Construction games online and offline

There are many fun games online, but some of the best and most popular involve creating things. FarmVille’s phenomenal success over the last year is due to that creative drive. Growing crops and running a farm has great appeal. Some games that adapt to the urge to “do” in a very straightforward way are building games.

There are many online games to play online for free and there are also PC and console games.

Some games are pure construction, others have a great construction element to the game. Examples of the latter include Tycoon games, which are in a sense business games, but in which the player needs to accumulate assets to earn more money and continue. There are also empire building games like Rise of Nations, where cities must be built and managed so that revenue can flow to equip armies.

One of the purest building games is ‘Bridge It’. The object is simple. You have limited funds to spend on materials to build a bridge. The challenge is to make a structure strong enough to withstand the passage of trucks or trains. The fun is partly the building, with its true-to-life rules of physics, and partly watching the trains crash into the abyss or bounce to a triumphant conclusion.

Railroad Tycoon 2 was one of the most successful games of its time. The goal is to build railroads and get rich. Now it’s getting old, but it still offers a lot of fun and play. Zoo Tycoon is also worth mentioning. The 3D environment and exhibits you need to build in your zoo make for a satisfying experience.

Tropico 3 has been very successful in recent years. You are in charge of a tropical island and you need to guide it to a bright and prosperous future. This is a fun game if you don’t mind playing like a person of doubtful morals. As Generalissimo of Banana Republic, you only have bribery or terror tactics to control your population. They will annoy the Americans and they will invade, which is almost as bad as the hurricanes that sometimes appear.

The Age of Empire series involves making your villagers work well as your Empire expands. The Rise of Nations installment of that series is one of the best strategy games ever made. Also worth mentioning are ‘Colonos’ and ‘Caesar’.

Sid Meir is a legend in the world of simulation games. He was largely responsible for the Railroad Tycoon series, as well as Civilization and Colonization.

This is the best of many city building games. Sim City 4 offers the opportunity to build and manage everything from megacities to small towns with a satisfying degree of realism.

There are dozens of online games geared toward satisfying the urge to build. One of the purely nest building games is Cargo Bridge. You design a bridge in blue print mode and then send your little workers out to fetch some supplies. As you cross the bridges you have built, there is a satisfactory amount of jerking and bouncing as the wood and steel structures react to loads. Bad design means your workers plummet into the abyss when the bridge collapses!

There are also Lego-style brick building sets, electrical circuit sets, plumbing sets, and physics-based wrecking sets, for when the creative drive gives way to the exhilaration of destruction.

The little ones are served with games that are similar to dress-up games in their format. Rather than makeup and clothing to attract interest, there are building styles to select from and color schemes to explore. Daisy Construction Crew is a good example of this type of game.

It would be fun to know if any of these games have sparked interest in a career in architecture or the construction industry! There is probably a young Leonardo da Vinci out there right now!