u/TheDrWeizak

I'm currently designing a management/tycoon game as a personal project, and I'm trying to challenge the core concept before I get too attached to the design.

The basic premise is that you start small as a property owner and gradually grow into managing a much larger residential property business.

The part I'm most interested in exploring is the relationship between the business/management side and the people living in the properties.

Instead of tenants simply being an occupancy percentage or a source of monthly income, I'd like them to exist as lightweight simulated households. The player would have to think about who is living in their properties and how their management decisions affect them.

At the same time, I don't want this to become a life simulator or a game where you're constantly micromanaging individual people. The player is still fundamentally managing a property business.

The design goal is for decisions that look good financially in the short term to sometimes create problems elsewhere, while investments that make residents happier aren't necessarily always the optimal financial choice. Ideally, this creates interesting trade-offs rather than an obvious "correct" way to play.

I'm deliberately keeping some of the deeper mechanics private for now because the project is still early, but I'd really like opinions on the design direction itself.

My main question for experienced designers is:

Do you think simulated tenant households can create meaningful decisions in a management/tycoon game, or does this sound like a system that could easily turn into unnecessary micromanagement?

And if you were evaluating this concept early in development, what would be the biggest design risk you'd want to prototype/test first?

I'm currently designing a management/tycoon game as a personal project, and I'm trying to challenge the core concept before I get too attached to the design.

The basic premise is that you start small as a property owner and gradually grow into managing a much larger residential property business.

The part I'm most interested in exploring is the relationship between the business/management side and the people living in the properties.

Instead of tenants simply being an occupancy percentage or a source of monthly income, I'd like them to exist as lightweight simulated households. The player would have to think about who is living in their properties and how their management decisions affect them.

At the same time, I don't want this to become a life simulator or a game where you're constantly micromanaging individual people. The player is still fundamentally managing a property business.

The design goal is for decisions that look good financially in the short term to sometimes create problems elsewhere, while investments that make residents happier aren't necessarily always the optimal financial choice. Ideally, this creates interesting trade-offs rather than an obvious "correct" way to play.

I'm deliberately keeping some of the deeper mechanics private for now because the project is still early, but I'd really like opinions on the design direction itself.

My main question for experienced designers is:

Do you think simulated tenant households can create meaningful decisions in a management/tycoon game, or does this sound like a system that could easily turn into unnecessary micromanagement?

And if you were evaluating this concept early in development, what would be the biggest design risk you'd want to prototype/test first?

I'm designing a management/tycoon game where you start with a small residential property and gradually grow into a large property business.

One of the central ideas is that tenants aren't just an occupancy number — they're simulated households. They have different needs and circumstances, and your decisions around rent, maintenance, property quality, facilities, etc. affect their satisfaction while also affecting the economics of the property.

The idea is to create situations where the financially optimal decision isn't necessarily the best decision long-term, and where improving one part of a property can create consequences somewhere else.

I'm still at the design stage and I'm trying to challenge the concept before going much further.

Can a landlord/tenant simulation create a strong enough management fantasy for a tycoon game?