Shack Chat: What's your dream simulator game?

With so many everyday tasks, jobs, and projects adapted into simulator video games, the Shack Staff their dream simulator video games.

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There’s a simulator game for a huge variety of occasions these days. Whether it’s farming, trucking, public transportation, city management, or even power washing, there’s a simulator game for these and many more every day jobs and projects. With that in mind, this week’s Shack Chat asks… What would you like to see made into a simulator game? Check out the Shack Staff’s answers below and share your own answers in the Chatty comment section!

Question: What’s your dream simulator game?


Pest Control - Ozzie Mejia, Senior Editor Simulator

Source: 20th Century Studios

This could just be because I just bought a home, which is a bit of a fixer-upper, but I don't like bugs. Did you know there are a lot of different kinds of bugs? I'm talking more than termites. I'm talking about roaches, spiders, fleas, silverfish, scorpions, and all sorts of nasty little things. Heck, I don't even like bees, either in real life or in video games.

Granted, there are games like Grounded where I have to learn to live with and get around them. However, I'd much rather have a game where I could work to exterminate the pests, learning how to manage different poisons, different extermination methods, and whatever else goes into this line of work. Make the goal to make your virtual gaming space bug-free.


Movie theater owner - Donovan Erskine, snack price gouger

Source: Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg

I’d love to own a movie theater someday. It’s not a goal that I’m actively pursuing, but maybe one day I will. On that note, it would be dope if a video game let me own and manage my own theater. I imagine it being like your standard business management sim - I get to pick films to play on my different screens, set the prices for snacks, hire and manage staff, all that good stuff. It would be cool if the game gave analytical feedback, telling me what demographics like certain movies, come to the theater at certain times, and so on. I’m not ashamed to say I’d sink a hundred hours into Movie Theater Owner Simulator.


ISS Simulator - Sam Chandler, Take me to space

Source: NASA

There are video games out there that take players through space in fantastic journeys in a first-person perspective. Elite Dangerous scratches a very particular itch in my brain, but I want something based entirely in the real world. I want to cling to the outside of the International Space Station as I do repairs. I want to repair paneling on the inside and outside, fix up wiring in internal systems, and just take care of one of humanity’s greatest feats of engineering. I want to know exactly how all of that works and I want to try my hand at it in VR.


Cabin Builder - Bill Lavoy, Lives in the Woods

Source: Hinterland Studio

If I were to dream up my ideal simulation game, it would be called Cabin Builder. You’d choose a piece of land, then get to work building your dream cabin. It could be as modern or basic as you pleased. Think building a house in the Sims 4, but simplified to just the building and, of course, themed for cabins only.

Now, if you want to get totally crazy, you could build the greatest open world survival game in the history of video games. Cabin Builder + hunting and fishing simulation, all rolled into one. Hey, this is my dream simulation game, remember? I don’t have to be reasonable.


Fighting Game Tournament Organizer Simulator - TJ Denzer, knows TOing is stressful

Source: Evolution Fighting Championships

The stress of running a fighting game tournament should be well documented at this point. Building a grassroots scene, attracting competitors, keeping them in line, getting sponsers, having enough working setups to maintain the games, and making sure your games are games are going to be titles players want to compete in are just a few of the details that go into running a successful fighting game tournament. That said, when you get the passion and pageantry going, it also sounds like being a proper tournament organizer can be an extremely rewarding experience. I would love a game that went over the stress and intricacies of building a fighting game event from the ground up. It would be very interesting to try to raise a scene from a small and intimate event up to something of EVO and CEO quality. Balancing your budget, selecting venues, gathering supplies (including internet for streaming), and so much more seems like it would be an incredible balancing act of business and publicity.


Sport Franchise Simulator - Steve Tyminski, My team, my rules!

Source: MLB

What is my dream simulator game? There have been plenty of simulator games in the past that allow players to take control of just about anything. From the likes of running an arcade to a carnival, you could do it all, in some capacity. Some sport games allow you to run the daily aspects of your team, but it would be cool to be able to design everything, from top to bottom. Request an expansion team for a new area and find the perfect land for the stadium. Will there need to be a train station nearby or some other form of transportation? I think it would be cool to create a new stadium as well as figure out how many levels the building would have as well as what food and amenities would be there.

You could also make the locker rooms and practice facility of your ideal design, which in turn could get free agents interested in your team. Getting to create the perfect mascot sounds fun to me as well as creating good uniforms and colors for our team. I know some games let you design things like this but not with this level of depth. Honorable mention for simulation games would have to go to getting to be a pro athlete with everything that entails.


Wrestling Show Sim - Dennis White

Source: AEW

There’s elements of Wrestling sims in current games out there but I would love to have something more hands-on and in depth out there. I want to talk to the guys in the locker room, recruit from tryouts, meet with network execs about potential branding deals. And it would be a ton of fun to get to look at things from the perspective of the wrestler as well but with more detail put into things in ways that previous sims have not bothered to do. I’m talking full-blown first-person. I want to walk into the arena full of fans. Have control over cutting promos, control face and heel turns on the GM side and bring back legends for proper feuds. And when you are successful on both sides, things get more interesting by bringing on some competition. Can you keep your wrestlers loyal to the brand? I’m hype just thinking about it!


These are our picks for dream simulator games, but what are yours? What task would you like gamified into a simulator? Let us know in the Shacknews Chatty comments below!

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.

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