Preview | Cartel Tycoon

Lifeisxbox’s Cartel Tycoon Preview | Last time I ever played a tycoon game was a while ago, and I couldn’t put down my mouse until my girlfriend told me that it was time. So I was excited to play Cartel Tycoon and enjoy that genre again. It came as no surprise that Moon Moose showed us their best efforts for this game. So let’s see what I thought about the gameplay and how it can maybe be your very next tycoon game!

About the game

I had quite some mixed feelings about Cartel Tycoon, but they worked out eventually. When you start the game, you have to perform tasks to become rich, which sounds normal. You are this big mafia boss trying to sell his merchandise to become the next criminal mastermind! But that can be hard. What shouldn’t be complicated is figuring out how to actually stay afloat and perform the quests. I had quite a few occasions where I wanted to throw my keyboard out of the window.
But given some patience, I found myself busy at all times. From the way I was trying to hide opium, all the way to trying to conquer new territories, I had quite a blast! Just such a shame that you can’t assign 2 tasks to a single lieutenant.

It just takes a fair bit of practice and experience to fully optimize how you should run your very own empire. And this is a good thing because the last thing I would want is to buy a game, which turns out to be an actual walk in the park, without a single way to make it harder! So it is an excellent game to go from being a novice in the genre to becoming an expert!

Game speed

When it comes down to building out an empire and having a fair shot, I must say you will run into the occasional struggle. If you don’t ramp up quickly enough, you will get a bit stuck if the police start raiding you. So the best tip I can give you to avoid all the linked frustration is to pay close attention to the bottom left of the screen, where quests give you hints on what to focus on. So keep that city pleased and under control! Because that way, you will have the most optimal empire possible. This can be hard for beginners since Cartel Tycoon really requires you to stick your head to the flow. Otherwise, you might get lost in what’s going on. Great for people who want to try and be the very best, but I am afraid that the speed at which this Tycoon develops might be too much for casual players.

Final thoughts

If you have 20 dollars to burn on this early access game, then I can advise you to actually give Cartel Tycoon a shot. Only if you are really into the genre, though, and if you are looking for something opium-related with some territorial defending as a funny plot twist. But I can’t recommend Cartel Tycoon as a first-time tycoon game for new players since it is hard. If you aren’t used to managing the multiple elements in the game genre, you will get lost otherwise. So great pickup to try (if you can look past some of the early aspect items that need some smoothing out) and have fun on if you are a novice in tycoon games! Let us know on socials what you thought about the preview and the game!