TheRetroArcade
Veteran
Posts: 11,725
Joined: Feb 2026
Joined: Feb 2026
That's your lot
The streets of Baldtown City are nearly empty of traffic. It's not that it's a ghost town: up and down the pavements there are crowds of citizens bustling to and from work. They pile into subways, queue up at bus stops, and enter and leave the town by a regularly-running intercity metro service. Their city is woven with affordable, clean, public transport. As a representative of big auto, whose one joy in life is bringing people the freedom of car dependency, Baldtown city will have to change.
Car Park Capital is a management game that looks to be straight out of the 90s, born from the same Bullfrog sensibilities that gave us Theme Park and Theme Hospital. Your one goal is to turn the eco-friendly cities before you into petrol-dependent, car-brained, suburbia-living smogfests.
After all, can you imagine a world without cars?
Getting the good people of Baldtown City off their feet and into the plush leather of an automobile faces two initial hurdles: supply and demand. This is a city that has done without cars for decades. No one is asking for them, no one is buying them, and, worst of all, no one is looking for a place to park them. Which leads me to the second issue: there's nowhere in the city to leave your vehicle should you own one.
Starting with the second problem first, I bring up the city heatmap which shows me where there is the most need for a car park. Anywhere there is a bus stop or a subway station, there are distinct circles of cold, like little ice floes where there is no need for private transport. I'll have to deal with those later. However, right next to the main office block in the centre of town there is a small park that sits slightly out of reach of the public transport network. I buy up the plot of land and send in the bulldozers.
Car Park Capital is an interesting mix of management game and city builder. Ostensibly, my remit is just building out the city's parking infrastructure, but rather than do this in partnership with the city, it's all handled privately. You purchase plots of land and then you're free to use them how you wish. I pave over the former park with asphalt, set up an entrance and exit gate, and mark out some parking spaces.
Now there is a space to park (and a way for me to bring in a little revenue), I need to drum up some pro-car mentality among the populace. With the pavement space left at the edges of the bulldozed park, I place some tasteful signage informing the locals that they, in fact, love cars and they should, if you think about it, swap their heels for wheels. I can only build signs on the land I own, but that doesn't mean my message has to be so limited: I build a depot for a van fitted with a bullhorn to go around the neighbourhood blaring the praises of the automobile. Soon cars start to trickle into the parking lot, each time paying me cold hard cash for the privilege of renting my asphalt.
But then I hit a hitch. Despite the parking lot and demand for cars, there simply aren't that many car owners in the city. Most of the population claim they don't need them because of their "abundant public transportation system". We'll see about that. I go to buy up the land underneath one of the nearby subway entrances. It's $40,000. I've barely $15,000 to my name. I'll need a lot more people using my parking lots before I can afford to buy out a station.
On the edge of town, I buy a couple of plots of empty land and drop down a pair of factories. These will spit out a new car every 30 seconds or so. I build a delivery lot nearby and from there a truck ferries new cars into town to be sold to waiting customers. Rather than a car dealership, the shop is a carousel with cars hanging from metal cages. Buyers queue up, pick their car, and then watch as the vehicle rotates down to the curbside. The happy customer then drives off into the street throwing a massive thumbs up out the window. To up the demand for the cars, I place a couple of gold statues nearby that c...Read more: Full article on www.rockpapershotgun.com
What do you think about this?
The streets of Baldtown City are nearly empty of traffic. It's not that it's a ghost town: up and down the pavements there are crowds of citizens bustling to and from work. They pile into subways, queue up at bus stops, and enter and leave the town by a regularly-running intercity metro service. Their city is woven with affordable, clean, public transport. As a representative of big auto, whose one joy in life is bringing people the freedom of car dependency, Baldtown city will have to change.
Car Park Capital is a management game that looks to be straight out of the 90s, born from the same Bullfrog sensibilities that gave us Theme Park and Theme Hospital. Your one goal is to turn the eco-friendly cities before you into petrol-dependent, car-brained, suburbia-living smogfests.
After all, can you imagine a world without cars?
Getting the good people of Baldtown City off their feet and into the plush leather of an automobile faces two initial hurdles: supply and demand. This is a city that has done without cars for decades. No one is asking for them, no one is buying them, and, worst of all, no one is looking for a place to park them. Which leads me to the second issue: there's nowhere in the city to leave your vehicle should you own one.
Starting with the second problem first, I bring up the city heatmap which shows me where there is the most need for a car park. Anywhere there is a bus stop or a subway station, there are distinct circles of cold, like little ice floes where there is no need for private transport. I'll have to deal with those later. However, right next to the main office block in the centre of town there is a small park that sits slightly out of reach of the public transport network. I buy up the plot of land and send in the bulldozers.
Car Park Capital is an interesting mix of management game and city builder. Ostensibly, my remit is just building out the city's parking infrastructure, but rather than do this in partnership with the city, it's all handled privately. You purchase plots of land and then you're free to use them how you wish. I pave over the former park with asphalt, set up an entrance and exit gate, and mark out some parking spaces.
Now there is a space to park (and a way for me to bring in a little revenue), I need to drum up some pro-car mentality among the populace. With the pavement space left at the edges of the bulldozed park, I place some tasteful signage informing the locals that they, in fact, love cars and they should, if you think about it, swap their heels for wheels. I can only build signs on the land I own, but that doesn't mean my message has to be so limited: I build a depot for a van fitted with a bullhorn to go around the neighbourhood blaring the praises of the automobile. Soon cars start to trickle into the parking lot, each time paying me cold hard cash for the privilege of renting my asphalt.
But then I hit a hitch. Despite the parking lot and demand for cars, there simply aren't that many car owners in the city. Most of the population claim they don't need them because of their "abundant public transportation system". We'll see about that. I go to buy up the land underneath one of the nearby subway entrances. It's $40,000. I've barely $15,000 to my name. I'll need a lot more people using my parking lots before I can afford to buy out a station.
On the edge of town, I buy a couple of plots of empty land and drop down a pair of factories. These will spit out a new car every 30 seconds or so. I build a delivery lot nearby and from there a truck ferries new cars into town to be sold to waiting customers. Rather than a car dealership, the shop is a carousel with cars hanging from metal cages. Buyers queue up, pick their car, and then watch as the vehicle rotates down to the curbside. The happy customer then drives off into the street throwing a massive thumbs up out the window. To up the demand for the cars, I place a couple of gold statues nearby that c...Read more: Full article on www.rockpapershotgun.com
What do you think about this?