Ahhh, Las Vegas in the 1950s. Minimal taxation, unregulated gambling, and limitless possibilities. It was a place where wealth beyond measure would spring from the desert sands for those shrewd enough to reach out and grab it. We are talking, of course, about the casino business, which is what Curve Games' upcoming management sim, Blooming Business: Casino, will be charting in its own unique way.
You, as a fledgling casino manager, have been tasked with reviving a rundown casino on the outskirts of Las Venas (no points for guessing what it's based on). Pick gaudy themes for your casino—from Roman antiquity to cosmic sci-fi—learn about your clientele, and keep them coming back for another pop at the jackpot. By training up a veritable A-Team of pitbosses to make sure that your staff on the floor are doing their job (with an iron fist if necessary), and by unlocking unique skills to increase efficiency, those tightly secured vaults of yours will start filling in no time.
As you make a name for yourself in the casino world, you'll eventually get to run bigger casinos with greater potential, slowly working your way towards the bright lights of the Las Venas strip. Build megalithic casinos across multiple floors, expertly designed to keep your clientele spending. You'll need to take care of your clientele too; each person passing through your doors has their own unique needs, so dazzle them with musical performances, keep them entertained, and ensure their drinks are always topped up so that they feel—shall we say—'inspired' to roll big and roll rashly.
But with cops on one side, the mob on the other, and the press always snooping around for the big scoop, you'll need to manage far more than just the people hitting the tables and slot machines. Police Special Agent Nat Kiddin, for example, can help keep order on the floor, but won't be too keen on rubbing shoulders with undesirables in your casino. Conversely, mobster Tony Barr will ruthlessly keep clients in line, but if you fail to keep him happy then don't be surprised if things start getting broken, or staff start to mysteriously go missing.
Despite being a management sim that lets you endlessly optimise your layouts and maximise your profits, Blooming Business: Casino is as much about story generation as it is about business management. Each of the various 'VIP' characters has their own narrative, and how you interact with their stories will drastically alter your rags-to-riches story as well as the play experience: do you get the mob to help manage your casino, for instance, or the police? Beyond the hand-crafted stories, the simulation itself will generate countless unique stories simply through how the different agents, VIPs, and complex clientele of your casino clash with each other.
This is far from your typical 'serious' kind of simulation however. One of the questions the dev team at Homo Ludens asked themselves is 'why have boring human character models when you can make them all anthropomorphic animals instead?' So instead of the sweaty cowboys and cackling high-rollers you'd find in a real casino, you'll instead find your place populated by their animal equivalents. All your employees are different bird species—from cockatoos, to owls, to parakeets—while the people passing through will range from raccoons, to deer, bears, cats, and other diverse animal species (which were decided on with the community's help).
If you don't want to work your way to the top in the campaign, then kick back and get creative in the sandbox mode instead, which removes all restrictions in building the casino of your dreams. In creative mode, every tech, decoration, theme and game will be available to you from the start, while the endless mode lets you set your starting parameters, then progress through the tech tree and unlock new items from there.
Whether you're an ambitious mogul who wants to rise to the top of the casino business by any means necessary, or you just want to watch your hand-crafted casino in full flow as the colourful little animal people scurry around it, Blooming Business: Casino will cater to your management style. You can wishlist Blooming Business: Casino on Steam now in time for its release on May 23, join the Discord community (where you'll get to subscribe to playtests), and follow the game on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.
