If you have ever wanted to try your hand at construction, now is your chance with
Build-a-lot. You are in charge of making neighborhoods look beautiful. You accomplish this task by building new houses and fixing up houses.

The different neighborhoods have you build different types of houses. The beginning neighborhoods have you build rambler houses. You start the game out with rambler houses and that is the only house you know how to build. Eventually you are able to buy blue prints for other houses, such as colonials and tudors. You need to buy the blueprints before you are able to build that type of house. You eventually learn how to build buildings, too, such as post offices.

The first three levels are tutorial based and walk you through everything you need to know to play the game. As you work your way through the levels, you are told what you need to build. The goals are laid out for you to achieve and the level is not complete until you hit those goals. The goals vary from level to level. Some times you have to build post offices. Some times you have to raise money for a town and other times you need to hit a certain amount of rent. After the tutorial levels, you have to accomplish your goals before time runs out.

The houses you own generate rent. The more upgrades you perform to a house the more rent it will generate. The other way to get more rent is to have more houses. You are able to buy houses that go up for sale and then they will generate income for you or you can buy empty lots, if there are any. Once you own an empty lot, you are able to build houses on that lot. On some of the levels it can get challenging to make the rent amount in the given time.

The graphics in Build-a-lot are just ok. They aren’t great, but they aren’t horrible either. The houses look nice, but the neighborhoods don’t really have much to them. The empty lots are just brown dirt. The “construction workers” are little hats that run out and “build” the houses. There are roads in the neighborhood, but the roads are very simple looking. The roads consist of a black strip with a white dotted line running down the middle.

Build-a-lot is a lot of fun to play. This game is a unique idea and I found it greatly entertaining. The game gets addicting when it comes to building the neighborhoods up and trying to do it in the best time possible. I enjoyed building and fixing houses in this video game anyways. I don’t think I would enjoy it in real life.