Big Pharma (Windows/Linux)

[Arkanna]

http://www.bigpharmagame.com/

Big Pharma is a PC game that's been in beta testing for some time now. It's now ready for a full release, and that happens this Thursday afternoon at 4:00PM eastern time on Steam.

What is it?

Big Pharma is a business-lite drug manufacturing simulation/puzzle game. Essentially you play the role of overseer of a drug corporation. There are currently 25+ scenarios across 5+ difficulty settings. You are given a "plot" of office space which is chosen randomly. Each plot is made up of several different rooms, each with inlet/outlet ports in the walls. You must use the space you have available to build assembly lines to manipulate your ingredients into useful/sellable drugs.

You are given a number of random starting ingredients, with the ability to add a lot more through exploration. You hire explorers (and scientists) to find more ingredients and upgrade your technology. When idle, explorers and scientists add research points which you can spend to decrease the cost of ingredients or improve your already-researched technology.

The idea is to meet the criteria of your current scenario to win. Each scenario, outside of the tutorials, offer different levels of achievement, with normal, expert, and master levels to shoot for.

Why should I check it out?

It's crazy addictive.

It has the following features:

• Tech Trees - There are two tech trees; one for scientific research, and one for exploration. For the research tree, you hire scientists (at $30/day) to research new machines or to amass research points while idle. Those points can be spent to improve your current technology by making individual machines cost less to operate, perform their function more efficiently, or perform new functions. For the exploration tree, you hire explorers ($50/day) to search for new ingredients for you to manufacture into drugs with new effects,, use at catalysts for upgrading other drugs, or to amass exploration points when idle. Those points can be spent to reduce the import costs of your ingredients. I guess the exploration side isn't a "tech tree" by its strict definition.
• Business-lite competition - You have AI opponents who will develop drugs to compete with you. Their products can be better than yours, and they can oversaturate the market, which drives prices down on your products. Newly added to the game are espionage (where your opponents can spy on your products and vice versa) and patents (where both you and your opponents can prevent others from selling identical products for a period of time).
• Tetris-like puzzle play - Each machine has a particular shape, with its various inputs and outputs in different places. Some machines take a longer time to produce their results and must be placed in sets of 2, 3, or even more to be the most efficient. And all these machines need to be connected to inputs (to bring in ingredients) and outputs (to sell finished products) by conveyor belts that can turn at 90 degrees, have T-junctions, and have 4-way cross belts.

What's it cost?

Currently, it's $19.95 US. I don't know if it will stay that price or not. It is currently single-player only, but I could see it evolving into multiplayer at some point.

Once again, it'll be available this Thursday on Steam, with support for Linux starting then I think. I'm really surprised it hasn't been mentioned on here (maybe it has and I just can't search for shit, I dunno). It's very good stuff, I highly recommend it.

[Necronus]

Good game, bought it earlier in beta and crushed the first few levels, then let it sit while I waited for full release changes. I look forward to playing again.

Edit: While this game isn't made by Positech, it is published by and hosted on its forums. Positech makes some of the best games for people who love designing things or who love games that are giant piles of spreadsheets. I liked all of Gratuitous Space Battles, Gratuitous Tank Battles, and Democracy 3