After stumbling upon Freight Tycoon, Inc. at GamersGate, I became immediately intrigued and embarked on a search for more info. Is there a demo? What are the specific elements of gameplay? Is this like Transport Tycoon of old, except just with trucks? Good lord, why won't anyone tell me anything?!? This game has received zero attention from everyone, including its publisher. Counting this very review, there appears to be exactly one review of this game online.
And that's too bad because it's actually a decent game.
As tycoon style games go, Freight Tycoon, Inc. is fairly simple. It has one, and only one, focus: managing a trucking company. You don't build roads. You don't manage ships or airplanes or trains. You don't manage industries. You manage a trucking company. You buy trucks. You hire drivers. You tell them where to go. Those three actions accounts for 95% of your game time. The other five percent might be taken up by deciding which office managers and repair technicians to hire and whether or not to upgrade your office or your garage.
First you buy a truck. Before buying a truck, it's probably wise to examine the local industries. If there are no sawmills, then it would be silly to buy a timber truck. So, first you buy an appropriate truck. Then you open up the staffing screen and select a driver that can drive your truck. The main differentiator between any set of drivers that can drive your truck is their speed bonus and their price. Personally, since wages are minimal in comparison to everything else, I ignore them. I look at their experience. The more experienced they are, the faster they'll drive the truck and the less often it will break down.
Next, you'll want to examine the local industries to see which contracts they're offering. Aside from the obvious "can my truck haul that stuff" question, there are two main things to consider when looking at a contract: profitability and reputation. Taking the most profitable route that your truck can handle is an obvious choice to keep your business in the black, especially early in the game. But, by taking low profit, high reputation contracts, you can earn significant extra favor with your various clients (though any successful contract earns some favor). Eventually you'll earn bronze, silver or gold partner status. These "partnerships" will allow you take on more profitable jobs for the client.
The "can my truck haul that stuff" question is a little bit more complex than you might expect, too. In your early games you'll be limited to starting off with specialized trucks. Big rigs are just too expensive, but once you can afford them, you'll be able to attach to them the specific kinds of trailers you need for a given contract. So start off with a fleet of trucks that can haul between 4 and 12 tons of stuff per trip. Most contracts will have a minimum average speed requirement that most of your trucks will be able to meet. But, sometimes, the bigger trucks won't meet that requirement, and the smaller trucks can't carry enough stuff. The solution? Simple: assign multiple trucks to a contract. While assigning multiple trucks to a contract can be expensive, sometimes the profit is worth it.
To increase to overall effectiveness of your truckers, trucks and contracts, you'll want to hire some office managers. Each type of manager comes with different bonuses. To make sure your trucks are maintained, you'll want to hire some mechanics for your garage. If you can afford it (and if there's more than one on the map you're playing), you'll want to buy extra garages to cut down on repair times. While you can pay to get your truck towed, you'll eventually want to buy your own repair vans and tow trucks, as well.
The game looks pretty nice, too. It came out in the latter half of 2007 (though nobody seems to know when, so I just put in 6/6/07 for the release date which is the date on the manual), so it's got a fairly modern 3D engine which recognized my video card's ability to crank out 1650x1080. The interface is slick and responsive and the tutorial does a decent job of introducing you its key elements. The manual goes into further depth should you need it. One thing you might miss if you don't read the manual is "presents". Scattered around the map, little gift boxes will appear once in a while. Sometimes they have bad things (your stupid employee ran up the phone bill with international calls), sometimes they will have good things such as extra experience for one of your staff members or an exclusive (and very profitable) contract with a specific industry client.
There are about 30 maps and enough scenarios to keep you busy for a while. Some of them will have competitors which will compete for contracts and favor with the various industries. Some have just the one garage, others have more. Unfortunately, there are no custom or random maps. This means that once you've played them all, you'll just have to pick your favorite and play it again. But, just because a map starts out the same every time, doesn't mean that will end up looking the same in the later game. As the industries that you provide freight to become profitable, the surrounding area will develop. Population density will increase. Roads will improve. New roads will be built. New industries will appear. And that little farming village can eventually become a thriving metropolis.
Freight Tycoon, Inc., is a nerdy a little game. It looks nice and is just complex enough to be interesting. The limited focus on just trucks lends to a more casual experience. You can have fun (if this is your kind of thing) for just 20 minutes. And if you come back to your game a day or two later, you're not going to be so overwhelmed by the expanse of your empire that you won't know what to do.
I don't think you'll be getting a boxed version, though. I purchased my digitally distributed copy via GamersGate, a digital distribution site that has a pretty heavy focus on strategy games. I'll have to review them sometime. The only other place that I know you can get it is from Gamesplanet, a UK based digital distribution service.
