Tagged: Mac

1950s LA Tycoon Management Game, City Block Builder, is Available Now on Steam Early Access 

Create your own slice of Tinseltown heaven!

Tentworks Interactive has release its multi-business management game, City Block Builder, on Steam Early Access and via Xsolla today. Finally, you can construct the Tinseltown empire of their dreams!  

City Block Builder is a mashup of deep tycoon management games with large-scale city building elements. Set in Los Angeles during the 1950s, the game puts you in the shoes of a young, budding entrepreneur who is determined to build their own business empire. Fresh off the victory of WWII, Los Angeles is the pop culture capital of the world. With the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, designer shops, and the finest cuisine money can buy, all under a canopy of clear blue skies, the City of Angels represents the “American Dream” at its most ideal.

City Block Builder – Vlog with Concept Artists

As the owner of several establishments, it’s up to you to make every decision, both large and small, about how your enterprise operates. Choose which tiles, wallpapers, and furniture to decorate with. Set the cuisines and menu items for your restaurant. Hire and fire staff. Nobody said building an empire was going to be easy!

The full version of City Block Builder will allow you to erect all manner of trades from cinema theatres, to bowling alleys, to jazz clubs, to drive-in theaters, parlors and more. This Early Access launch focuses entirely on the restaurant building portion of the game, but new businesses will be added as free updates between now and the full launch. A future update will add cinemas, allowing you to decide what movies to show and when, as well as the Story/Campaign Mode. 

City Block Builder lets you micromanage each business down to every detail, from its layout, to its lighting, to ensuring the entrance makes optimal use of foot traffic in your bustling borough! City Block Builder encourages players to find creative solutions to complex problems. Setting up the L.A.’s entertainment hub has never been so immersive!    

Each detail of City Block Builder is brought to life in glorious detail through hand-drawn art paying homage to the incredible culture of the era. Movies, posters, comic books, and advertisements capture the look and feel of the 1950s with their bold, technicolor palette, dapper outfits, and neat slogans. Even the foliage has been extensively researched to be accurate to the time, changing dynamically with the seasons.

While City Block Builder’s campaign mode will take you from rags to riches as you micro and macro manage each monetary decision, there will also be a Sandbox Mode offering full freedom to create the Los Angeles of your dreams with no expense spared! Every decision you make will set you on a different path giving different players varying outcomes.

“With City Block Builder we aim to make an extremely in-depth empire builder that’s still accessible to anyone with an interest in the golden age of Hollywood,” said Jay Basani, CEO of Tentworks Interactive. “This Early Access launch is only the beginning, as we have so many more businesses coming to the game over the next several months. As an independent game developer based in India, we want to show off our homeland’s talent on a global scale.”

For a more in-depth look at City Block Builder, Tentworks has released a new vlog post showcasing the game’s rich feature set below:  

Add City Block Builder to your Steam Wishlist: 
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1191800/City_Block_Builder/
For more information about City Block Builder visit: https://www.tentworks.io/

About Tentworks Interactive 
Founded in 2018 by Jay Basani in Bangalore, India, Tentworks Interactive is a rag tag crew of passionate developers specializing in tycoon and strategy games, with the goal of making India a serious contender on the world stage of video game development with its high quality titles. Having expanded to opening a second branch in California, Tentworks is working on its most ambitious enterprise yet with the 1950s LA empire-building tycoon game City Block Builder

Paintbucket Games Announces the Arrival of “The Darkest Files”

In this historical investigation game set in the immediate postwar period, players expose the crimes of the Nazi era and ensure justice.

Berlin-based developer studio Paintbucket Games announces the arrival of “The Darkest Files,” the spiritual successor of their award-winning Nazi resistance game “Through the Darkest of Times.” The game is currently under development and is expected to be released in 2023 for PC, Mac, PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo Switch. A demo version will be available to play at this year’s gamescom in the Indie Arena.
 
In “The Darkest Files,” players take on the role of Esther Katz, a young prosecutor living in West Germany in the 1950s. She is part of the team around the Frankfurt Attorney General Fritz Bauer. As Esther, players investigate crimes committed by former Nazi officials, collect evidence, question witnesses and ultimately bring the perpetrators to justice. The game leads players on a gripping, emotional journey through the crimes and dark times of the Nazi era.

“After Through the Darkest of Times, we decided to stay in the realm of history for one of our next games — especially since current events continue to concern us deeply. We decided to move chronologically to the period after World War II, when many former Nazis were still active in high-ranking posiitions all over West Germany,” explains Jörg Friedrich of Paintbucket Games. “Fritz Bauer and his team did immensely important work during this difficult time by pressing charges against numerous criminals and publicly trying them for their crimes. Through their work, they made a lasting impact on how Germans understand the National Socialist period and the Holocaust and helped create the social consensus of: “Never again!” We want to give our players a view into this difficult and fascinating work with The Darkest Files.”
 
Some features of The Darkest Files:

  • Players search investigative files from the Nazi era for clues, and interrogate relatives, witnesses, and suspects to find out the truth.
  • Players draw conclusions, evaluate evidence, and reconstruct the crime in real time.
  • Players interview witnesses and suspects, diving into the statements in immersive-mode to better understand the actions of the perpetrators and uncover any clues and contradictions.
  • Then, players discuss their findings with their team of investigative experts in order to build an air-tight case.
  • Players must determine and press the correct charges and have the criminals arrested.
  • Finally, they need to convince the judiciary to reveal the truth and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Historical Background
With a team of young prosecutors without ties to the old regime, Frankfurt Attorney General Fritz Bauer founded a taskforce to investigate Nazi-era crimes and to prosecute the perpetrators. He became known, among other things, for being instrumental in the search for Adolf Eichmann, one of the central organizers of the Holocaust, and for prosecuting the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials in the 1960s.
“Nothing belongs to the past, everything is still present and can become the future again.” – Fritz Bauer
 
In “Through the Darkest of Times,” the spiritual predecessor of “The Darkest Files,” players lead a small anti-Nazi resistance group in Berlin. The game was nominated for numerous awards, including in the “Game for Impact” category at “The Games Awards,” as well as winning the German
Developer Award 2020 for “Best Indie Game” and “Best Serious Game,” among others.
 
Paintbucket Games will also show The Darkest Files at this year’s gamescom from August 24 – 28. In the Indie Arena in hall 10.2.
 
The Darkest Files can already be wishlisted on Steam here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2058730/The_Darkest_Files/
 
More Information about The Darkest Files is available here https://paintbucket.de/en/game/the-darkest-files