Mac Game Store

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? Build a new ice rink for the Olympics? 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!

Features

• Beautiful house and neighborhood graphics
• Fun house upgrades such as bowling alleys and swimming pools
• Special buildings such as Museums, Mansions and Castles
• Complete fun goals and earn money in Career mode
• Improve a neighborhood at your own pace in Casual mode
• See how you match up against others with online high scores lists

Shopper Reviews

1. 

   Great playability, no replayability

   by eric t, USA - Mar 28th 2009

   Build-a-lot has a low learning curve, so it's easy to dive right in. The slow response time makes it seem like this was a bad port from some other platform, but it hardly ever gets in the way of gameplay.
   
   As the game progresses, it does get pretty difficult, especially if you want to clear it in their shortened "bonus level" time. The different themes of the neighborhoods are cute and give the game some personality and individuality.
   
   In the end it was enough for me to shell out $20. I got maybe 15 hours of fun out of this game, and while you can play it in "casual" mode, it's just not as fun as the regular mode.

   286 out of 617 shoppers found this helpful.Was this helpful? Yes No

2. 

   Strategy in Mind - Addictive

   by Nathan Cunningham, USA - Apr 26th 2008

   Its been awhile since I have played simulation type games. What makes this game addictive are the different stages of houses; their upgrades, their building values, etc. You start off with mostly $100k and 1000 supplies in each goal stage (career mode with 36 levels). Theres about 3-4 levels within a goal stage. These levels include, building 3 or 4 star homes (mansion, castles, etc) on premier lots. The game introduces new house or building type in each stage so you get a feel for the game. I recommend building one colonial and one tudor home in the beginning to get quick cash when you sell them.
   Look out for house taxes and building repairs. Thats why you build a sawmill, a bank, and hire more workers to keep your cashflow going.
   I could imagine different building expansions to the game or a sequel.
   I didn't think this was like sim city 2000 and I am glad it didn't turn out that way!
   Nathan C, Portland, Oregon.

   443 out of 916 shoppers found this helpful.Was this helpful? Yes No

3. 

   It leaves you in two minds...

   by Jessica Simmonds, Australia - Apr 3rd 2008

   I decided to give this game a go because I like community type games that involve building houses or society management type stuff and after the demo hour I'm still not sure whether I want to buy it or not.
   
   Don't get me wrong its a pretty good game to play, nothing really gripping about it but if you like this sort of game it's ok. It's main drawbacks for me though was that it took FAR too long to load. This is especially crucial when a time limit is imposed on the demo time. 6 minutes to load up and then I had to force quit because it wouldn't adjust to window view without freezing my computer.
   
   In regards to control I think this game has a little too much digging power into my preferences. I understand that finding the name of the user is a neat trick so it can say the player name at the start but it also managed to change my background picture to the default setting so I'd like to know what other preferences it had access to.
   
   Despite the slowness of loading and slight lag in gameplay between levels I really liked it, which is why I'm in two minds. I like the game for what it is but I don't think it has been executed well overall. I'm interested to see how everyone else felt about it.

   492 out of 978 shoppers found this helpful.Was this helpful? Yes No