One of the biggest design challenges in Power Network Tycoon has been finding the sweet spot between complexity and clarity. After all, this is a game about power engineering. People go to university and study for years, plus continue to learn once they’re out working as professionals. It’s a technical and dense topic, one I’m very passionate about and I want to make it accessible, fun, playable, and understandable.
So how do you build a game that simulates realistic power systems without making it feel like a homework assignment?
From the beginning, I knew I wanted Power Network Tycoon to feel grounded in real-world systems. I wanted players to think about voltage drops, generator heat, overloading, faults, and network design. But I also wanted it to be approachable, something you could jump into, experiment with, and enjoy even if you’d never learnt the difference between voltage and current. One thing I definitely wanted to avoid is people needing to get out their calculator, as I feel at that point, you’ve lost your audience (most of them anyway).
So the goal became this: Keep the complexity, remove the confusion.
I’m not afraid of complexity, but I constantly try to avoid unnecessary complexity. That means trimming clutter, clarifying mechanics, and designing tools that help players understand what’s happening behind the scenes. Here are a few ways I’ve tried to make a complex simulation more intuitive:
Visual Feedback Everywhere
Instead of just showing numbers, the game uses color changes, line animations, blinking fault icons, and real-time graphs to show what’s going wrong (or right). At times a value is set for the player to aim for such as for voltage rise, without going into a lot of detail as to why that figure is chosen. The goal is to let players feel when the grid is stressed before it fails.
Simplified Pictographs and Symbols
I’ve kept the UI styling minimal, using clean icons and low-poly visuals that match the overall look of the game. These help make things easy to spot and keep the player focused on the network, not the menus. Based on feedback, I’ve already added things like UI scaling and background opacity controls. I’m continuing to test different layouts to reduce clutter and make key tools more accessible.
Optional Detail Layers
Some stats are hidden by default but can be revealed with overlays or pop-outs so beginners aren’t overwhelmed, and advanced players still get their nerd fix. For example the real time graphs, or the power study tool that you can access from the tools menu.
Tutorials & Tooltips
The tutorial has gone through many iterations. It first started out as a video, then progressed to an interactive experience to teach through play. Even after the interactive tutorial is finished, if you feel you still haven’t got a grasp of what’s going on you can choose to have tutorial pop-ups, that remind you of the mechanics as well as provide more in-depth explanations so you can understand the how and the why.
Mission Design
While missions are mostly randomised throughout the game, there are some that introduce you to complex concepts that will improve your understanding of how the game works, (and in turn a little bit about power engineering). These are presented at crucial time points during game play, so the lesson is introduced at the right time, preventing confusion.
Game Testers and Player Feedback
I've built this game from the ground up, and I’m also a power engineer, so I have no way of knowing if what I’ve built is actually understandable to the average player. If the idea is to make power engineering accessible to as many people as possible, then I need to get people without knowledge of the industry to play the game. The game testers and the players have been an invaluable source in this regard. Without their input and your feedback, I’m sure I would have made a very complicated simulation tool, rather than the fun, challenging and entertaining game it is today.
Why It Matters
Games like this work best when players learn by doing. Every mission, every asset failure, and every unfortunate civilian death teaches you something, in a way that hopefully doesn’t make the learning curve feel like a learning wall.
If I ever make something that feels too confusing or clunky, let me know. You’ve already helped shape the game so much, and that feedback is what keeps it improving. Thanks again for playing and powering through.