PopTop Software and Gathering of Developers have announced that Tropico, a new strategy game for PC and Mac, has gone gold master. Well, the PC version has anyway — it’s expected to hit stores this month. The companies say that the Mac version of the game is coming next month.
Tropico is a real-time strategy game developed by the same company that created Railroad Tycoon II. In Tropico, you’re the newly installed dictator of a Caribbean island. It’s up to you to figure out the best way to run your new government. You can build more than 85 different and unique structures to help your people — housing, schools, marketplaces, clinics, factories, mining facilities, tourist attractions and more.
It’s also up to you to figure out how you’ll govern your people — will you be a benevolent leader, trying to bring your people into the modern era healthy, well-educated, and self-sufficient? Or will you rule with an iron fist, bleeding resources and money from your country just to satisfy your own greed? You’ll live and die by the decisions you make.
Although the game unquestionably draws inspiration from titles like Sim City, it isn’t just an open-ended game with no goals other than to stay in power. Tropico has specific play modes that encourage players to focus on building up their populations to a specific level, embezzling money to a Swiss bank account, and so on.
System requirements haven’t yet been published for the Macintosh version. It’s a single player game, however, and sports optional 3D graphic hardware acceleration.