The niche war that 10 people have been waiting to hear about!

What are these games?

Both are recent airport simulation/tycoon games that are vaguely inspired by Prison Architect. They allow you to build and manage an airport, are in early access, and are being developed by two small indie studios.

Because both games are in early access, it is important to take that into consideration when determining the “value” of each game. Sim Airport has been in development for a further 6 months than Airport CEO, so keep that in mind as well.

Also, note that both games have very similar goals and design choices, and neither is really that much less quality than the other. The choice may come down to nitpicking more than anything. This isn’t like a comparison between Planet Coaster and Rollercoaster Tycoon World!

1. Communication – Draw

Minus the issue I have with the walls of text and massive paragraphs that are in the Airport CEO devblogs, both developers do offer good communication with their buyers. Both have regular updates, devblogs, forum interaction, and even the odd vlog.

2. Terminal Exterior Construction – Complicated Draw

I like the addition of bus stops, construction drop off, parking, and 2-way roads that can be placed pretty much anywhere in ACEO as actual props. There’s also service roads and service gates, a nice addition for the behind the scenes areas. You can even place these at the start without any slow research!

This would put ACEO at the top; however, you can get around this in SA by zoning a drop off point away from the main road, painting it to look like the concrete bus stop like in ACEO, and drawing two one-way roads next to each other in opposite directions to make your own 2-way roads. With the one way roads, you can also build roundabouts, and add decorations in the middle! Decorations is something that SA has plenty of, which is what would give SA the lead.

But then, ACEO also gives you varying taxiways and runways, such as the grass ones. These give the airport a much greater sense of progression, and allow you to build a simple grass airport on the cheap before moving on. It reminds me of building a small, simple convenience store in Another Brick in the Mall, and adding more complex stores as time goes on, rather than starting with the biggest. Would have been nice to have even more airport variations, which I discussed in an earlier blog post.

For customization and design, SA is better. For gameplay/progression, ACEO is a bit better. Overall, neither is really that more or less restrictive than the other.

3. Terminal Interior Construction – Sim Airport

So both games use a foundation system, with builders who place each wall and object. Both offer a lot of options for designing your airport, and also allow you to zone areas for specific uses. They are both pretty good!

At launch, it may have been a draw for both games. However, SA has taken the lead with:

Moving pathways

Multiple floors

Multiple floors (its worth two bullet points!)

Much more furniture and flooring

Finer control of foundation size

Planning mode

SA does lack (or at least I think it lacks) colour customization for objects. Regardless, the large number of choices outweigh that.

In SA, the control tower and aircraft gates should probably be under construction and not objects. Or, the two should be called “Interior” and “Exterior”, which might be an even better way of doing it.

4. Overall Immersion – Airport CEO

Admittedly, the immersion ACEO tries to offer can sometimes be at its detriment. A big example is the tablet-style user interface, which tries to make you feel like you are using a professional application or running a serious simulation rather than a much nicer, and more streamlined, PC game-style user interface. Plus, there are annoying spam emails!

Nonetheless, the game tries. You can name yourself, name your airport, and pick a (limited) appearance, from a collection of creepy faces. Ok, that doesn’t sound great but with a custom paint tool or image importer that would be great! I don’t even think you can name the airport in SA.

You can also choose a location, which doesn’t seem to affect gameplay. But it does make you feel more immersed, at least if you go along with it. I’m sure some simple, general rules can be applied that certain coordinates will have better or worse weather, and that certain locations will either be more tourist focussed or more business focussed. Even if it’s very broad, it would add to the immersion, and make your choice more important.

The game also tries to remind you constantly that you are the CEO, and it does its best to make you feel important with letters addressed to you and emails. Workers don’t just magically appear either, you need a contract. You need contract for most things in the game, and whilst this can be slightly annoying in some situations, it still adds to the immersion.

Better streamlining of these features to make them less awkward, while maintaining the aesthetic and feel of ACEO, would really make the immersion more welcoming.

5. User Interface – Sim Airport

At launch, SA had a graphical user interface that was a little on the ugly side, and probably a bit too close to Prison Architect’s. After many updates, it is now far more stylish and still much easier to use than ACEO’s.

It might not add any immersion like ACEO’s attempts to do, but it gets the job done and makes the game more fun and fluid.

6. Tutorials – Another Complicated Draw

Technically, ACEO is the winner here. It at least contains a tutorial, and it is actually really nice. There are clear objectives, clear descriptions, and a way to skip tutorials. It’s much better than the one that the game launched with!

However, SA doesn’t need one for most things. 99% of the game is much more streamlined, easier to understand, and in some ways geared more towards customization and design than management that it somewhat allows the player to teach themselves.

In ACEO, I still get confused by a few things like how staff shifts work or how holding points work for planes on the taxiways.

Winner – Sim Airport

Both games are still in development with passionate developers, and ACEO is getting a major user interface update soon! At the moment, SA is more fun and gives you more design options. The extra management that is in ACEO, doesn’t add much more challenge as it does tedium, but I do hope with the GUI updates that it improves!

I will do a further analysis of both in the future when more updates have come out. Who knows, each game might take a different turn. Until then, bye!

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Further Improvements to Both

Proper car parks and parking tickets

Larger capacity roads for many cars

Transport to/from large car parks (airport car parks are always huge!)

More airport types with more progression between each one

More flight and plane types with more airport requirements