Think you have what it takes to run your own company? GOG now has Startup Company (with Linux builds) available for you to see if you can build a successful business.

Disclosure : Key provided by GOG.

About the game:

Startup Company is a business simulation sandbox game. You play as the CEO of a newly formed software company. With an empty bank account you are forced to complete client contracts, but as soon as you get enough money you will be able to start competing against the largest tech giants, building your very own products and services.

Features:

Build Mode: Design your very own office.

Design your very own office. Contract Work: Win contracts by competing on price and service.

Win contracts by competing on price and service. Crafting System: Merge components to create modules. Use modules to create products.

Merge components to create modules. Use modules to create products. Products: Build outstanding products by adding features, managing servers and running marketing campaigns.

After testing it, I'm quite impressed. Firstly, it didn't create a fuss with two monitors. It does seem to start in windowed mode, but fullscreen works perfectly. So for those of you with many screens, it shouldn't cause an issue.

Currently, it can be a little confusing since the amount of help available is quite little. When you first start, you're given an in-game mail from the developer with three bullet points to get you going. It's a little raw right now considering how little you're really told, but I can see the promise in it.

I have to admit, the pop-up that appeared when I took the first loan out did make me chuckle—"A small loan of a million dollars", I'm sure plenty of you will get it. Politics aside that I don't dare to get into, it did give me a laugh.

There's quite a few things you're able to do, but all of it requires you to click around and click some more to pretty much figure it all out yourself. You hire staff, place their desks and other items to fill up your office. Each member of staff is responsible for something completely different, so there's a fair bit of micro-management needed here. Your Sales Executive for example, they're used to find contracts for your company to complete. When you have a contract, they each require your developers and designers to work to make components available like Network, UI and so on. When you have enough of each component made, you can complete the contract and get money.

On top of that, you also create your own products, like social networks and streaming services. There's a little depth to them too, with a fair amount you can do to improve them, like upgrading the infrastructure to add in a login system, a payment system, change your hosting, increase your marketing and so on. Again though, none of it's explained to you.

It's rough, it's a bit overly click-heavy right now and confusing for beginners, but when it's further developed it could be a good management sim. I love the idea of it and how much you can actually do, but it needs a lot more explaining and even a basic tutorial would be good. You can grab it now from GOG, it's also on Steam.

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