Product Description

Send the housing market through the roof as you build, buy, and sell houses in the new strategy game, Build-a-lot! You can flip houses for quick cash or sit back and watch the rental income pile up. Become a real estate mogul as you visit scenic towns, earn huge profits and perform special favors for the colorful local mayors. Can you build a new cinema for the local movie star? Install a bowling alley in the Mayor's Mansion? No problem! There's plenty to do and lots of fun ahead in Build-a-lot!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3818 in Video Games
• Brand: Hipsoft
• Released on: 2007-10-03
• Platforms: Windows Vista, Windows XP
• Format: Download

Features

• Flip Houses For Profit.
• Play Career Or Casual Mode.
• Special Buildings Like Museums, Mansions And Castles.
• Fun House Upgrades.

Customer Reviews

The Sims, it is not
Ever dreamed of building your own real estate empire with no money down? If yes, then this is your opportunity because the game is free and all you do in it is build houses and make lots of money. Once you make your money you can spend it to buy more houses, upgrade existing ones or build something new or tear down a small house and build a bigger one in its place - very exciting.

You play to make as much money as possible by playing in the real estate market as a developer, a speculator or a house flipper. You start with a certain amount of money and some properties and then, on each level you attempt to accomplish some specific goal: own this many houses, earn this much rental income, have this much money in the bank. You make money by selling the properties you developed and by charging rent. The value of your property increases if you pay for upgrades. To make it short, you buy low and sell high and you flip your houses. Oh, I forgot, you must meet your objectives within some set time unless you select the 'relaxed' mode.

Overall it's not a bad game but there's not much to it beyond what I just described above. The resolution seems to be 1024x768 and you can play it in a window or as 'full screen'. The graphics are okay in the sense that the houses, the roads and the landscape features are recognizable but, for some reason, the construction guy is an animated yellow hard hat - funny. The game runs on Windows XP or Vista.

I am not sure what a fair rating would be for a game that's free. It' okay, I guess, but I doubt that most of us are going to spend more than 30 minutes on it.

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Notes:

I had to install Amazon's 'downloader' software before downloading the game itself. It was pretty quick and it appears to be harmless.

When installed, if you keep the defaults, all games go as subfolders inside a folder named Amazon Games.

I'm Hooked
I am hooked on this game. I have been playing for a day or two now. In the challenge mode you have some challenges and then a limited amount of time to reach the goal. This game will not appeal to everyone because it is not true to life and it is fairly simple. For someone like me who has little spurts of time to play easy games that don't require a lot of learning time; this is a fun game.

Enjoy.

This game can cause serious addiction!
I downloaded this game yesterday afternoon, just to see what this Amazon game thing was about. I didn't really intend to play much but ended up playing it for 5 more minutes-5 more minutes-10 more minutes.... So 5 hours later after missing dinner and being up long past my bedtime, I finally quit the game. (This could be a good weight loss tool!)

This game is easy to play, keeps your interest (at least it kept mine) and it's fun. You move from town to town, building homes and estates to each mayor's ideas and you have a certain amount of time to accomplish your goal. It's not anywhere near as involved as a Sim game, but maybe that's nice since you don't have to concentrate as hard. Two thumbs up!