Walkthroughs

Hints, tips, and tricks for Kairosoft's World Cruise Story

Fishing for hints

Hints, tips, and tricks for Kairosoft's World Cruise Story
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| World Cruise Story

Another Kairosoft release, another excuse to get down and dirty with the tips and tricks that lie hidden in its depths.

World Cruise Story is a lot more straightforward than your average Kairosoft management game, but that doesn't mean it's a walkover. If you want to boost that three-star cruise, you're going to need some help to understand the inner workings.

So Pocket Gamer has once again compiled all the help you'll need to make sure your cruises are the best in the world.

Sit back and relax - it's going to be smooth sailing from here on in.

Invest early and often

Throughout the life of your seafaring vessel, you'll have numerous options to invest in businesses, destinations, and upgrades for your ship.

Investing is where most of your cash will go, and since time is precious you'll want to throw your funds into investments as soon as you can.

There's one exception to the rule, however. Whenever there's a new big investment, such as a ship expansion or a new passenger type, make sure you save up and put your money into these rather than splashing out on smaller tricks that aren't as important.

Also remember that you can put your money into three investments at a time, so if you have the cash make sure you're also putting it towards the development of the various countries via the Tourism and Industrial options.

Location, location, location

The positioning of each of your cabins, facilities, and plants is incredibly important for increasing the attractiveness of your ship.

Putting cabins around the edges of the ship will give them a boost thanks to the window view. In fact, if you put cabins on the second floor against the walls they'll get an even greater boost thanks to the inclusion of a balcony.

Don't just stack all the cabins one by one next to each other, however - leave gaps in between each one, and put plants in there.

As you unlock new carpets, plants, and other such refinements, delete the old ones and replace them with the new ones to make sure rooms continue to receive the greatest attractiveness possible.

Later on you'll unlock bigger and better cabins. Don't worry too much about leaving space for those, as you'll also unlock the ability to move rooms around. In other words, you can shift everything around as the opportunities present themselves.

Don't forget to use the decks as much as possible, too, as the sea breeze brings in special bonuses. Deckchairs are all very well, but the majority of rooms and additional bits and pieces can also go outside.

Kings and queens

When you've been operating from a particular country for a while, the king or queen of that country will ask to take a trip with your cruise liner.

If you can impress them enough during their visit, they'll put you in touch with the ruler of another country, allowing you to add new regions to your cruises.

This is the main method for moving the game forward, so this is of course a rather important aspect of the game.

Asking royalty to voyage with you is relatively cheap, so the best idea is to keep getting them onboard over and over again until they're impressed. The facilities they use are chosen at random, so you'll find that they may well be totally unimpressed the first time, and then suddenly over the moon the second.

Of course, it helps if you give them the best cabin in the house - find the highest quality cabin, but also consider whether it's in the vicinity of enough facilities for the royalty to get to quickly.

Cruise control

Every six months, you'll have the opportunity to change the start point and destinations of your cruise.

For your start point, you want to choose the place where you currently have the fewest fans.

That may sound counter-productive, but the idea is that you build up the fans there and bring in a whole new type of people onto your ship.

For the tour stops, you'll want to choose the places where you haven't yet reached 100 per cent tourism. If you've already managed to discover everything everywhere, choose the places where you have the highest attraction instead.

Of course, make sure you have the tour operator's room, or else people won't be able to go on coach trips and discover new items for you!

Extra pointers

Buy all the facility upgrades available from the shop, and use them on your various shops and attractions regularly. When you go to use an item, it will tell you which shops it works best with - make sure to match the right ones up.

When the critics come to rate your ship, look over how many stars they've given you in the past. Choose the critic who has given you the fewest stars, as you'll probably get more this time around, and you'll earn extra money and bonuses for your total star count.

It sounds obvious, but it's incredibly important - always make sure you have enough cabins to house all your guests. If there aren't enough, people will wait outside your ship until it's ready to part, and if nothing becomes available in time you'll lose them.

And their little digital lives will be ruined.

Mike Rose
Mike Rose
An expert in the indie games scene, Mike comes to Pocket Gamer as our handheld gaming correspondent. He is the author of 250 Indie Games You Must Play.