GearCity

GearCity
N/A
Metacritic
88
Steam
82.133
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Price
$14.99
Release date
14 January 2022
Steam reviews score
Total
88 (1 180 votes)

Do you find tycoon games too simplistic? GearCity is a complex and in-depth business simulator. It focuses on a realistic economic simulation of the global automobile industry. Many car tycoon games exist. Some are glorified car designers, while others are trivial. None are as comprehensive as GearCity.

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GearCity system requirements

Minimum:

  • OS: XP
  • Processor: 1.2 GHz
  • Memory: 1 GB RAM
  • Graphics: 128 MB
  • DirectX: Version 9.0
  • Storage: 6 GB available space
  • Additional Notes: 32-Bit Version
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Anonymous
Anonymous

Im going thru a graphic glitch with the dynamic report big fps drop on macbook pro 2020 how do i fix this

ctiberius
ctiberius

I have over 2800 hours in GearCity. It isn't flawless, there's plenty that could be added, and some mechanics are not intuitive or even counter-intuitive. The UI engine is a bit wonky. That being said, for scratching the Tycoon itch with a pretty deep feature set, this has been my go-to since work began on it years ago.

Very little in the market over the past decade or so that gives you this level of business control. From corporate structure to market decisions to product development and design to sales and marketing to actual business operations... it's all there. Really deep experience. And critically, a really engaged developer who has bootstrapped this thing for years and remains dedicated to patching and updating.

Can't wait to see where this goes over time. Great job. Definitely better than many games on the market and worth every penny you'll spend on it.

BigBob
BigBob

I really like this game. Definitely needs a second iteration eventually with perhaps a little more time spent on UI innovation. At times it is definitely tedious and frequently the game overproduces information for the player. Most of the text can be fun to read and look at. However, rarely will you pick up a notification or article with anything insightful.

Why were my contracts denied? Who did they go with? Can I compare my product? Why do I care new competition has started selling trucks in Juno Alaska? I suppose some features are designed around not being a super mega international corp, but who honestly plays 100 years as a sports car only manufacturer? Maybe I need to tic up the difficulty for some of these features but honestly outside of the major wars very little bankrupts your business. Adding opponents seems to slow down the game in multiple ways and many feel simply not more challenging but more tedious. A map with some indicator of wars and conflicts would be gravy too.

All in all probably one of the better spreadsheet sims out there with fun car sliders.

Swisspike
Swisspike

OK. Where to start.

I have had this game for a couple of years. It wasn't real fleshed out, and I struggled getting good cars designed.

I recently came back to this, and have enjoyed it immensely.

Designing a niche car, with the perfect combination of chassis, engine, and gearbox is very gratifying..and even more so when you look at the leader boards, and see that your "Fleur" is seventh all time in sales, out of 134 total vehicles.

A strong recommend on this game. The learning curve isn't too bad, and the car graphics are excellent.

kelly28
kelly28

very technical game, the game has a steep learning curve , if you buy it i'd recommend looking at some of the tips and tricks that are on the forums, this game has massive customization, you design parts all the way up to the car body itself, great game, the devs have done a great job as far as i'm concerned. i 100% recommend this game if you like tycoon games

BurnItDwn
BurnItDwn

I feel as though i may have finally scratched the surface of this magnificent game. There are just so many different ways to play. This game seems like the spiritual successor to the 1994 masterpiece business simulation game "Detroit" from Impressions Games. GearCity is so much more though. This is also one of the only games which the achievements are actually fun to try to achieve. The developer has really put in insane amounts of time and effort into crafting what I believe to be the very best business simulation out there. There are bugs, the UI is kinda clunky. There is a lot that could be added/improved for the sake of QOL, but, the core of this is too good to pass up.

TaikaJamppa
TaikaJamppa

I love this game! It has less car designing than I had thought, but I was always more of a number guy anyway (I prefer sliders to control the HP for example). The music choice is my favorite! Relaxing, yet still... I don't know, I just love it!
I've gone bankrupt a few times, and even ended the game "the other way" (look into the safe) once. I need a break...

David Hasselhoff
David Hasselhoff

Played this game since early 2018. It realy has come a long way. Now it is, by far, one of the best games in its category.
The gemeplay is very indepth and bug free.

Mikado
Mikado

GearCity has been a long project but one that has continuously progressed and finally reached its completion. It is an amazing achievement for the developper.

The game itself is one of the best management game I have played. Yes, the interface is not particularly fancy but it is operational and does the job, letting the mechanics carry you into your business venture.

You will enjoy the game if you accept that there is a learning curve but it is manageable, especially with the excellent video tutorials available. However, be aware that you will have to look at a lot of spreadsheets to identify opportunities, issues and make your company grow.

The difficulty settings are very granular and you can adapt it to the type of challenge you want to face.

Sir Provost
Sir Provost

GearCity is the holy grail of spreadsheet games.

I was originally going to write a lengthy review about how awesome this title is but it honestly speaks for itself if this sort of game catches your attention. It's the blacktar heroin of tycoons and once you've played it nothing will ever scratch the same itch. I'm not even a big car person and I could care less about the automotive industry but this game is truly in a league of it's own when it comes to creating a fun and compelling business experience.

Give it a go, you won't be disappointed.

Baba Booey
Baba Booey

I have been waiting since 2017 to post this review.
GC has a nostalgic feel in presentation, it takes me back to the early days of PC games, but with a modern twist, it has a great art style, which altogether gives you the warm and fuzzies. The passion the dev put in to GC really stands out.
Its a great simulator mixed in with making cars, its a lot of fun!!

universecreep
universecreep

Neat game. Reminds me of Detroit although more complex.

I like it a lot.

The UI is a little dated yes but the tutorial is pretty good.

If you like management sims, it's a good buy. Download the demo first if you're unsure. The UI does take some getting used to so it may be a dealbreaker for some - hence, check out the demo first.

Wolfen
Wolfen

I underestimated my complete and fundamental lack of knowledge how cars are working, but the level of detail and depth of the game are just adorable.
I am sure that everyone who is deeply interested in cars will love this game.

timmystood
timmystood

I so badly want to love it. It has a great level of detail, cool features, decent replayability and is appropriately addictive, but... I just cannot recommend it with the user interface it has. Initially, I thought it was cool and retro, but the reality is it's clunky, confusing and really complicated (not in a 'learning curve' way, more in a 'you have to continually navigate through 16 menus and 48 sub-menus to find what you need way). I feel bad marking it down, because it's clearly a labour-of-love and had lots of attention, but it's just not fun with this UI :(

P.S. I've given it a fair crack, four hours on the demo, plus four on the main release.

FreeCoffee
FreeCoffee

I'm not even a car geek and this has me hook line and sinker. One could argue that the UI is a bit "dated" but I think it adds to the aesthetics. Fantastic tycoon game and I look forward to delving in further.

Also happy to support the developer given that the next game will be an Airline Tycoon - something the market has been missing for years.

Tęczowa Błyskawica
Tęczowa Błyskawica

If you ever felt that Automation - The Car Company Tycoon has a distinct lack of "Company" and "Tycoon" in it's gameplay, then this title is for you. The menu's and user interface took me an hour to adjust, but it's very intuitive when it comes to finding information you want to look for. If you played any other complex management game, then this shouldn't pose a challenge. I found, surprisingly, that my experience with Europa Universalis IV and Football Manager has been great help in understanding the interface of GearCity, so it's fair to say that your proficiency in using the game's interface will be much better if you've already played games that require you to look for and analyse data.

Porkchop Sandwiches
Porkchop Sandwiches

Historical economy simulator that gives you a gun to blow your brains out to Megadeath lyrics when your company goes under.

Also the graphical interface is straight out of Harvester.

Frost
Frost

Faithful recreation and improvement over my favourite mo-town simulator; Detroit. Well done to the dev and the community - I just recently discovered this and after playing the demo I bought the full game which comes along with some great extra content.
Music, graphics, gameplay in particular are all great. The tutorials and help articles are great for understanding the gameplay dynamics as well.
My only point of recommendation for improvement is the sound in the UI for clicking. But honestly outside of that it's excellent and polished.

petersly
petersly

Great game, inspired by older Detroit (aka Motor city). It suprasses predecesor in every area - design, production and logistics is much more detailed and better thought of. UI is a bit rough around the edges and some info is not easy to find out, but there are manuals - and author is active on forums and helpful.

Highly recommended for anyone with interest in detailed business games.

Big Chungus
Big Chungus

This is an absolutely outstanding game. The design the developer took is very understandable being a one man army. It may not be optimized like UE games like Plutocracy, but it has the insane depth level that the famous Capitalism Lab game from the early 2000s was somehow able to capture. With its depth of World War 1 and 2, and pre and post booms and busts, along with the option for randomized alternate history, I really cant complain much. If you are like me and want to stressfully run a car company, this is the experience for you.

odiN | ApesNotMonkeyz
odiN | ApesNot…

This is the best business / economical simulator out there. The complexity of the markets along with the infinite possibilities that the game offers gives 100s of hours of fun and interesting game-play. I absolutely recommend this game to everyone interested in games within this genre!

fersandom
fersandom

This game is a masterpiece.
If you enjoy business sims Gear City is the only real one in Steam at the moment.
I wish there were more like this out there.

Vinny Scarletto
Vinny Scarletto

This game is the definition of freedom. Build what you want, and do your best to make it profitable! GearCity is an amazing tycoon game that is easy to get into, but takes time to fully master. Despite my time with the game, I still find myself learning new tricks to improve my performance. With many difficulty settings, this game is perfect for anyone who enjoys tycoon games and automobiles! Having access to both pre and post WW2 makes this game unmatched in terms of design freedom. If you've ever wanted to see if you could do better than those pesky GM accountants, now is your chance! This game has very low system requirements as well, so you can enjoy it on just about any machine.

joebrender
joebrender

I loved the old MS-Dos game Detroit, and this game is a clear spiritual successor. Take Detroit, fix things, improve the interface, add some logical systems, and that is Gear City. So glad someone made this game.

rubyloc
rubyloc

GearCity takes the concept of "car manufacturing" and wraps it in a neat package of player agency, attention to detail, spreadsheets and retro tycoon charm.
At the mercy of a powerful world economy simulation -- in the default game mode, spanning history from the beginning of the 20th century onwards -- you will design, manufacture, market and hopefully sell cars of whatever description you desire. Or just play the stock market.
It features a neat little car designer applet in which you start with a basic body and attach a range of props to make a car body that is truly yours, but for those of us not too inclined to tinker there are a range of prebuilt models to choose from.

The choice of whether to utilize prebuilt models or not is characteristic of GearCity's approach to gameplay: despite the apparent (and initially, perhaps somewhat overwhelming) level of detail involved in the car design pipeline, it is made completely accessible to someone more interested in the tycoon genre than cars.
My knowledge of cars and the things that make them up expands about as far as having watched a couple of Top Gear specials and heard the term "V-8 engine", and I'm still not quite sure if 300 horsepower is a lot or a little for a pickup truck, but perhaps a level of ignorance at the helm simply adds another dimension of realism to this excellent business simulator.
The user interface might leave a few things to be desired for some people, but I don't think it detracts too much from what is generally a very compelling game experience.

Having somehow never come across this game in its nearly 8 years on Steam Early Access, I found GearCity to be an absolute gem, and a great start to 2022 in gaming.
If you like tycoon games, or "spreadsheet games", GearCity is a definite must-have.

zomGod
zomGod

Whilst it could do with a little bit of work, the game has an amazing foundation. It feels exactly like a game from the 90s, both in terms of UI and mentality. But unlike those games it really has the calculation and depth to back up the features it has added.

The game seems to revolve mostly around being the CEO and picking strategy, funding, investments. You're building components then cars (manually or in a few seconds assisted), but a large part of the game is picking where to build factories, dealerships, what sort of prices, what your company is doing, bigger picture stuff.

The depth of the game is incredible. Wars are simulated along with reduced sales, damage to your factories. Economies change over time including inflation and populations. The game can simulate import taxes. Even the smaller features are done properly - the game has a detailed stock market of car companies allowing a great amount of money to be made. It would take forever to list the features, and every single one is done properly. This is where it really shines compared to older games, they attempt a lot of features too but GearCity does them all properly. Modding support is also very, very open but there aren't many to pick from yet.

The biggest downsides seem to be those which are easily fixed. Components need a lot of work rebalancing them. They don't seem realistic, nor do they seem balanced. A few components can dominate the market whilst others (hydropnumatic) are priced to ridiculous levels. Indeed reworking them to make front and rear suspension choices different, cylinder numbers different between engine layouts, they aren't really possible in the current engine but would really elevate the game. The UI is an amazing rework of the old style, but also lacks the modern features we would like such as shortcuts between different rooms. The car designer is a nightmare to use, its not important in the game but frankly its amazing people have made anything at all. All things fairly easily improved, hopefully they come in the future but I really don't know.

Ultimately this is an incredible game for a niche audience. If you've tried downloading older management games and been disappointed that they don't live up to your memory this is the perfect game for you. It takes everything of past management games and does it properly with modern computing power to back it up. I've never seen another game doing this properly. If a reasonably accurate management simulation isn't for you, nor is this game. I've certainly had friends who were baffled as to why anybody would want to play something like this - "where is the game part". But if you know then you do really know. For those people Automation might be better - it skips all of the (amazing) accurate management aspects for a more streamlined game with better car engineering and a better car designer (and more modern UI). CEO simulator here, engineer simulator there.

Joe
Joe

I'm more of a tycoon fan than a car fan and this one is pretty good.

I initially tried the demo to check out how it compares to the complex/in-depth description and bought after about 10 minutes in...I would say it's worth it.

Getting started there's a whole range of settings which came in handy after one or two bankrupcies while i was learning. Beyond that it reminded me a little of Capitalism 2 - getting the car's through RnD and then scaling up factories and branches across the region/world.

Thumbs up!

BitCaps
BitCaps

There is a lot to do while operating an automobile manufacturing company in the world and Gear City provides the breadth and depth to do it all.

Neon Sign
Neon Sign

Like business managers, like a challenge, like automotive design and supply chains........ If like me your answer was yes to all these things then Gear City is the game for you.
Yes its not cutting edge graphics, but there is so much in this game. Kudos to the game designer, a true labour of love.
Hard to play, but wheres the fun on it being easy. If you dont go bankrupt in the first few tries well done. Just see if still going after WW2.
Love it.

cwalen
cwalen

It is a very conditional yes.

Mostly it's a marketing simulator. Anything you do in terms of vehicle design is absolutely eclipsed in terms of opening more branches and spending more on advertising. Spamming models.

I have gotten the achievements for yearly profits and market share. Top3.3% of players.

Seems like so far, a reasonable version of open as many branches as you can afford, spamm out vehicle models micro manage production and sell any old shite for the best price that lets you shift a few units of a single model at twice what it is worth seems like a good strategy.

Micro management hell. My current play through will determine if I shift the review to negative.

Agonising over vehicle design? Even giving a shite at all? It seems to fade into the background as compared with having a lot of advertising, lots of good dealerships, far too many models of over priced cars.

Dolehof
Dolehof

I did have fun with this game the last few weeks, as I had in 2016, when I bought it, and in 2018 somewhere. And I'm sure I'll have fun with it again in the future. I was hoping the game would have developed a bit more regarding features and especially user interface though. Still, I do recommend it, for the kind player that likes spreadsheet games, and has the fantasy to fill in the gaps. The game is pretty old fashioned though, and that's bit of an acquired taste.

Personally I think the 90's style interface is quite charming. However, less charming is that the usability is also at 90's level. Which mean cumbersome and not intuitive. The game would massively be improved if there were things like mouseovers presenting you with the relevant information, however, be prepared to dive into several reports and make notes if you're really interested, or just muck about.

The car designer lacks basic functions like a turn 90 degrees- or undo button, making designing cars much more cumbersome than it needs to be. I've chosen a template model more than once just because the car designer snapped some object to a totally different point than I had in mind, than selected a completely different object when I tried to rectify the situation and just made mess of things. Really takes the fun out of trying to be creative with objects.

Another thing that frustrates me is the contracts feature. In theory it speaks to me that I can try to rake in contracts for things like aircraft- and maritime engines. However, since these designs often have very different requirements than vehicle engines, and the AI does not make design to fullfill these contracts, this could be easily gamed. To prevent this, the game game has a very high chance to assign the contract to an 'outside contractor' if the player is the only bidder. This however makes it that there's very little incentive to bid on these contracts, as developing these engines cost millions, the contracts are often worth only a hundred thousand and the chance to get the actual contract is low. Which makes this whole feature pointless for anything other than vehicles. Personally I wouldn't mind if some AI had a couple of reference designs provided to them so they could bid on these kind of contracts. I rather have a cheating AI and working feature, than a non-cheating AI but a worthless feature.

Speaking of AI, besides some reference designs, they could also use some personality. Every AI company seems to be a generalist. Some are bit cheaper or more expensive, but there's no such thing as dedicated sports car or luxury car marques, I would have liked a bit more pronounced competitors, so there would be more of a rivalry with some of them.

Okay these are my ramblings. Still, I do recommend this game, it has it own charm and actually a pretty decent business simulation under the the hood. It could pass for a university course in micro economics. It's better than at least 80% of what passes for tycoon games these days.

Jorlaan
Jorlaan

This is a great game that I have even gone to the effort of writing my first ever guide for. If you like car design and business simulation you'll enjoy this. If you don't like car design you'll probably still enjoy this. I am NOT a "car person" and I am loving this game. The UI is not the greatest but it does it's job and the vast amount of "tedious" activity can be automated quite effectively, allowing you to focus on design and growth.

ClassyGuyRob
ClassyGuyRob

1 billion before great depression- zero heading into wwii! Amazingly hard being a quality over quantity producer during this era. My 1.2 line of credit and nearly 1b in stocks are going to have to float me through the decade. No management game has ever come close to this detail - graphics don't matter when your tweaking engine measurements for hours on end for max hp , low cost, and torque your 1909 gearbox can handle. 11/10

Dr. T. Remor
Dr. T. Remor

Oh boy.... this game.....

Okay, it might feel confusing when you just start out. The first what I did after doing the main tutorial and realizing how complex that game is, was using the colt that I found in the safe. Got my first achievment by doing this.
But don't give up on it, keep playing it. Click here and there, read, try, fail, try again. You might also watch these tutorial videos on youtube by the dev himself, they're very helpful and well made. The dev is also very friendly and responsive, he answers very fast if you have any questions to the videos.

I started like 4 or 5 times, but didn't play too far because I just was unhappy about what I did, so I started a new game. Each time I started I learned something new. Now I'm actually on my 5th or 6th save, started out 1900 and reached the year 1925, where I'm playing atm. I still don't know how everything works, there's a lot more to learn and do but I already fell in love with that game. My wife already regrets buying me this game.

I love that office that changes with time, the music, that historical feeling. It's so darn interesting and addictive.

Please, don't let you avoid buying this game by reading those negative reviews. Get it, try it. You won't regret the purchase, this game is a gem in the store. It doesn't deserve any negative reviews, just don't be silly or too lazy to take that learning curve as some ppl do.

I only wish it was easier to handle the body designer, because it was a lot more fun to design my own cars instead of using predesigned bodies. But with some practice it's doable, I guess. Anyway, I believe the dev will rework that at some time as well.

Highly recommended, 10 / 10.

Ziggurt
Ziggurt

TLDR: Great old school game. If you are veteran gamer, liking tycoon/business management games, you owe yourself at least to try out the demo of it.


Note - I have played this game with friend when it was in early access before purchasing my own copy once it was released. That is why the number of played hours seem low on the time of this review, despite me having weeks of gameplay.

Both dev and others have said that this game is inspired by game "Detroit" from 1994 - which I never played. Many compare it to the game "Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game", but having played that game, I disagree. While Automation is primary car design game with campaign you can finish within 1-2 days, this is a totally different type of game.

If you are born in later part of the last century like me, you may have had pleasure of playing games like Capitalism or Capitalism II.
It was different type of game compared to the games being sold back then, more akin to a business simulation than tycoon games they were grouped with by gaming industry. Only as adult would I realize that Capitalism was the game that introduced me to many concepts I would meet in my career and later on running my own company.

Calling this game a tycoon game would be doing it similar disservice. It is one of these rare games that actually learn players something, in this case ins and outs of the management of a car production business, of course in a very simplified manner (but yet far more complex than run of the mill tycoon game).

Gameplay

The key concept of the game is running the car production company from a starting year of your choosing through difficulties caused by changing history circumstances like wars and economic crises (many things affecting your game can be altered in the start of the campaign through many options).

Research,production, marketing, sale and financing are all represented although in abstracted manner. Personal management is limited to periodic negotiations with unions and setting of wages (which per default is on auto-mode).

Bit more gameplay details:
The player needs to research components, tweaking their various parameters before committing them to a final version. Finally after chassis, engine and gearbox components have been settled on, one can use them to design a vehicle - further modifying the final version of the car through many sliders which affect thing like quality of the paint or performance design focus.
The final production price of your car and how well it would be received from potential customers, depends heavily on how you designed your car.

Build a reasonable car of right type (there are around 30 different types of cars represented in the game, from SUVs to the now forgotten town car (historic Coupé de ville)) which is desired by customers and you will start earning money.
That being said, you can also choose to buy licence to build car from your competitors, sidestepping entire design process.

The player needs factories and network of dealerships to produce and deliver his cars to the public. But even here, strategy must be used, because transport costs early in the game, combined with import taxes, may run you into bankruptcy.

If that was not enough, pesky unions after 1910s may start demanding freebies to the ungrateful workforce (union busting is not implemented in the game)...

Car sale directly to the public is not the only way to earn money in the game - you may take contracts with 3rd parties (like military) selling fixed number of cars or components for fixed price. You may licence your components or entire cars to other car companies. There is also an option to buy and sell shares (or even take over your competitors).
And bank may give you a loan or let you issue a bond for a temporary injection of cash.

It is worth mentioning that game has many options for automation - from auto pricing of you cars to auto production. Especially the auto production is very important, since it can save you many hours of micromanagement. That being said, it is far from perfect.

Estethics

This game is for you who cherishes gameplay above the graphics. Graphics and GUI are basic and remind me of gaming 20 years ago - for me this works well, but may be showstopper for some of you. Music styles changes throughout as the time goes on, going from classic sounding music to modern style.

Final words

This is a niche game and labor of love from single developer who spent 12 years building a business management game which game industry stopped making in 1990s.
If you are a game connoisseur with wide genre interests your owe to yourself to at least try the demo version of the game.

Il Busco
Il Busco

Probably the most in-depth tycoon game I've ever tried. Engaging, replayable to the extreme.
Recommended to any gamer who likes to learn his craft.

✏pencils✏
✏pencils✏

What a treasure.

It's the kind of game that was more common in the 80s and 90s (think A-Train), but made to run on modern hardware. It kind of feels like if you took a game like Factorio or Dyson Sphere Program and turned it into a spreadsheet game.

The first ten hours or so I had no idea what I was doing, but perusing the wiki and playing around with sandbox mode let me explore to the point where I could make a profitable business on the normal difficulty. The level of detail on this game is staggering, and as another reviewer pointed out, it's easy to adjust the difficulty to be exactly as hard as you want.

If you think this game might be for you, try the demo.

rod413
rod413

this is a outstanding business sim not just a 'car' game. the depth of detail captured is amazing! there is a formidable learning curve to be sure but if you're looking for the best business sim since the capitolism series this game is highly recommended imho.

8000Goldblum
8000Goldblum

Almost everything you'd want in a tycoon game. It doesn't tell you explicitly what's right or wrong but rather what could sell and not. You are still free to go against that and explore new ways of running your business. Fucking fantastic.

UUUUUUU
UUUUUUU

What a complete game for someone who likes economy and business management. Didnt notice any bugs or exploits which is unexpected in "small" games. The game is already in a complete scale, stock market etc, probably the only thing it can be improved is a little more focus on cities, like graphs and more variations. Ty for the game!

Romeo
Romeo

TL;DR: solid quality game.

- Turn base in depth economy simulation where you either need to know a bit about how cars work or just be curious about it if you want to fine tune/maximize your ratings. Otherwise, the star ratings + tooltips on each components' stats will help you get a rough idea where you're going during the design stage.

- No point in designing and producing "the best car" if you don't back it up with sound and strong finances. It's about as much about cars than economy. You can make a very profitable income with trash cars if the price, timing and location is right, just like you can fail horribly while still manufacturing crazy good cars.

- State of the heart tutorial, absolutely love it. 11/10. Seriously, probably the best I've seen. Basically a tutorial you can launch on cue for whatever you need more info on.

- Lots of automobile history ("did you know?" feature) which had me turn to Wikipedia a lot to get more info on this or that.

- Loved reading the reviews of my new models on the magazine. Some very good lines in them.

- Not much of a looker though. What you see on the screen captures is what you get. The UI is a bit on the rough/older side. I don't mind it but if you don't like what you're seeing on store page, know that that's all there is to the game: tabs full of stats. The part where you design your cars' 3D models is very rough and buggy but the good thing is it has no influence at all on the final result/rating which is solely based on research and engineering and fine tuning various ratios.

I wish more games would provide such depth and quality. It's clear the guy behind it put his heart and sweat into it. Nice work. The game's absolutely worth its very affordable price.

TB_urton
TB_urton

Really hard to understand. Designing cars is cool but it is just a bunch of sliders. I hope as it gets updated, things will change. Overall, I think I like it enough to recommend.

VeeX1King
VeeX1King

It took me a few hours to really get into this game, but once I figured it out there is no stopping me. Try starting in South Africa in 1900 on Hard mode and get to $1 000 000 000 in the coffers by 1910 :)

My inner engineer tweaks out in this game trying to find the best design for the least amount of money and putting all that in a packaged product that the consumer wants to buy.

The Developer, Eric, is also super accessible and there are hundreds of threads with info and updates and deeper explanations of core game mechanics and concepts.

The body designer is dated but considering that the game was never intended to be a visual or 3d marvel it does the job decent enough to really enjoy all aspects of Gear City.

When compared to Automation, which I think is probably the closest comparison in the genre, Gear City feels more complete, more rounded, more in-depth and I find myself returning to Gear City much more frequent than to Automation.

Fosforito
Fosforito

If you want to design a car or engine buy Automation - The Car Company Tycoon Game, which is perpetually unfinished and suffers from an agonizing Slow Development Cycle TM.

If you actually want to play a Car Company Tycoon Game that's finished, then look no further than GearCity.
Ultra Kudos to the DEV of this wonderful historical simulator for making it available natively on GNU/Linux. You my fren, deserve to be paid the full price for this jewel of a Business Management Training Software disguised as a game.

CaptainKush
CaptainKush

I don't really bother writing reviews. But this one I feel obligated to write something. As a fan of both management and a automotive lover in many ways.... racing, wrenching, engineering, etc. this really hits for me on a lot of levels. It's not perfect, there are several things I find a bit fiddly and the UI leaves a lot to be desired for sure. Especially the layout and lack of definition of the games many spreadsheets. The charts and graphs are good but the large amounts of graphical data could use some work. I still love the very retro, Windows 95 era style. Having also grown up on PC games of that time it's a nice touch. That being said it's pretty clear that the developer was trying to do a lot with very little and still pulled off an amazing package despite some of it's rougher edges. This is a labor of love with tons of detail to dive into. I haven't really played anything else since I picked this up. Wishing dev could find the budget to add some expansions or even a full blown sequel. The only other things I really majorly would like is some deeper strategy and management available for the racing. That would legitimately make the game everything I want from this experience. The industrial management experience is still very satisfying, that's just my own personal desires. The ability to design, build and race cars while using the commercial part of the company to fund my grand racing ambitions would be the ultimate way for me to personally play this game. Regardless I can't recommend this game enough. Despite my small grievances and personal desires for content there is a vast amount of systems and experience to dive into for any management fans.

scoop531
scoop531

I don’t usually write reviews, but for this game I had to. I grew up in the 90’s addicted to tycoon type games. Sim City Sim Tower Airbucks, Detroit. Railroad tycoon 2 is probably one of my favorite all time games I probably still play a few 1000
Hours a year. basically I love the whole supply demand build and empire buy out competitors stock market type situation. 20 some Years ago Detroit was another fav. I have never been able to find another tycoon type game that has balanced my need to enjoy a game with my determination to run a successful business. Until now!!! Boy at first I was overwhelmed, there is a lot to mess with and mess up. But boy every hour of game play i not only enjoy it more I learn something new, I feel like it would take thousands of hours to master this one. Yet will keep you wanting to try to. Awesome game

Keptin
Keptin

I really want to like Gear City, as it seems it's exactly the type of game I love--an true tycoon economy, market, and business sim, with some real depth. I've bounced off of it several times now, not getting more than an hour or so deep, sometimes less. Maybe more than anything its the graphics. Visually, it looks like it's from 1995. I know, I was there. If you told me this was a remastered Sierra game, I'd believe you.

Nothing else is critically wrong with Gear City; the UI is no more complex or messy than necessary, unlike Automation. There's a steep learning curve, which is partially to blame, but I've pushed through worse before. I think I'm just having trouble getting immersed into the game because it looks drab and dated. I respect that the sole dev has spent over a decade dedicated to the game, but I'm afraid that hasn't done the game any favors on the visual front. It makes me wonder if Gear City would have a much stronger release if it received a major art pass update to lift it into the 21st century and support its otherwise deep simulation.

If you like retro games and are ready for a learning curve steep enough that you'll need climbing gear and chalk, then Gear City might be your cup o tea. But if you're looking for a sim that feels modern and polished, it's probably not for you.

kabadahija
kabadahija

Build factory - Design components - Create vehicle - Sell

This is the baseline of this game, and some might find it boring. However, details, options, side things are so abundant and in-depth, that give this game thickness none of the new gen tycoon games have. "Spreadsheet Tycoon" is this game's type and I'm in love with it. I'm the kind of person that played Lula (Wet the sexy empire) for the tycoon part mainly and I really enjoy a game where you can tweak, optimize, design and be proud of what you've created. I really don't care about graphics, for me the most important things for a game to have are: run smoothly and give me all the data my eyes are craving.

It is a hard to learn game, and the beginning can be overwhelming with all the windows, specs, numbers, lists etc. Tutorials are really enough to get you started, and there are videos, however I watched first gameplay on the youtube, emulated what the guy did, and I managed to have a successful start. The auto-assist function when creating components and vehicles is a total plus for the beginners, and a constant stream of money was secured, I've started experimenting and tweaking. And boy, o boy, are there thing to tweak.

You can play this game as you wish, total micromanagement freak, or the CEO that delegate pretty much everything (and I mean almost everything can be automated). It takes long to understand all the numbers, but that's the fun part of it.
"Added value" are racing, research, military and civilian contracts, wars, stock market, and more.

If you're hardcore tycoon player, this game is a birthday cake with a stripper inside.
10/10 from me.

Laid
Laid

169h and I still play my first round. Is this good or bad?

The core gameplay loop is: design car -> produce -> sell -> design decays -> start over

There is no limit in car designs and hardly limits how much you can produce and sell.
At the beginning it's an interesting problem to design cars that sell well and balance production
with sales. But as you scale it becomes a nuisance. Many objectively better components are just
there to improve stats. A 10% "better" car will maybe give you 5% more sales, but it can increase
the price so it's not necessarily better. But you can simply make trims of your exact designs and
people just buy that. So you make cars that are good enough and make lots of trims to cover your
production. If your production is capped you extend your factories and add more trims. Every few
years you have to redesign your cars due to decay. Then you have to set a right price for your cars.
For some reasons my prices are usually WAY higher then the competition. But I still dominate, I am
apple, not amazon.

But what is the problem? As you scale you pile up so much micromanaging, you don't care at some
point anymore. You just step through the years, making a billion per step, once your income goes
down you adjust prices to inflation and redesign few things. There is an option to automate production.
This causes transpotation to be huge, like 10 or 20 percent of my profit. Micromanaging it would be insane.
So the problem is simple. You start this game with the dream to minmax the shit out of everything and be
the best and richest car manufacturer in the world. But actually, you just don't care. Maybe it's an accurate
reflection of reality?

SnailsCJ
SnailsCJ

it's good. it will get better.

update: i love this game, please make an engine designer tool for main menu.

Erci
Erci

Very good game. They give what you want. Detailed. Not complicated. Just one minor issue: Car graphics, textures needed quality. Other then i am satisfied. 10/9

Ahoy
Ahoy

I can see I will definitely play this game for hundred of hours. This is my dream game. Just looking at those beautiful spreadsheets and charts!

Tonytwin
Tonytwin

Otto Sigmund started Sigmund Motors in Berlin, Germany in 1900.

Our first vehicle, I forgot the name of it was made up of outsourced components from other companies, it was a minor success but I needed something new quickly.

I took loans out and issued bonds to support my fledgling company, and I would have to repay them eventually, not only that, but ww1 was coming in a measly 14 years.

If I wanted to survive I’d need to get as much capital as I can to ride out 2 back to back catastrophes, WW1, and WW2.

After making some horrible frankenstein cars, I slowly branched out and expanded. I set my gaze on the rest of germany, france, bits of england, scandinavia. It was slow and steady progress.

I finally made my first inhouse Sedan in 1910. Wasn’t that good. Decided to buy a shooting brake license and sell that car instead.

It was a huge success, and somehow I managed to rake in 10 or so million every month. I knew it wasnt going to last, that and the other ventures all came to a grinding halt once ww1 rolled around.

By the end of the war my company was a shell of its former self, I had to take even more loans and issue more bonds out to survive, and most importantly: my biggest mistake: taking my company public.

Little did I know that would be the end of me.

I knew I wasn’t going to make it when ww2 hit, so I expanded to the USA. It took a while, but was
worth it once I finished factories there to deal with transportation costs. It was so lucrative that I completely restructured my company to Harper and sold all my factories and branches in Europe by 1923.

I later renamed it to HarperU, U for United. This is because when I was testing around changing my HQs, I made a subsidiary called Harper, but then sold it to some private investors.

The fuckers surpassed 3 billion market cap in a few years, the most I peaked was 700 million or so. They literally became more successful than me somehow. Later they got acquired by some detroit based company though, forgot the name. Those guys were giants, raking in half a billion profit yearly

Anyway, back to the story, I was now purely operating in the States and New York based.

By 1929 I was worth at my peak in the 700 millions, branches all over the midwest and east coast, even some in canada with plans to expand back to europe.

Now; if you’re familiar with history even the slightest bit, you will understand why I said peak, especially with that specific year of 1929.

The great depression hit me like a dumpster truck and throughout the entire 30s I never recovered. I was on the verge of bankruptcy, in the negatives over five times but miraculously survived up till the 50s.

For over 25+ years I was hanging on a string, hell, WW2 saved my ass, made 8mil monthly producing munitions for the military. Didn’t last long though.

I was forced to go back to trying anything I could to survive. I closed multiple branches, shut down huge factories because I simply had no more demand.

But, each time I was on the verge I sold more and more shares of my company.

I was about to unveil my newest vehicle by 1952; a state of the art Coupe with all in-house components. I would finally usher in a new era for Harper, one not plagued by mediocrity.

It was looking good, great specs and ratings. Till I fucked up, and made the engine too big.

That set me back 17 months and 4m redesigning the chassis to fit the engine. I was already very low on funds, and some bonds I issued ages ago finally caught up to me. I was over 12 million in the red, on top of constant strikes with workers because I couldn't afford proper wages.

I had no other options but to sell more shares, I could sell a decent amount and get positive again.

Oh shit. I accidentally sold too much. I only own 47% now....

4 months later I got fired. Granted I was told they were very unhappy multiple times.

Board of directors fired me and gave me a measly 68k severance pay. I guess I know how my workers felt now...

Blood and sweat for over 55 years and this is how they repay me...

10/10, was playing on hard difficulty btw

Pyrlix
Pyrlix

I really tried to like this game, but it gave me a seriously hard time. I like tycoon games, always did. Never a fan of those dumbed down mobile to pc ports of these days. I like a challenge, i like complexity... but this is beyond that.

The first mistake i did was to play with a german translation, and boy was it bad. Machine translation at its finest, but i kinda rolled with it. Turns out to be a bad decision, as the savegames are language locked... you cannot return to english anymore.
After investigating why that is i was a bit shocked to see that all language strings are saved inside the savegame... oh well. I somehow went on..
Why are a metric ton of pictures stored in the save game file? That just makes it unnessecarily large...

The sales model is... weird. To say the least... it feels very unintuitive.
I first started out by making sedans - company obviously failed. Tried coupes - failed. Tried compacts - failed. Tried phaetons - oh it suddendly worked out somehow. Yet those phaetons were consistently more expensive they sold better than even the sedans. It lacks flexibility, i would personally assume that a buyer in 1901 would have chosen a sedan over a phaeton for the same price and performance.

The feedback the game delivers is non existant. Did i do something good? Something bad? My car does not sell, but why? Type rating is higher, price is lower.
Way later i fould the vehicle class market share - which barely helps as it shows total sold cars... kinda helps but not.

I designed popular car shapes, they didnt sell. How large is my target market? I don't know!

I lost 200 sales last month, but in the following month i sell 150 cars less. I thought the 200 lost sales are in backorder and would catch up?

Eventually i did have a company going until 1915, then it fell apart because god knows why. I also kept wondering how the AI can make a car half as expensive with a better type rating.

I did like the micro management of the territory map, but the city map takes it to a whole different level. It stops to be fun, and starts to be monotonous work, as it feels very very repetetive and mundane - you just plaster every large city with a Branch, figure out manufacturing and done.
I also never had the feeling that i did something good or right. Even when i managed to sell 1200 Phaetons in one month, i did not grasp why. I later had a car on the market with a better type rating, for a lower price and guess what - it sold worse. Why? No idea. It is not relayed to me as a CEO nor as a player who is every role in this company.

The car designer feels arbitrary and not good either... especialyl the fact that you design a car and... how good is it? Type Rating of 42. Is it average in the current market or in comparison to my competitors, sub-average or exceeding?

I would also like a "Hide engine" button from the designer. I do not really need X, H or anything at some point.

Maybe at some point the dev will iron out things, make this game better, more accessible. But for now? I cannot recommend.

cptgone
cptgone

If you liked the old DOS game "Detroit", you will love this. GearCity is a remake that adds a lot of depth to that classic.

Sadly, the GUI is in the same vein. It may take some getting used to if you're not familiar with old school GUIs, but it's functional.

Gameplay, and depth of simulation, is where GearCity shines. There's nothing like it out there, AFAIK it outdoes all other product management simulations, no matter the topic. So if you're the kind of person that fancies managing a car brand, and you're not afraid of the learning curve that comes with complex simulations, I wholeheartedly recommend you play this game. You may, like I have, learn a lot along the way, about car design and the history of the car industry. I have had lots of fun playing GearCity over the years, and always come back when I feel the need to scratch that itch.

The dev is remarkably dedicated and persistent. GearCity is obviously a labour of love.

Bago
Bago

A good and different flavour in the capitalist/management scene. The macroeconomic mechanics are well balanced with a broad range of competitors and dynamic variables influencing your success in each region. The game itself is very customisable from the start screen.

The game does a great job of making you feel like your at the same level with the AI, great amounts of competition, uniqueness and variability with 300 companies in the world, much better than most games with competition.

The game immerses you with news/magazines and reviews which are very entertaining to go through, I would like to be able to see the various info about real companies between turns for longer though. Additionally, the dev has provided some pre-made models of vehicles to help you along the way, I like seeing how they modernize over time, very cool.

The UI is mostly straightforward and simple but could use some guidance and tools to macromanage particularly once you expand beyond your starting region in the mid/late game.

The development and research system could be improved particularly for anyone interested in getting ahead of the competition something which the game doesn't let you do. You can invest in research but you'll be unlocking a total of about 5-15 different research components for each part. Each component will be allowed to be unlocked by both player and AI at a certain date after which your team needs to have a minimum research level to unlock, that's it.

There is no engineering skill for your business; The quality of the components you make is solely defined by how much you move the sliders to the right and so every competitor is as good as making a part with the exact same sliders as the next. I'd like to see this system implemented somehow along with other departments in the future.

When developing components, much like when developing vehicles, it would be great to see the components in a 3d model and bonus points if we can get a little animation too.

Great little game and I'm looking forward to what we'll see from it in the future.

gloryfire21
gloryfire21

i played this game for 10 hours it has an steep learning curve...i had lost many times....just like the game says 99% car company that start up fail! still it is fun

SYPIAC
SYPIAC

This is a great, highly detailed car-themed bussiness tycoon. I'm having lots of fun so far taking my company from 1900s, now in the 1920s. Even on normal the difficulty is no joke, and difficulty levels only go up from there! In most tycoon games there comes a point where you've outgrown the AI so much there is no challenge left, but even with 7% of the global car market, as the second largest car manufacturer, my networth is evaluated as -1 million because of the debt it took to get there, and the pressure is still on to keep growing fast.

There are also many historical events in the game - the world wars, the great depression, the creation of soviet union and the opening up of Japan to play through with many ways to interact with them.

Takes a while to learn though so watch out for that, and has some inevitable odd UI choices, where pieces of information you need are 5 clicks away and require closing something beforehand. I've ended up taking screenshots of important information to use later, not great. Tutorials in-game cover most of the stuff you need to know, thankfully, with only a handful thing needing a lookup on the wiki that's also available in-game.

Also a very fun car design minigame - trying to target different price ranges, requirements, making your own or subcontracting components, platform sharing and so on.

tomiveson
tomiveson

Edit 2: Slightly grudgingly changing my review to positive.

60+ hours in and I'm still banging my head against this UI. The dev has explained below why it's so poor, but understanding that doesn't make it any easier to play.

That said, I don't know of any better in-depth business management sim. So if that's what you want to play, you should probably play this. But don't say I didn't warn you.

Watch this tutorial to get an idea of what you're getting yourself in for. There are currently 46 of these, totalling more than 4 hours runtime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SDgi6PXfYg

Leaving the rest below as context for the dev's response.

Edit 1: Wow - see (extensive!) response from dev below.

It does look like I missed a couple of things that could have made my life easier, especially the dynamic stock and buyer/demographic reports. And I completely missed the wiki, which looks very useful. I'm less convinced about the vehicle design system - I did indeed use those tutorials and still don't really know what I'm doing! And the sports car/Mpg was a bad example but the point stands I think.

I'm going to go back and give it another bash with these tips in hand, and may well come back and change this review to positive.

Also worth noting that this seems to be typical of this dev - very attentive to the community, open about the game's flaws, and working hard to help players get the most out of it.

Eric, if you read this, thanks for such a detailed and helpful response. Sorry to hear there won't be a sequel but I will definitely look out for Aeromogul! All the best.

Original review:
A negative review, but I did enjoy most of my time with this game, and it certainly has a lot going for it. If they ever make a more polished sequel I'll buy it in a second. If you don't mind taking a bit of a punt with £16 and in-depth management games are your thing, it might be worth a try.

I have no problem at all with the look of the game - it's very nostalgic for anyone who pines for the classic 90s management sims, and that includes me, so I'd say it's a plus. I also didn't think the game was overly complicated or inaccessible. There are ample tutorials inside and outside the game , and of course the complexity and depth is the main selling point of the game so anyone expecting a quick & easy management-lite game is obviously in the wrong place.

The main problem by far is the UI - it's just not good enough. There is some basic stuff - the sliders and dropdowns are janky, for example - but it 's the overall layout of the menus and systems that's the real killer. Navigating between all the different screens is incredibly (and unnecessarily) laborious, with most decisions seeming to require you to collate information from several different areas across the UI, meaning you will be needing either screenshots, notepad or a very good working memory, and definitely a whole lot of patience. A good example is the stock trading system: interested in buying a company's stock and want to know more about them? The stock screen itself will tell you their quarterly revenues and market cap but that's about it. Another screen, three clicks away, will let you look up their last year's profits and cash reserves. If you want to know what their lineup and production costs look like, that's another five or six clicks away in a completely different part of the UI. And if you actually want to know how much those models retail for and where, I hope you have plenty of time and like playing 'guess the city' on a clunky and slow-scrolling map.

The car design system is the above times ten. Trying to design a marketable car is a kafkaesque menu hell. Unless you're already familiar with the minutae of car performance across markets in the 1900s (or whenever you start), you're going to want to know what counts as a reasonable Mpg for a sports car, or what the market size is, or what people typically pay. Some of that information can be painstakingly pieced together by navigating across all the different menus lamented above (and your car/parts design screen resets every time, so be ready to reselect those design settings many, many times over - hope you remember the slider positions!). Other information doesn't seem to be available at all: the game gives target demographics for each car model, for example - e.g. 35-55, middle income, female (bit mysterious for a pickup truck in 1910s Europe but let's roll with it) - but what you're supposed to compare that to is a complete mystery. I couldn't find any reference to these variables anywhere else in the game, let alone the kind of demographic or economic breakdown by country/region that would allow to make meaningful use of them.

What finally did for me - and this is always a challenge for business sims, and strategy games in general, to be fair - was the transition from early to mid-game. After heroically struggling over the above hurdles, paying off my initial debt, getting a few sellable cars on the market and building a decent stock portfolio, it was time to plan my expansion into a third regional market - and I just couldn't face the work. The hard, exciting part is over, and now you have nothing to look forward to but repeating the same process over and over again, with increasing complexity but less challenge, and no additional elements of strategy or gameplay.

Dev: Please do make a sequel, and get some help with the UI design process. There's at least another £16 coming your way if you do.

CampingRamen
CampingRamen

I went into this not expecting much. I've enjoyed Automation's career mode multiple times, and I expected that that would be better.

I was wrong.

In terms of the business end of things, this is the best car company simulator I have ever played. It is, in every sense of the word, a masterpiece in its field. The business mechanics are great, the car design, while behind Automation, is still a fun experience, and the entire package is very fun.

Graphics aren't great, and if you came to GearCity's page expecting otherwise, you should head out. Its not meant to be a pretty game. It's meant to be a fun game, and it succeeds in that field.

Definitely a must-buy for anyone who enjoys cars.

MichaelBubly
MichaelBubly

Autosave didn't work and lost a little over 2 hours of gameplay. Hard crashed to desktop twice in 11 hours. Unless you save often the game just isn't worth it.

Sir Trout
Sir Trout

Definitely a good buy! Game is very deep with kept statistics and items you can manage yourself. There is an option to have the AI run your sales, marketing and manufacturing if you wish. I am still in the learning and messing around phase and have not been able to start a successful business in the 1900 start year. If you chose a later start time, it is a bit easier, but I've been picking Brazil as an HQ as it has no auto industries there. The issue I am having is they have low income ($56 per capita to something like the USA $300+) and can't yet seem to make money there on the cars I design.

What I really enjoy is the designing features of the game. Creating vehicles and seeing the specs change is pretty cool. Want to put a 2-stroke 1 cylinder in a car, you can to that. Not the best reviews, but you can. Also, after you send your vehicle out into production, it will be tested and reviewed by publishers. One of mine was prone to catch on fire and explode, which reminded me of some old cars in our day.

Your company has it's own showroom, which is more like a museum. It keeps a record and shows the progression of your company, cars built and their sales and such.

Some of the other things I enjoy. If you just want to build parts and license them out to other manufactures, seems like you can. Or you can import parts from others if you don't want to make your own. You can also bid on military contracts for a country. I think that is an awesome feature. Russia was looking for a 1600hp ship engine and had no maximum price point. They gave me some maximum specs for the design, like weight, width and length and I could play with it from there.

Also cool is the array of options when designing engines. For you motor heads, type of blocks, # of cylinders, valve orientation, steam power, 2-stroke, diesel, electric. But you need to make sure the engine is going to fit in your frame. You can increase the block's CI but then it may not fit into the frame. Can't go bigger in the bock, then add different turbos, a supercharger, heads or switch it over to a diesel setup and see what the output looks like.

This game has a lot to it and is educational on many levels. If there was a gripe about the game it would probably be the interface. It could be that I'm still learning where things are, but I'm not sure if I like it yet.

The tutorials are good. There is the main one and then mini ones will pop up after you hit certain buttons. You have the option to skip them if you wish.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Addictive automotive tycoon game. Interface is clunky but the game is amazingly immersive. Definitely worth getting.

YBTHEKING
YBTHEKING

Great game, great dev´s...Put some hours into this title, a sure buy!

rudra
rudra

Idk man why this game is so underrated it deserves way more popularity, its so complex and enjoyable, must buy if you are a car guy 10/10. love the game also the developer is so friendly!

blxz
blxz

It's bloody good. There is considerable complexity but very little of it feels like complexity purely for complexities sake. Everything has a place and a reason. I love the fact that the player is subtly forced to make compromises. Nothing stops you making the concept car of the century but like most concept cars you don't expect to make many of them or make money selling them. But even then they serve a purpose in pushing the limits of your engineering skills. It feels like there is a living, breathing world hiding behind the simulation and the game is richer and more fulfilling as a result.

Borgir
Borgir

Fantastic economic simulation and business sim. Car design is a bit lacking compared to automation but the business sim aspect more then makes up for it.