Tycoon style games

So my wife is starting her maternaty leave as we count down the last couple weeks until our son is born. She was wanting to pass the time with a tycoon style game. Any recommendations on what she should play? She prefers to play on the PC. Thanks for all the help!

If you like Rollercoaster Tycoon, Planet Coaster is a good one from what I hear. Most people consider it to be the spiritual successor to Rollercoaster Tycoon 3. If you want something closer to Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 (2D Rollercoaster Tycoon), Parkitect.

And if you're willing to endure games that are like older than 10 years, Zoo Tycoon was one of my favorites. If you don't want to buy the new Jurassic Evolution game, this filled that itch for creating a dino theme park in the day. I also heard that Jurassic Park Operation Genesis is good too.

Those are probably the more obvious ones, here are some others:

• Theme Hospital
• Dungeon Keeper (not the mobile game)
• Game Dev Tycoon

@acura_max: thank you very much for your suggestions!

@adam914: Also if you and your wife like city simulators, here are some suggestions:

• Cities: Skylines
• Sim City 4 Tropico
• Crusaders Kings 2 (not sure about this one)

I think it depends on what you enjoy or want out of a tycoon type game.

Specifically with amusement park games for example: if you just liked building cool rides and designing fun theme parks, Planet Coaster is great for that. The game is all about freedom and creativity, and building to your heart's content. But if you want more challenge and enjoyed more of the business/management aspects of the game, there are elements of the old RCT games that are not present in modern theme park sims. I've been going back to Rollercoaster Tycoon 1 on my phone recently, and that game is still incredibly fun and challenging. RCT3 is really good too, and is probably the best blend of challenge and fun that i want out of those games.

Moving on from theme park games, I've heard good things about the last Zoo Tycoon game they put out on Xbox One. It started out kinda thin and rough, but it sounds like they put a lot of work into it post-launch, and seems good if you're into that. There's also Project Highrise, which is a tower management sim that is pretty good. If Game Dev Tycoon interests you, just know that there is a free mobile version that's very similar (just less fully-featured), so you might want to give that a shot before purchasing on steam. Lastly there's a bunch of stuff on steam if you look for "management" type games, like SimAirport, Startup Company, etc, that are the same tycoon idea but applied to different concepts/situations.

Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe is still fantastic. Gameplay holds up. Just search for it to download for free.

@captain_insano: seriously that game is great. It was hard for me to get into it but once I got in I spent hours building new systems between cities and growing the cities that were connected.

I was a big fan of Theme Park on PC back in the day. An oldie but goodie.

@captain_insano: It's been a while since I played OTT, I am glad that there are still stable releases of the game. Do consider it if you can, I know you won't regret it at all.

People seemed to like Prison Architect? I played a bunch of Planet Coaster a few weeks ago, and it was a lot of fun. Theme Hospital is old, but holds up pretty well.

Does she like soccer? Football Manager is great (also ootp for baseball)

Game Dev Tycoon is pretty fun for a while, although it's a bit too random and trying to keep playing after end game is very difficult

Alot of Tycoon games have been mentioned already, I'll add in any of the Impressions City Builders .

For a tycoon-like experience I would recommend something like Rimworld. It has a ton of management mechanics while also adding in survival and some procedural storytelling! Very good game.

Also, Factorio is dope. That might count as a tycoon game?

This game is fun because the game actually tracks discoveries for you from run/playthrough to run/playthrough, so you don't have to memorize everything you've learned. Makes subsequent runs more enjoyable than some other games.