Cruisopolis: Cruise Line Tycoon

Your ship. Your line. Every deck.

Start with a small river cruiser on the Rhine and work your way up the shipyard: a coastal cruiser, a mid-size liner, a resort ship and finally a megaship with fourteen decks and thousands of guests. Every ship comes as a bare hull (or yard-fitted, or used, with a quirk or two), and the inside is yours to design.

Build it deck by deck

• Lay out cabins, from interior cabins to balcony suites, then stamp a whole row along a corridor and copy a finished deck onto the next.
  
• Dining rooms, buffets, a specialty restaurant, bars, pools and hot tubs, a theatre, a spa, a gym, a kids' club, shops and a casino lounge.
  
• A water park on the top deck: a three-storey tube slide tower, a drop slide called the Plunge, a surf machine and a splash pad.
  
• The parts guests never see: galleys, stores, the laundry, crew cabins and their mess, the engine room and the bridge.
  
• Every ship floats on real weight and balance: build too heavy on one side and she lists.

Run the whole operation

• Hire nineteen kinds of crew, from deckhands and chefs to stewards, nurses, entertainers and the captain. Set their shifts, give them berths and a mess, and keep their morale up.
  
• Wire the power, plumb the fresh water and sewage, keep the air conditioning ahead of a Caribbean summer and the fuel ahead of the next port.
  
• Order the provisions and watch them carried aboard and stowed before you sail.

Keep thousands of guests happy

Every guest is simulated: they sleep in their own cabin, queue for dinner, look for a drink, a deck chair, a show or a swim, and write a review of the voyage at the end. Couples, families, retirees and the party crowd all want different things. Price the cabins, fill the ship, and read what they really thought.

Then see what happens when it goes wrong

The sandbox lets you set off the worst day at sea, and the ship really handles it. Nobody ever gets hurt: everyone is rescued, soaked, sooty or inked, and the reviews are brutal.

• A kraken rises alongside, drags the loungers under and wraps the funnel. Turn the fire hoses on it and sound the horn.
  
• Stack the pools too high and she lists, the deck chairs slide, and one crowd at the rail rolls her right over.
  
• Pirates out of the dark: searchlights, sound cannons and razor wire, or they empty the casino.
  
• Lightning storms that black her out, rogue waves over the bow, engine room explosions, slides that launch guests overboard.
  
• Pack her four times over, sell $900 cocktails, sail without the guests still running down the quay.

Sail between real ports

Plan itineraries on the Rhine, along the Norwegian coast and through the Caribbean. Watch her sail between ports, meet storms and seasick guests, send excursions ashore by tender, and deal with what goes wrong: fires, breakdowns, outbreaks and the odd guest over the side (they always get fished out).

Grow the line

• File certificates and upgrades at the purser's office to carry more guests and sail further.
  
• Follow every dollar: the money, the crew, the guests and every voyage on charts and report cards.
  
• Take loans and charters, trade up to a bigger ship, and climb from one star to five.
  
• A campaign of six chapters from your first river cruise to the megaship, a free-play sandbox, and a creative mode with unlimited money.