Venture Africa

“Why, you’re beautiful, Miss Carrilou!” Those were the words I kept hoping Dr. Willoughby would utter to his traveling companion, kicking off a sequence of events ending in a May-September scandal. Willoughby would lose his seat at Oxford, and they would suffer the barbs of society but live happily for a time.

None of this happens, of course, for Venture Africa is a tycoon or “god game,” and Willoughby and Carrilou aren’t the main attraction. They only float serenely in a hot air balloon above the African savanna. From their vantage point you command the universe. Rain falls, trees spring from the ground, and animals move at your command. It’s a bit unsettling but fun.

In the Story mode, your resources are flowers used to buy animals and jewels used to buy environmental features, such as rain (creating watering holes) or trees and shrubs. The goal of each level is to create a sustainable ecosystem. Each animal has different needs and different ways of fulfilling them. For example, flamingos need water but no food. Zebras need both food from shrubs and water, while the plains lion has a taste for yummy zebra meat.

The game accepts death as a natural part of life, so experimentation with placing different animals in different places is encouraged. The natural desire to hoard one’s jewels is counterbalanced by interesting reward mechanics. You only get a reward when all animals have reached a certain threshold. This prevents you from structuring a savanna that can support an infinite number of flamingos. Furthermore, you can only hold a certain number of jewels at once, so if you don’t spend them you may lose them. Figuring out where and when to deploy new resources is the crux of the game. Getting it right takes careful analysis. New animals are introduced one at a time, so it isn’t overwhelmingly complex right out of the gate.

Venture Africa is marketed as a casual game, but this designation isn’t quite right. It does share some structural attributes with casual games (level-based, approachable art style, and a fairly relaxed pace). However, it is fundamentally a more ambitious game than Bejeweled. This game takes effort and concentration, and there is no saving your position in the middle. There’s no such thing as a “quick” game, and I’m the sort of gamer who likes to be able to play games incrementally. A save function would be a great addition for the Mac version sequel coming soon.

Tycoon games, at their worst, can be mind-numbing spreadsheet crunchers where the “game” reduces to “click this button again.” Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa avoids this trap neatly and delivers a game where the primary means of advancement is not clicking, but thinking. That’s refreshing.