Ah, Transport Tycoon Deluxe. This is one of those games that I come back to every year or so and sink a couple dozen hours into, because it's just that good.
TTD is a commerce simulation game where you build and manage your company into whatever size and by whatever way you feel. You can use busses, trucks, trains, airplanes, and boats to transport passengers, mail, retail goods, lumber, coal, oil, and other resources to other companies and local governments that will pay you handsomely for them. What you use is your choice. You could decide to dominate the passenger industry by building complex bus systems and more expensive airports and jets, or maybe you want to be the sole provider of coal and oil to refineries. Everything is up to you, but the competition will try to steal the business first.
A great deal of detail was put into this game. For example, you decide to first focus on passenger transportation on an up and coming city using busses. You get to make the decision of what kind of busses to purchase, where they get repaired when needed, where you put the bus stops, exactly what route the busses take and what stops that actually go to, if they wait for a full load or not, and so many other things. This all sounds kind of mundane at first, but the interface is very easy to learn and it ends up being a lot of fun. As time passes, you can choose to update to faster and more reliable busses, close down unprofitable bus stops, or alter routes to accommodate more passengers and more cities. The game gives you some great financial reports that makes it very easy to pick out what vehicles aren't making money over time so you can choose to either decommission them or change up their route.
Branching out to whatever kind of business venture you want is easy. Setting up a railroad transportation division is exactly the same as the other vehicles, so you don't have to relearn the interface. Obviously, with other vehicles the amount and kinds of goods transported changes greatly, and where you can build you roads and tracks or the distance you can deliver changes. Typically, the greater the distance you deliver something, if you do it in a reasonable amount of time, the greater the amount of money you get, but your profits can be cut short if it takes too long or if your vehicles are inefficient. For example, it's probably not a good idea to try and transport lumber across huge distances by truck, when it would cost much less to move it by train.
Competition can get a little tricky, especially if you're not paying attention to what they're doing. Another company can swoop in while you're not looking at establish routes in areas that you are already in, or maybe in a neighboring town that hasn't been claimed yet so they get the first profits. It can be very difficult, for example, to establish yourself as a passenger airline when it's already dominated by a huge airline company. The computer players are also able to build much faster than you ever can. The government also steps in and offers bonuses on occasion. You will get subsidy offers from the local governments of each town that will pay up to quadruple for a specified period of time for the first company to establish the requested type of transportation routes. This can be a huge boost, especially early on, to get your company upgraded. There is also a multiplayer option where up to 8 people can play at once in a either a sandbox type game with no goal, or a race to a monetary goal.
This was originally a DOS game, but fortunately it's been recreated as an OpenSource game, OpenTTD, which is completely free for download and use. It's been released for years now, and they're still putting out updates! The gameplay, graphics, and controls are exactly the same, but plenty of additional features were added like better, and bigger random maps, the ability to download additional player made AIs and other content, and an internet capable multiplayer mode that I was very surprised to find dozens of active servers and games running. The creators have a thriving forum community and are still putting out regular updates with new content.
OpenTTD can be downloaded HERE
