My Secret Nerdy Passion For Transport Tycoon (and my thoughts on the future of gaming)

My addiction started when I was 8. We went into the PC World in Canterbury and sitting there on the discounted games shelf was a CD-Rom of Transport Tycoon Deluxe. I had some pocket money and decided that I liked the look of this.

It took me many months to fathom it. There were not any real instructions, and this was in the days before ADSL when we only had a 56k modem... and anyway, the internet wasn't really a thing then.

I would try and work it out. Building little roads and railways. I'd click every button and try and figure out what to do. It was incredibly frustrating because I loved the simple graphics, I loved this little world. There were the candy towns, the desert towns, then the green-ordinary-world towns.

Then I had a sleepover at my friend Ben's house. His room was in an attic in this house in Nottingham somewhere, he'd moved away. We clicked on the Ship depot. We discoverd how to buy a boat. Then we managed to somehow open the order panel, send it from an oil platform to an oil refinery on the land.

And then we pressed go...

We were so pleased when that ship arrived! There have been few moments of excitement like that in my life. You know a sudden eureka moment where everything EVERYTHING seems possible. Suddenly the exciting world that you've been grappling with and fascinated with, and persistent with for weeks and weeks - has suddenly opened it doors to you. It was like walking into the back of a wardrobe and finding Narnia.

From then we started making trains, buses, planes. Everything. We didn't totally understand it but we were enthralled by it. We forgot to eat, sleep, everything. I threw a tantrum when my parents arrived to pick me up. But I was very happy... and dying to go on a computer as soon as I got back.

The playability of old games
The original Transport Tycoon game was made in 1994 by Microprose games. The "Deluxe" version was made in 1995. These games are so incredibly amazing. There was a focus on gameplay, playability, the dynamics and interactions that reward building systems, adventures, and trying things. It's similar to SimCity 2000 (and its successors), Alpha Centauri, Lego Rock Raiders and Monkey Island.

Whereas modern games emphasise graphics and make endless sequels of rubbish games (why do they need to make a new FIFA football game every year!). These old games had to earn their keep from an outstanding storyline or game dynamics. You had all strategies you could try. You could play LAN games - I played with my Dad and brother. You could build your own little empire.

The amount of power and imagination and wonder that I had before I was 12 was amazing with these games. Real life was boring compared to being mayor, or logistics director.

It's still going

Transport Tycoon Deluxe had such a massive fan base, they developed a Open Source version of it called OpenTTD where you can download it for free. The online multiplayer version still has legions of fans. Many servers are full in the evenings. That's extraordinary for a PC game - 22 years after it was made.

The future of games
The problem with these old games, is that they were so playable - it probably put the developers out of business. If your game can supply 1000 hours of playability - why would someone buy the next game? It's sad that there is so little innovation with new games. And they're kind of "throwaway titles" which give you a few hours of fun, but that's it.

Similarly, the kind of Facebook Farmville-type games really lack depth in my opinion. They're like the fast-food of video games. Compulsive but ultimately lacking nutrition. @neil-haran, who recently joined Steemit used to work for Zynga talks about a "compulsion loop" they built into games. I think that's OK, as long as there's some development, or new strategies, or player learning going on. Addiction for the sake of attention-and-money-hogging leads to an inevitable emptiness for a player, I think.

The future of gaming, I think, needs to draw on the best elements of games released during the 90s and early 2000s. Deep (sometimes satirical) storylines, great playability, interesting dynamics, all kinds of different strategies you can use and probably charge on a "pay-as-you-use basis" e.g. $0.50 per hour. That way developers and studios have the incentives to creative immersive game experiences that are better than real life.

Anyway, let me know if there were other games you loved in the comments, and why. And let me know if you want to do a multiplayer TTD game sometime