If you’re looking for something to sink into over the holidays, check out our picks below.
Best management games
20.
Where it differs from most of its peers is in the engineering rigour it requires from players.
It’s brutal, but it’s also wonderfully engrossing.
Where can I buy it:Steam.
Anno 1800
Anno 1800is arguably one of the finest city builders ever made.
It gets even better when played with a friend in its multiplayer co-op mode, too.
Whatever you’re after, Anno 1800 has it all.
Where can I buy it:Epic,Humble.
Megaquarium
Fish are magical beings arent they?
Some fish are bullies, while others are perfectly capable of living in harmony with one another.
Theyll just drop it on the floor, the monsters.
Benches, drink machines, toilets, and bins.
The only things you gotta keep people happy.
And the fish, of course, let’s not forget the fish.
Where can I buy it:Steam,GOG,Humble.
It doesn’t get bogged down in the complexities of slime diets, pen conditions or anything else.
You might be starting over, but d’awww just look at their little faces.
Am I… am I a bile demon?
Where can I buy it:GOG,Origin.
Where can I buy it:It’s free.
Surviving Mars
This red planet colonisation sim has come along way since it first came out in March 2018.
Back then, it felt a little bit barebones and kept tripping over its own user interface.
Today, it’s a different story.
Where can I buy it:Paradox,Steam,GOG,Humble.
Frostpunk
Most management games are about indulging yourself as opposed to providing a real challenge.
But you need the workers to bring in fuel and food to keep everyone else alive.
Do you let the ill heal - or do you amputate?
More hands on deck, or is having a childhood more important?
Can you keep your inmates happy?
Can you make a profit?
How important is it to process death row residents efficiently?
What happens when a riot breaks out?
Banished
Banished is a different sort of a management game.
If approached wanting a cheery city-builder, you’re going to have a horrible time.
There is war if you want it, but really this is a game about making cheese.
Also wool, olive oil and theatre.
An artisanal colony all of your own.
Just watch out for wolves.
And there are puns.
Lots of Ancient Greek puns.
Complex but approachable, Zeus is designed to be something you lose yourself in.
Where can I buy it:Steam,GOG.
This is the designer’s management game, not the accountant’s management game.
After all, if you build it, they will come.
Where can I buy it:Steam,Humble.
Two Point Hospital is a business sim first.
It can often be just as entertaining when youre failing, though.
It’s as colourful as it is compulsive.
Want some light social commentary on the machine-like nature of public services that prioritise efficiency over patient well-being?
Want some toilets made out of solid gold and DLC that lets you save Christmas with a Yeti?
It’s got that, too.
In fact, Maxis have just launched anew challenge aspectto the game with Scenarios.
Where can I buy it:Origin,Steam,Humble.
A session with Skylines is reminiscent of the golden age of gaming.
That’s not any particular year; it’s related to your own relationship with games.
Hours of comfortable, calming bliss, laying roads and watching a city grow before your eyes.
Skylines creates those long holidays from reality.
It’s relaxation in game form.
That’s not to say the actual simulation isn’t complex, though.
It’s like the biggest box of building blocks in the world.
Where can I buy it:Steam,Humble,Paradox.
Dwarf Fortress
Dwarf Fortress is much more than a management game, but where else could we file it?
Because it’s unfinished?
Because it’s too broad and baggy to allow for definite managerial approaches to emerge?
Because learning the obtuse interface is Actual Work?
Because it’s about dwarves and we all know that management games are all about taxes?
Even over a decade on, nothing else drills as deep into the mantle of community-simulation as Dwarf Fortress.
Yes, it’s a bear to learn, but the rewards for doing so are off the chart.
Stardew Valley
All the best management games bring something extra to the core gather/build/grow flow.
With Stardew Valley, it’s role-playing.
You only care about people in terms of numbers.
It is connected to the town, it brings good things to the town.Youbring good things to the town.
This is management through a microscope, instead of the usual city-scale view.
Stardew Valley is an enduring, crossover success, and rightfully so.
RimWorld
There are management games about buildings, and then there are management games about people.
RimWorld, for all the bird’s-eye perspective and homespun wooden structures, is very much about people.
If you don’t pay heed to these, the beasts outside are the least of your problems.
Each colonist has their own mind, and you will have to learn it well.
