Hi,
I believe something that will be very important will be feedback within the game.
Players need to know how well they are doing. Are the wait times at security too long? Have the new shops settled the demand for commerce? etc. Prison Architect (sorry to bring in this heavily used example) handles this quite well for prisoners through a ‘needs’ report. However, airports work very differently to prisons, and the scale and demands are much, much bigger. I believe feedback should be more direct and visible to the player.
I believe a better example to look at are city management games. Simcity 3000 in particular captured the grittiness of urban development while staying full of character. Two things I’d like ACEO to take inspiration from it would be:
The advisers:
And the news ticker at the bottom here:
There could be an adviser or head manager for each area of Airport management to help break down the magnitude this feat will be to new players. So transport, check in & baggage, security, commerce, ATC, waste & cleaning etc. should all be headed by a character who will suggest things depending on the airport and flier needs at the time.
The news ticker could function for two things. 1. to let players know of the thoughts of fliers “There are not enough bathrooms” 2. To alert the player of events taking place in the airport and perhaps even in the world which will affect them “Mt Etna has erupted. All flights to Italy are suspended”.
I’m going to leave this for now. I want to say ACEO is just the game I have been wanting for a long time so it’s great to see it! Hope my post resonates with some.
