Game Review: How AdVenture Capitalist made me even more jealous of the 1%

AdVenture Capitalist isn’t a game that’s been around a long time, but long enough for folks to have found healthy addictions awaiting within. It’s a free “capitalism simulator” which tasks you with one straight-forward, forward-looking goal: make a crap ton of money, and do it fast.

You start the game as the humble owner of a meager lemonade stand, selling cups of the tangy goodness for a few bucks per pop. Eventually you’ll have enough to buy yourself a car wash. And then a pizza parlor. Soon enough you’ll be the proud owner of an environment-killing oil business. Amass enough money and you can buy even more of those businesses and make more of that money.

It all seems like mindless, pointless clicking at first… and then it hits you: this game feeds your desire to make as much money as humanly possible. It’s not quite so easy to do so in the real world, of course, so being able to live a money-laden lifestyle vicariously through the mechanics of this 25MB download hook you in.

You can’t even do anything with the virtual cash except buy more businesses, which in turn make your money. There are also upgrades which will double your profits. But beyond that? Nothing.

Yet, I find myself feverishly checking on my income as each hour passes. Have I made that next sextillion? (Yes, I said sextillion. It’s an astronomical number that I can’t even quantify.) Do I have enough money to buy another 100 oil companies?

If things start to feel like they’ve come to a crawl, it might be time to attract some angel investors. These little guys will juice your profits by 2% each to start, so if you attract 200 angel investors you can make 400% more than you normally would.

Getting these investors require you to sell all your businesses and start all over, but you’ll quickly find that you’ll make much more money in a quicker span of time. Eventually you’ll get to billions of angels, and you’ll make $500,000,000 before you can even lift your finger off the restart button. That feeling of overwhelming wealth (if ever there were such a thing) is akin to that of a classic Pulp Fiction adrenaline shot right to the heart, and it makes you want to get more, and more, and more.

And the cycle begins again. You make money. You buy businesses. You buy upgrades and managers. You attract investors. You start over. And over. And over.

This is AdVenture Capitalist, and it has somehow become the very first thing on my mind as I wake up each morning. Why couldn’t real life be this easy? Grab the download here if you dare.