Overcrowd: A Commute 'Em Up Reviews

I've always wanted to do a subway management sim game. This is only for a station (or a system of stations), but it scratches the itch for me. Loved building the station, setting up paid areas, designing things as they go and how to direct commuter traffic to and from platforms. Building the station on multiple levels. Not as big as a fan of those events (eg multiple people having flu/many vandals etc). Also staffs go into break with the tools still equipped and you have to manually unequip them. Commuters have a lot of asks (especially when you unlock new stuff) and reputation can be hard to maintain in the early game. Not being able to build at the same vertical space of an existing tile. The screams are...genuine. The tutorial is too simple, I recommend you try things out in sandbox mode first. I guess I liked it enough to make it a recommend, though.

Overcrowd is not only a management and sim game, it's also very much a strategy game. Each station is unique and has to be built in a different way to accomplish your goals. You have free range to do that however you want, which is lots of fun when it works out, but can seem frustrating if it fails. There are different difficulty levels, so it can be as challenging (or not!) as you'd like. When things are going well, it's fun to sit back and watch your sim: where do people go? what do they buy? did they make it onto their train in time? hey, that guy is drunk! He's puking everywhere! The mop? do we have enough mops?! When things get iffy (like your station reputation is dropping) it's time to go into management mode: buy the right tools, get your staff into position, lower prices, put in a new lvl 3 plant. As you progress, you can upgrade both your staff and facilities to make each station easier and more successful. The later levels can be very complicated with large stations, several tracks and entrances, and three different floors to add elevators to. Honestly I stick with the easier levels for a more chill experience. I do wish the developers had fixed a few quality-of-life issues, like the trains reverting back to the default color every time you extend the track, but none of those things impedes your ability to fully enjoy the game.

I always love business management, building game. The pixel art is simple but lovely, which actually I think sometimes better than those realistic graphics. One suggestion for game developer is, it will be nice if it is allowed to build on multi floors.