By Graham K. Rogers

I am not really a games person these days although some of my students admit to playing certain games into the small hours. I did have the original SimCity that I bought in the UK (in Luton) on one of my rare trips home. I also had that on my Palm and I still have a version on the iPad. It is a game that allows users to become immersed in its operations. I also used SimCity in teaching as students are able create their own data, and I even wrote an article that was included in an academic journal.

Later, when a new university opened in Thailand, I was asked to teach (I flew up Sunday and back on Monday evening) and we introduced Civilisation to the students. While SimCity could be used as a basis for writing, Civilisation was focussed on reading skills: to make the game work most effectively, students had to read and react to data provided in the game.

In those days, I still used a PC with MS DOS 6 (the arrival of Windows was coincidental with me switching to Macs). On that last 386 PC was one of my all time favourite games - one that I would play for hours - Transport Tycoon. Again there was the immersion in the game as the player built systems involving road, rail, air and sea systems that linked communities, in competition with other game-generated companies doing the same.

Sadly, as that last PC died, so did Transport Tycoon, although I was able to install an open source version on the Mac that used the Transport Tycoon data files which I used for a while. Chris Sawyer stopped work on the application and developed Rollercoaster Tycoon which met with some success, although it did not appeal to me.

I read in an item by Allyson Kazmucha on iMore this morning that Chris Sawyer has announced that both Transport Tycoon and Rollercoaster Tycoon are to be released for iOS and Android.

A look at the new Transport Tycoon site shows little real information and a brief teaser video. However there is a link to allow those interested to sign up for notification. When that is done, an email arrives asking for a confirmation.

Now we wait.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.