Intelligent Game Reviews

You might not have heard of a small developer called Lavamind. If you haven’t, you’ve missed some pretty fun business-oriented games. Now Lavamind is back with the third title in the series: Profitania Deluxe.

Basics of Play

The objective in Profitania Deluxe is to make money, pure and simple. You play the part of the head of one of six companies in Profitania, each bent on dominating trade. The game is played until one of the companies manages to accumulate a pre-determined number of gems, the currency in the game. This level can be set prior to the game and there are also difficulty levels to increase or decrease the competency of the AI opponents.

Each company has a special ability that gives them an advantage in certain areas, whether it be managing money, research, factory maintenance, etc. You can choose to enable these special abilities or not prior to the game.

Your task is to balance several factors in building a successful manufacturing business. First you need to take care of your employees and equipment by providing benefits and doing maintenance. Scrimp on benefits and you may be hit by a crippling strike. Scrimp on maintenance and your factory may break down. You also need to research new products to find those that are most profitable to build. Lastly, you must directly manage the purchase of raw materials and the manufacturing of goods for sale based on those materials.

The interface for doing this is based around a picture of Profitania, each area on the map is a hot spot that can take you to various locations such as your factory or warehouse. Once at a location that is directly related to your business you get a tabular array of information on your goods, raw materials, or what have you and can issue the appropriate commands.

Each turn (representing a week in the game) you must buy raw materials on the open market. How much you can buy is based not only on available funds but also on the storage space you have leased. Periodically you will be offered a lease on larger space, but this will cost more, in general, so you have to balance the storage capacity for goods, your factory’s ability to manufacture, and the size of your warehouse. In each case, you can increase capacity, at a price, based on semi-random events that occur in the game.

In the goods market prices will fluctuate in real time. You see the price of the raw material, it’s average quality, and how much is available. To purchase you just use the mouse, say how much you want, and it drops into storage. Each good you can make uses variable raw materials and requires a unique amount of manufacturing time. Finding a good which is easy to manufacture and has a good profit margin is the key to victory, as it maximizes your profits.

There are also a host of off beat events that can occur that will impact the game. These include lava flows (in your underground city lava is the power source) that damage your warehouse, vandals that damage goods, crime, etc. For these sorts of acts you can purchase insurance, at a price, to avoid the costs associated with the event. You’ll also get other events, invitations to dinner and so on, that can not only net you cash but impact your reputation. The lower your reputation the less willing people are to deal with you.

While this might all seem pretty simple, it is a complex balancing act to make sure your employees are happy, the people in general like you, your factory is well maintained, and you are actually making money faster than the other companies! And that is as it should be, since despite the sometimes goofy, sometimes just plain odd trappings of Profitania Deluxe, it is at heart a moderately complex business simulation.

The simulation has enough depth and variability, you can’t control everything in the real world of course, that it rings true. I liked both this simulation and the various kooky Profitanians that populate the game. And, while this isn’t the most high tech game, in these days of Windows 98, Profitania Deluxe is actually a Windows 3.1 game, the bare bones of what might well be a business school educational tool are enhanced into a game by the multimedia that surrounds them.

Graphics, Sound, etc.

Profitania Deluxe is not a visual feast. The funky 3D graphics are nice, but the whole doesn’t feel integrated or sophisticated in any way. Even so, the visuals get the job done of relating the game information and some of them are pretty amusing. It’s clear the programmers have a pretty good imagination if nothing else!

There is not much music or sound in Profitania Deluxe. The sound effects are a bit on the odd side, befitting the graphics and theme of the game. Music was so rare that it really doesn’t ever intrude on your consciousness in any real way. Because this is a Windows 3.1 game you have to have a Sound Blaster compatible sound card or you won’t get any sound at all.

The manual is a Windows Write document, there was no printed manual. The electronic manual was adequate if not particularly inspired. On the other hand a very solid interactive tutorial teaches you all you need to know about the game and consulting the manual will be rare. A few points of note, I enjoyed the Appendix on how to play games at work. It was humorous in a tongue in cheek sort of way, like much of the game itself.

The Verdict

If you are looking for a humorous but reasonably realistic business/manufacturing simulation then Profitania Deluxe is a good choice. The model behind the funky graphics and odd ball Profitannians teaches a lot about supply and demand as well as how to maximize profits by focusing on the profit margin of a set of goods. For those less interested in this sort of egghead pursuit, there are definitely faster twitching games to be had.

Profitania Deluxe Screenshots

The main menu shows a view of the land of Profitania. It looks nice, but it can be a bit awkward to use.	Deciding what new products to research is just one of the decisions you need to make.
Ah, spreadsheets! Every turn you need to purchase raw materials to manufacture into goods. Profit is the only motive.	Kooky side events can impact the game in sometimes substantial ways.

If you're using the above images on your website, please link back: <a href="http://intelligames.nodblog.com/profitania-deluxe-review/">Profitania Deluxe Review</a> Thank you!