Fortune Builder was a 1984 Edutainment Game for the ColecoVision meant to teach the fundamentals of how businesses impact each other. In doing so it was one of the first Simulation Games.
The idea of the game is to develop a stretch of land, beach and mountains with businesses such as apartment complexes, factories, shopping malls, video arcades, casinos and resorts and create a layout where units that play well off of each other (such as leisure fixtures, or housing near factories so the workers don't have to commute far) are close together while avoiding putting incompatible fixture too close (like a noisy, smelly factory right next to a resort) in order to drive profits.
A news ticker will play a headline every once in a while that temporarily increases or decreases the profitability of a certain business, like new laws requiring expensive safety measures in factories, or a report that fast food burgers extend life causing a rush on the golden arches.
A slight parody of the game, Bankruptcy Builder, depicting the actual construction crews, was created as a homebrew title for the system. Both games were included in At Games' 2014 Coleco Vison Flashback console.
Tropes:
- Show Within a Show: The show Monte Carlo whose popularity sends people flocking to casinos.
- Pun: Some of the news stories, like "lawmakers force casino owners to cash in their chips."
- This Just In!: The news ticker feature.
