action, and multiplayer driving. Its closest relative may be SimCity for the city-building aspect, though the similarities (pun intended) end there. YPSH : How long has Hellfire been working on this project and what inspired it to make Home Tycoon? Hellfire : It’s been in the works for a fairly long time with a very small team. After releasing Novus Prime and PlayStation®Home Hold’em, we wanted to shift our focus to a community-driven game featuring a single-player story as well as a multiplayer sandbox environment. One of our goals was to push PlayStation Home to its limits, and we think we’ve done a pretty good job at that with Home Tycoon. YPSH : Are there any social aspects to Home Tycoon? Can we share our cities with others? Hellfire : You’ll be able to share your city with the world via the City Navigator in the Home Tycoon Train Station. From there, you can visit your friends in their own cities, check out what’s hot on the leaderboards (Popular Cities, Biggest Cities, etc.) and hang out with friends in the Train Station hub. YPSH : I assume we have to manage our city budget as well? Hellfire : You’ll need to balance residential buildings with commercial enterprises to make sure you’ve got enough people and enough money coming in to drive your city’s growth rates. Other factors come into play, as well. For example, too much pollution can cause a decrease in happiness and slow your population growth. It’s up to you to find the right balance for your ideal city! YPSH : Let's talk a little about the driving part of Home Tycoon. Back at E3 you mentioned a "Stunt Pack". What's that all about? Hellfire : We expect the Stunt Pack to become one of our most popular expansions once people get their hands on it and start experimenting. For one low price, you’ll unlock the Test Drive activity along with several stunt ramps and loops to place in your city for custom racetrack creation, as well as a Turbo Boost for all of the cars you own, plus some fun avatar items geared toward racing enthusiasts. YPSH : So we can race each other in Home Tycoon as well? Hellfire : Yep! With the Life in the Fast Lane expansion, you can unlock Start and Finish road tiles for your city to create custom race paths in your city for you and your friends. Combined with the Stunt Pack, you can come up with some pretty cool alternate paths for your fellow drivers. YPSH : Does the game have other special features like day/night controls, etc.? Hellfire : Your city has its own day and night cycles, and you can also pause time if you want perpetual midnight or eternal sunshine in your personal metropolis. YPSH : Will there be other "packs" added after Home Tycoon's initial release? Hellfire : We’ve got plenty more content planned after the October 3 release, ranging from new game-enhancing virtual items to full-blown expansion packs. We should have something new for our fans nearly every week following launch for a good while. YPSH : What kinds of virtual rewards can we expect? Hellfire : I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but you can spot some of them in the announcement trailer if you look closely... YPSH : Will there be additional virtual items for sale that we can use in and out of the game? Hellfire : At launch, we’ll have wearable virtual items and furniture items for sale outside of the game that will improve your Home Tycoon experience as an added bonus, with plenty more to come. YPSH : How many buildings can we make before we run out of room? Hellfire : That depends on which buildings you create. The smallest buildings take up a 1x1 tile on the grid, and others can take up much more room. You’ll have plenty of room to work with, and you can always expand to a new suburb if you need more space. YPSH : There are "missions" in the game. What kind of "missions" and how do they help us? Hellfire : You’ll meet new characters and participate in a variety of missions and activities throughout the game, from driving sick citizens to the hospital in a souped-up ambulance, to taking out criminals in your police cruiser, plus much weirder stuff in the later mission packs! By completing these missions, you’ll unlock new rewards and vehicles, progress through the story, and open up new buildings for your city. YPSH : Will there be a personal space released with a Home Tycoon theme and how would it be tied into the game? Hellfire : We have no plans for a Home Tycoon personal space at the moment -- think of your own custom city as one big personal space that everyone can enjoy! YPSH : It really sounds cool, Ben. I know a lot of us have been anxiously awaiting its arrival. Congratulations to you and Hellfire for getting this project published. Looking forward to diving right in on day one of release! Hellfire : Thanks! We can’t wait to see the community feedback once the game launches. See you in Home Tycoon!
Since its reveal at the E3 booth, I have been looking forward to this game as it looked fun and a completely new/different experience on home.
When the hospital catches fire the ends of it cant be reached with the water cannon, as far as i can tell. Once you get to building the stock investment building the game seemingly goes dead playing for free. If its a forced to buy stuff to continue playing much, its another version of no mans land or blueprint to me. Its a home game, not worth 50 dollar token packs. No home game ever will be. I can play sim city and numerous other games on pc cheaper and do more quicker. Total cost to buy everything needed to play should be 10 to 20 at most, and even that is pushing it for any Home games, and it has to be able to be played reasonably for free. The game has potential, but the gouging will limit its success, and impacts other developers and Home in the process. Time for workers to be available is too long, and having to buy workers, to play is part of the gouging built in. Frustrating intentionally to force spending to play is poor marketing at its finest. Some people do have more money than sense or pretend they have it. But, the majority of home users arent in that category. Outrageous prices and pay to play is limiting your potential income every time any developer plays this marketing gouging nickle and diming inept freemium marketing ploys, and souring even more people to not spending on anything.
Is there a way to turn off the constant buy this or buy that? Use last worker they want to sell you some. Takes 9 minutes for one to be available and they count out one at a time, and don't count at all when you are not on the space. Have to be on the space 4.5 hrs not using any to get all 30 back to available to use status. 27 of mine have been not doing anything for hours, why would i possibly buy more, to feed into that availability gap. Pick up briefcases, 3 to 30 dollars or so, or discount sales pitches. Pop ups of buy this, you need to buy that. Newspaper wants to sell you a car. They forgot billboards and posters, and signs on all the drunk drivers in cars running around. I might like the possibilities the game has, if it were playable without a hand or 10 reaching for the virtual wallet constantly. The bottle neck hits quicker second and third time in. Wouldn't even call what is playable a demo of it, to know if i want to spend money in it.
Not regional friendly, with regards to visiting friends citys, as Ben said"share your city with the world via the City Navigator in the Home Tycoon Train Station"! If you have a full friends list, you will find that travel at the station takes for ever to load, if at all! This is not the case on a fresh acc'. Once you do purchase any coins or pac, thats when the game gets realy buggy. You are then constantly bombarded with reminders on what new purchases will do to improve your game (wich i found to be an unpleasent in-your-FACE Fugly marketing!) "some issues with cost" NOT EVEN going THERE!! Come on this is Beta! Could purchase a Full New Release game off the shelves cheaper. I noted that an option for using your cash earned to use as purchase for in game coins is Not an option in all regions?? and a 10 minute wait..... WELL! a LONG wait to get one worker is realy a 15min wait in vertual as timer is way off!! After such a BiG Hipe-Up over the last months! And Yes the Game has some awsome & impresive feachers crambed in! CramedInn is Realy what the Game aut' to be called! And No joke "One of our goals was to push PlayStation Home to its limits, and we think we’ve done a pretty good job at that with Home Tycoon" Certainly did that! You have us freezing/ getting booted off line & many attempts later as we enter or startplay ( a big worry with many new games in PSHome these days) iether arrive to Big pailBlue of nothingness with fluffy white clouds or fall out of the game compleatly to the neverending Fall Pit!
i bought the nuclear expansion pack and the zoo pack and i completed both of them and i never recieved the rewards!!!!!!:sadcrab: i need help (
It might be worth sending Hellfire games an email, info@hellfiregames.com with your PSN ID, region and details of the problem. They might be able to correct the issue for you.
we can take pics of home tycoon by postcard system but it does not work well now .we can also take pics by exit from game on the road, but some noticing icons and "wave for back " are left on the screen. I found the way to take pics without any annoying noticings. look, these photos. home tycoon photos | YourPSHome.net - Your PlayStation Home Community
Home Tycoon Good news, everyone! We've fixed the issue where two users were able to share the same city. If you're currently in your city, exit and re-enter it and you should be good to go.
i found out what my problem i already have every reward. i am never buying the add-ons i have no money. i guess i am never playing this game again
