Build-a-lot

You might normally associate management games such as SimCity with slow, gradual progression and the delayed pleasure of transforming a scrap of wasteland into a bustling metropolis, but they don't have to be that way.

In fact, Build-a-lot is perhaps a more realistic portrayal of property development. Well, maybe in the early noughties as opposed to now, when a bank manager would laugh in your face if you went to him with a proposal to build a whole street full of swanky houses to rent out.

Build-a-lot's ethos is instead to build against the clock. Time is money after all. You buy up plots of empty land, add buildings and houses, and rent them out or sell them on for a tidy profit. And to get money to build even bigger slabs of concrete with even larger returns.

So, at the start of each level you're greeted with a new bit of neighbourhood (there are 35 in total) and the town's mayor popping up to tell you what he'd like you to do. A typical list of goals is to own four estates and one workshop, inspect one house and earn $250,000 cash.

This wouldn't be difficult to do at all given unlimited time. But with the time constraint you need to carefully manage your builders, taking on more if necessary, and make wise decisions about whether it'd be quicker to buy a more expensive, already-built estate, or take the time to construct a new one of your own.

Like any city construction game worth its foundations, Build-a-lot is always evolving and introducing new types of building, industry and other functions. It very quickly progresses from a fairly remedial building game to one with whole menus full of options.

Luckily, the game's interface is about as intuitive as you could create on a mobile phone, and you're soon juggling builders, materials and rental incomes like you're Grant Bovey. Before his buy-to-let empire sadly collapsed obviously.

It's fair to say Build-a-lot doesn't always feel much like a city management game and that's probably because your options feel quite restricted. There's only a certain number of lots in a level, so it's not like you can affect the landscape of a neighbourhood very much. Although you can bulldoze existing buildings and replace them with those of your choice.

You also don't get the pleasure of seeing your neighbourhood's inhabitants enjoying their new facilities since a bustling city of cars and people is perhaps a bit much to ask.

Essentially it all feels like more of a puzzle game where, especially in later levels, the skill is in identifying what to buy, what to bulldoze and what to build in order to meet your objectives before the clock ticks down.

If you prefer a more laidback approach to building though, there's a Casual mode, which simply gives you an empty plot and an objective of making a certain amount of money, then leaves you to it.

Build-a-lot's a well-crafted game with a plenty of unlockables to keep you playing through it. As far as resource management games go though, its rigidity makes it a little bit on the unexciting side, especially when held up against the likes of SimCity Metropolis.