Playing the Game The first screen in the game is the main selection screen. There are four buttons which from left to right are 'Options', 'Free Build Mode', 'Scenario Mode' and 'Quit'. Options This screen lets you set the various in-game options.

Render All Floors - This toggles the mall floors on and off. If it is set to off, then only the floor you are currently building on will be drawn and all other floors will be hidden. This option is mainly used to speed up the game on slower machines.

Detail - This toggles the level of detail used in the textures and surrounding landscape to high or low. Again this is a useful setting for slower machines, especially those with video boards that have less than 16Mb of ram.

Shadows - This turns character shadows on and off and again is designed to help speed up the game on slower PC's.

Music - This toggles the music on or off. Sound FX - This toggles sound effects on or off. Reset - This resets all options to their default values. Back - This returns you to Main Selection Screen.

Free Build Free Build is the 'Sandbox mode' which allows you to build any shape, size or style of mall you wish. Play - If you simply want to play a quick game with default settings, then all you need to do is click on the Play button and ignore all the settings on this screen. If on the other hand you would like more influence over the population of your new mall then this screen will allow you total control over the initial demographics and game difficulty.

Difficulty Setting - The three smiley faces represent the difficulty level of the game (Easy, Medium, and Hard).

Finance - The four money bars represent the financial demographics. Each one represents a shopper's wealth (Poor, Average, Well Off and Rich). Each type has a different colored bar which may be slid left and right to set the relative amounts in each financial bracket. As you alter the money bars, you will notice the multi colored % bar below them changes. This bar is split into four sections, each matching the color of one of the money bars. This bar shows the percentage split of the financial groups.

Gender - This section defines the gender demographic, showing male, female and an overall percentage bar. These bars work in the same way as the financial bars.

Age - Below the gender bars are the age group demographic bars (Young, Teenage, Adult, and Senior citizens) followed by an overall percentage bar. These bars work in the same way as the financial bars.

Crime -At the top right of the panel is the crime rate of the mall. This is a single bar representing the level of crime, which allows you to choose how much crime there is in the vicinity by sliding the bar left or right.

Transport - These bars represent how the shoppers travel to the mall. The four bars show travel by foot, bus, car and train, with a final overall percentage bar. These bars work in the same way as the financial bars.

Reset - This is the reset button which is clicked once to reset all the demographic settings to their default values.

Load - This button allows you to load in a previously saved 'free build' mall. Note you cannot load in a saved Scenario Mode game from this panel.

Play - Click to begin a new game.

Scenario Mode This game play mode presents you with a selection of challenges which you must try to complete within a given set of parameters. The small panel shows an image of the current scenario, with small arrows to the left and right which allow you to cycle through the other available scenarios. A description of the current scenario is displayed in the larger panel below.

Play - To start the chosen scenario click on the play button.