Hands-on with Tropico

While attending a press event held by the Gathering of Developers in San Francisco yesterday, one of the games we saw was Tropico, a strategy game currently in development at PopTop, the developer of the popular Railroad Tycoon series. Tropico is a city builder that puts you in control of a Caribbean island mired in political instability, poverty, and military coups. As the island's new leader, you decide how to run your new nation. Whether you're a benevolent ruler who looks out for the well-being of the citizenry or a heavy-handed dictator who cares for little beyond personal wealth is completely up to you.

A Tropico designer demonstrated a quick game for us. Upon starting a new single-player scenario, you're prompted with a character selection screen that allows you to choose your dictator's background and appearance, as well as select from certain outstanding qualities (like being well educated) and flaws (like flatulence) that actually have an affect on how your advisors deal with you. There are two primary ways to affect the island and its citizens. The first is through Tropico's city-building component. Depending on the size of the island, you automatically start off with a set number of farms, a teamster office, docks, a palace, and a construction office. From there, you can choose to construct any number of buildings from a list of more than 70 different types. Each building affects the attributes of your population in a different manner. For instance, a church will raise your citizens' spiritual attribute, while run-down huts will lower their morale. It's important to note that the physical placement of these buildings plays a very important role in the effect they have on the population. A hospital built on the remote end of the island won't benefit anyone.

The other manner in which you interact with the citizens is by passing edicts. You can do so both internally - by raising taxes, for example - or externally, by adopting an aggressive or passive stance to neighboring Cuba and America. If you sway too closely to either country, the other will send gunboats to pummel your shore.

In all, Tropico has made some significant progress since its last public appearance at E3. We'll have some new screenshots from the game sometime next week, but in the meantime, be sure to read our Tropico Designer Diaries, which were written by one of the game's designers, Franz Felsl.