News
| 11 April 01 Tropico Gold |
| 24 April 01 Tropico Ships |
| 24 April 01 Voodoo Extreme Interview |
Voodoo Extreme
If you had unlimited time on it (didn’t have to worry about getting it done by a certain time), what else would you have added, if anything – or, is she about what you wanted?
It’s just about what I wanted. I would have liked a bit more animation and a few graphical bells and whistles (smoke from factories is one I wish we had). The scenario event system allows for some very sophisticated stuff that we didn’t fully exploit – the scenarios are fairly simple. A few of the edicts are probably a bit underpowered (Prohibition, Heretic), and I could have evened them out a bit more.
Who came up with the name Tropico (that’s something a few of us were wondering)?
Man, that was a struggle. We originally wanted to call it Banana Republic, but our lawyer told us the clothing store of the same name would give us grief if we did. We had two major brainstorming sessions and threw out dozens of names. Tropico was the least objectionable, but initially, I wasn’t thrilled with it. Over time though, I’ve really grown to like it, and I think it’s entirely appropriate.
One bonus is, it doesn’t need to be translated – the game is called Tropico in every European country, and Germans and others don’t feel it’s an American game and an American name being shoved in their face… |
| 01 May 01 v1.01 |
| [ Downloads ]
Replaced original copy protection system with simpler system that should resolve all issues relating to copy protection errors at game startup (Unable to find CD-ROM messages, blue-screen Windows errors, long startup times).
Fixed two bugs that could in rare instances corrupt saved games – saved games from 1.00 version that were unstable should be stable now.
Added [O] hotkey to jump to your election opponent (only if election is underway, of course…)
Added one more character to the credits animation (drunken teamster)
Fixed bug where roads could be laid in oceans
Disabled [F] hotkey (an artifact of the editor)
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| 09 May 01 v1.02 |
[ Downloads ]
Enabled editor
Added programmable hot keys for quick jumps to map locations, people, and almanac pages, as follows…
- The number keys on the keyboard (0 through 9) can be programmed.
- If viewing an almanac page, hold down CTRL 3 to set the number 3 as a hot key for that page.
- Then, to return to that almanac page, press 3 (without CTRL or SHIFT) at any time.
- To set a hotkey to a unit or building, select that unit or building, then program the key by holding down SHIFT and pressing the number (i.e. 3). To set a map location hot key, do the same thing without any unit or building selected. In all of these cases, press the same number (without CTRL or SHIFT) at any time to jump back to them.
Airports should now be built about 35% faster (including ground clearing, etc.) Other large buildings should now be built about 10% faster…
If the world bank forces low wages on you, the prior wages will now be remembered and restored, if and when the wage restrictions are lifted, PROVIDED that you haven’t changed the building’s wages yourself in the meantime.
Fishing wharfs can no longer be placed in such a way as to trap the resulting fishing boats.
Cleaned up a few obscure crash bugs
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| 04 June 01 v1.02b |
| [ Downloads ]
Cleaned up the french translation of the game.
Fixed one very rare crash bug.
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| 16 July 01 MacSoft Interview |
| GameSpy has an interview with Al Schilling, MacSoft’s product manager. MacSoft, the Mac publishing arm of Infogrames, will be publishing the Tropico port. |
| 17 July 01 v1.03 |
| [ Downloads ]
Greatly enhanced the capabilities of the editor (and made the game able to use those enhancements). All new maps put out by PopTop will require the 1.03 version of Tropico to run or even be visible in the map load screen. The 1.03 version of Tropico can load all saved games and maps created with earlier versions of Tropico. However, saved games and maps created with the 1.03 version of Tropico CAN NOT be loaded by earlier versions. For further information on the 1.03 editor changes, please get the latest version of the Tropico editor files (tedit103)
Fixed a clipping problem with the “Reduced Graphics Shifting” option (which is primarily intended for Voodoo 3 and PowerVR based video cards.)
Fixed city renaming – you should now be able to consistently click on a city to rename it.
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| 03 August 01 v1.04 |
| [ Downloads ]
A very minor patch – fixes a problem inadvertantly introduced in version 1.03 whereby in hardware mode, with the game paused, there was a memory leak.
Also fixes one other very obscure crash bug that would only appear in software mode.
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| 26 October 01 Paradise Island Announced |
| Paradise Island Press Release |
| 31 October 01 v1.05 |
| [ Downloads ]
Fixed a problem where some graphics would have thin lines or cracks in them in hardware mode on NVidia cards (especially GeForce cards). This had been a minor issue before but had gotten worse under Windows XP. It is now resolved.
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| 16 November 01 GDC 2002 |
The Game Developers Conference 2002 website has been opened. GDC02 will be held 19 thru 23 March, 2002 in San Jose, California (about the time Episode II will be released).
Speakers include Dene and Simon Carter (Project Ego), Richard Evans (AI, B&W), Richard Garfield (M:tG), Raph Koster (UO, SWG),
Dr.s Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka (BioWare), Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics) and Will Wright, Peter Molyneux,
Brian Reynolds, Jeremy Soule (Composer, Icewind Dale), Warren Spector, Phil Steinmeyer (Tropico), Rich Vogel (UO, SWG),
and quite alot more. |
| 24 December 01 GameSpot :: Best and Worst PC Games of 2001 |
- Special Achievement Awards
Developer PopTop Software had already made something of a name for itself with its economic strategy game Railroad Tycoon II, which lets you build a railroad empire to the tune of classic Kentucky bluegrass music. The company then moved on to develop Tropico, this year’s surprisingly engaging strategy management game, which lets you play as the dictator of a small Caribbean island. And as with Railroad Tycoon II, one of the most memorable things about Tropico is its excellent soundtrack, which features upbeat Caribbean and Latin themes that perfectly suit the game’s distinctive setting and quirky sense of humor and which adds a lot of personality to an already original game.
- Genre Awards
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| 31 December 01 v1.06 |
| [ Downloads ]
Fixed a rare crash bug in software mode. (The bug would manifest itself in several ways, including an occasional crash when the game would end and switch to the final win or lose video.)
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