A complete review of the Casino Inc. game: spin the roulette, gentlemen!
Today we will talk with you about the game that allowed you to look behind the closed doors of the casino. She made a real boom among lovers of green cloth, one-armed bandits and the frenzied atmosphere of a gambling house. We are talking about the casino corporation, which was released in 2003. The number of its fans, for the entire time of its existence, has far exceeded 1 million, today we will finally figure out why Casino Inc attracts players around the world.
Welcome to the casino
First of all, the game belongs to the genre of an economic simulator, and accordingly you have to build, maintain and develop a casino corporation. You will buy tables for roulette, poker, blackjack, hire staff, bouncers, croupiers, security guards and promote your establishment in every possible way. For this, a variety of advertising, transport leading straight to the casino and other ways to attract customers are available.
Before you start the gameplay, you need to decide on the level of difficulty. It depends on which of the three cities you are located. They differ in size, the presence of competitive establishments and the maximum number of visitors. As soon as the choice is made, you get to the auction, where you have to buy a building where the future casino will be located. At the beginning, the game will give simple tasks aimed at expanding the treasury and obtaining new amenities. As soon as all tasks are completed, the game goes into free mode, in which you have no restrictions. Now let’s take a closer look at your duties as a casino owner and the features of game mechanics.
Your casino, your rules
Visitors to the gambling house can be a variety of representatives of social groups – teenagers, pensioners, ordinary hard workers and the rich, with a crispy patty of green banknotes. Since you are the owner of the casino, you can independently set up who will be able to enter the gambling establishment and who will not. To do this, the face control function is included in the game, the bouncers will not let in unwanted visitors.
Depending on who your casino is designed for, you will have to do everything to make visitors feel comfortable. If most often the wealthy masses of the population come to the institution, then you will have to increase the amount of the minimum and maximum bets on roulette, blackjack, poker. It is also necessary to add additional services that will bring even more profit. For example, you can build an expensive hotel on the upper floors of the building, purchase an elite transfer for visitors, and place a restaurant downstairs. In it, players can taste delicious snacks or order food to their room. All staff should consist exclusively of professionals, because people who have money are used to receiving high-quality service. However, it is important to consider that, making a choice in favor of the rich, you need to refuse other visitors.
If representatives of the proletariat appear in the casino, then the reputation of the gambling house will quickly decrease, which will negatively affect your profits. The emotions of visitors are reflected above their heads, so you can immediately react and kick out the objectionable player.
If your choice fell on poor people, then consider all the ensuing features. Rates must be as low as possible and start from $5, otherwise you will lose all profits. Unlike the rich, there are much more representatives of the lower and middle class, so your income will depend on the number of visitors to the gambling establishment.
To increase the number of customers, it is recommended to lay a free bus route, the final stop of which will be your casino. In a restaurant, it is best to choose a more budgetary menu – hamburgers, fast food and other cheap junk food.
The poor do not need waiters and helpful workers, it is enough to have a low price for food, minimum rates. As an additional entertainment, you can install a cinema and independently regulate films, prices and products in it.
As your casino grows, you will have the opportunity to purchase additional customer acquisition tools. These include: billboards on the streets of the city, eye-catching signs and new gambling houses. However, do not forget that with a large number of visitors come big problems. It is necessary to constantly monitor how employees perform their duties, regulate their wages, hire and fire staff. It is also important to preserve the image of the institution – to ensure that unwanted elements do not appear in the form of “night butterflies”, bankrupt customers, spies from competitors. You can’t have the police interested in your establishment.
Success is in your hands!
Now let’s talk about working with staff and clients, which will take you half of the game time. Since the management of the casino corporation falls on your shoulders, it is necessary to strictly monitor the professionalism of the hired employees. Only experienced personnel who clearly fulfill their obligations should apply for the position of croupier, bouncer, security guards.
He must immediately recognize a rich man who is ready to fork out a round sum and a bully who wants to destroy the institution.
However, for the first time in the lists of applicants you will not have very professional employees, you will have to constantly look at resumes in order to find more suitable candidates.
Particular attention should be paid to the croupier, on which the mood of visitors and the success of your establishment depends. An employee may turn out to be a cheater, a scammer, or just a non-professional, whose actions will negatively affect the impression of the players. Therefore, you need to filter applicants, monitor how they are doing their job, fire old and hire new staff. Also in the casino, you can hire special controllers who will monitor the situation in the hall.
Identify cheating players, bad croupiers, and then report it to you. Again, only experienced employees of the control service will be able to see the scammers.
The larger the casino corporation becomes, the more responsibilities you have, you need to be involved in every aspect of the gambling establishment. You will have to deal with complaints from staff and customers, mess with advertising contracts, keep order in the hall. The process is not automated, so if conflicts arise, you need to separate the fighters yourself. Employees do not want to make independent decisions and, at the same time, rarely follow your orders. If you want to succeed, then see how the staff works, how the visitors behave. Otherwise, you will not be able to increase the treasury, but you will also lose the money you already have.
The style and graphics of the game
As for the general component of the game and its style, it is a classic economic simulator with all the ensuing shortcomings. Your every step is logically determined and entails predictable consequences. The outcome of the game is known in advance – either shame or glory, depending on whether you manage to develop the casino to a corporation or not. Difficulties arise mainly at the first stage of the game, it is not for nothing that you can often find explanatory articles on the Internet. There are also questions about the advertising campaign. For example, a game offers to spend a large amount of budgetary funds to attract new customers, while you can simply eliminate competitors and become a monopolist in the gambling industry.
Separately, it is worth talking about the style. The selected graphics, which are related to “children’s” and are often used in indie projects, look out of place in a casino game. However, the developers tried and did a good job on the animation. The little people will rejoice at winning or rage at a loss, and clouds with thoughts appear above their heads, allowing them to know their desires. The casino corporation is moving away from the standard image of a gambling house created by Hollywood. The creators have created a taunt that features “priestesses of love”, violent showdowns in basements and teenagers who dream of ice cream, who will buy with winnings from a one-armed bandit. Despite the fact that the developers compare the game with the movie “Casino”, which made a splash at the end of the 20th century, both projects have nothing in common.
The graphic features include detailing, over which the developers of the studio really tried. You will be able to see the smallest details: from the garbage on the floor to the films broadcast on the screen of the cinema. These minute details add more realism to the game and distinguish it from other simulation strategies. You can feel like a real casino director and feel all the consequences that follow from this.
What does a casino sound like?
When it comes to a gaming establishment that has several floors and many employees, the sound design cannot be mentioned. At Casino Inc, it does not stand up to scrutiny. The virtual world immerses players in a cacophony in which only regulars or real fans of gambling can calmly exist. Disco, as a background soundtrack, although tolerable, does not cause any special emotions.
At the same time, the developers added the ability to choose musical accompaniment for guests. Each group of visitors will have their own wishes, the rich love blues or jazz, teenagers and the proletariat – rap, rock, and pensioners – pop. Among other things, in the background you will always hear the sound of chips on the gambling table, the sound of the ball hitting the sides of the roulette wheel, the rustle of cards. All together creates a unique atmosphere close to a real casino.
General impression
The casino corporation rightfully occupies an honorable place in the history of economic simulators and strategies. Popular in 2004, it remains in demand among connoisseurs of games of the past to this day. Casino Inc does not differ in a well-developed plot or tasks, most of them are aimed only at a certain course in the development of a gambling establishment. However, the developers have added well-designed graphics to the project with interesting animation and many small details that will make you feel like a real casino owner. Sound accompaniment is added to this, you can hear all the sounds that are found in the gambling house, feel this atmosphere even through the screen.
The virtual world is filled with colorful characters, differing not only in their financial condition, but also in their field of activity. You will meet “harlots”, thugs knocking money out of debtors, bouncers, controllers. Separately, it is worth noting that you independently regulate the contingent allowed to visit the gambling house – it can be the rich or the poor, pensioners or businessmen.
As for the interface, it corresponds to the level of its time. Cumbersome buttons, although logically organized, now cause inconvenience. For example, it is difficult to play at Casino Inc on modern computers, because of the high resolution of the screen it is difficult to hit buttons the size of a little finger.
In general, this game is intended for fans of old simulators who want to remember the past or for those who lack fun in gray everyday life. The casino corporation, with a cacophony of sounds, eye-catching colors and an off-scale concentration of excitement, will give a large portion of humor.
If you want to feel competitive, prove that you can manage an entire casino corporation, eliminate all other owners of gambling houses, then this game is created especially for you. The developers have added all the components of the casino: music, staff, specific visitors, as well as cunning competitors, so the atmosphere in the virtual world is as close to the real one as possible. The main thing, as in all gambling, is not to overdo it.
Link to download the official version of the game on Steam: go to steam
Video with a review and a complete walkthrough of the game: