Paradox Arc, the new games team with a focus on indie games at Paradox Interactive, has announced the next title it will be publishing as Tlatoani: Aztec Cities. Developed by Perspective Games and Bellwood Studio, Tlatoani puts players in the shoes of an ??ancient Aztec ruler entrusted ?with building and growing a humble settlement into a sprawling multi-city-state empire.

Based on the trailer, I'm getting some serious modern-day Pharaoh and Caesar 3 vibes from Tlatoani: Aztec Cities, and I'm all for it. I dumped countless hours into both when I was younger, trying to build the perfect ancient city. Tlatoani features hand-drawn 2D graphics intended to specifically pay homage to such classic titles in the genre. Players will take on the role of?? an Aztec ruler tasked with progressing a humble settlement into a thriving empire, striving to become Tlaltoani, a historic term for a ??ruler in ancient Aztec times.

Starting with just a single city, Tlatoani allows you to eventually grow to multiple city-states to oversee the entire Aztec empire. Along the way, you'll need to make sure the needs of your people are met including their duties, faiths, moods, and even daily routings. As Tlatoani you'll produce dozens of goods and resources while mana?ging ?your empire's economy, military, and religious undertakings. As your empire, you will build temples for the Aztec gods, spread your influence to other city-states in the Mesoamerica region, and even hold festivals and honor ancient Aztec traditions.

Tlatoani is coming at a perfect time for me, as I recently enjoyed a roughly 3.?5 hour podcast between podcast host Lex Fridman and Ancient America Archaeologist Ed Barnhart. I've always been a fan of Mesoamerica history, and this podcast only amplified it. I'm excited to try and build my own Aztec empire so I'm looking forward to seeing the actual freedom we have to do so in Tlatoani.

Tlatoani: Aztec Cities is set to release in Early Access on Steam this Halloween on October 31, 2024. If you're interested in checking it out before then, a Tlatoani: Prologue demo is available now and will be a pa?rt of the Ste??am Next Fest which starts on October 14, 2024.

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The freeze is coming in the form of Frostpunk 2??, and the Deluxe Edition will g??et you plenty of extra additions, but at a price.

The sequel will look to build on the success of the? first title, which introduced a new form of post-apocalyptic city-builder to the audience. But the second title is a fresh beginning, and the Deluxe Edition has an extra cost. Let's take a look at if you should spend the extra money or go for the cheaper Standard version.

All Frostpunk 2 Deluxe Edition contents

The Frostpunk 2 Deluxe Edition is available for $74.99, but if you choose to pre-order it, you save 10%. The Standard version costs $44.99, and there's no discount. But that's not all, and here's the list of all the conte?nt that comes with De??luxe.

• 72 hours of early access
• 3 DLCs as post-release content
• Exclusive in-game item
• Digital Artbook and Soundtrack
• Warm Flesh Novella (Digital version)

While you do save slightly less than?? $30 with the Standard, you get nothing more than the base gam??e. You'll also have to wait till September 20 before you can dive into the frozen land and build your city.

Is the Frostpunk 2 Deluxe Edition worth it

So far, we have yet to receive any information about the post-launch DLCs. For Frostpunk, 11 Bit Stu?dios released two mega expansions: The Last Autumn and On the Edge. The Rifts was a small DLC that introduced bridges to traverse cliffs, so I am not considering it an expansion.

T??he Last Autumn and On the Edge were both excel??lent releases. Both DLCs had fantastic alternate story scenarios, very different from the base game. In fact, I have played more hours after the two DLCs were released.

That said, this is for Frostpunk, and the Digital Edition you're getting is for Frostpunk 2. All 3 DLCs are likely going to be a part of a possible Season Pass, and you should be able to purchase them separately as well. Yes, they'r?e going to cost more, but you don't have to engage any more money upfront than you need to at the moment.

Ultimately, if you have faith in 11 bit and what they could deliver, the Deluxe Edition could help you save at least a few dollars in the long run. Early access doesn't matter so much to me since? this isn't ??a live service title. There's no grind in it, and beginning on September 20 won't make any difference over September 17.

I have yet to decide which edition I am getting?, but it's likely going to be the Deluxe.

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5PM Studio has released their city-builder Memoriapolis onto Steam Early Access today. The planned timeframe is 4-6 months, and currently features?? the ages of Antiquity and Medieval out of a? planned four.

Memoriapolis is a classic city-builder whose main hook is the way in which it progresses through historical eras. From Antiquity to the Age of En??lightenment. Along the way, you build production, cultural, and military buildings to keep your citizens happy and in their lane. You know, city-building stuff.

The feature that stands out to me most about Memoriapolis is the fact that you don’t build the roads yourself. In any city builder where you’re given control of where pavement gets laid down, it invariably leads to grids. At least it does in my case. I’ve learned to force myself to curve roads and avoid symmetry, eve??n when it isn’t as efficient. The focus is on organic growth.

It’s certainly a lavish trailer they put out with the announcement as well. I tend to love city builders and management games, but I’m not sure that I can fit another one in. Not that I wouldn’t want to. Memoriapolis looks pretty solid. But I already keep telling myself to get back into Farthest Frontier. I just can’t find ??the time. Maybe I need to stop sleeping.

Memoriapolis is available on Steam Early Access starting today.

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Hooded Horse and Minakata Dynamics (developers of Railgrade) have announced Whiskerwood, a new settlement game with a focus on automation. Visually, it’s very evocative about the survival settlement sensation, Timberborn, but i??s more focused on automation and production rather than survival.

It’s also about a different creature. While Timberborn was centered around beavers (nature’s engineers), Whiskerwood has you watching over the well-being of mice?. These mice, however, live under the thumb of aristocratic felines. Fat cats, if you will. Aristocats. The cats have demands that must be met, so your task is to gather resources from the?? environments and process them for export.

The block-based building system and, indeed, many of the buildings themselves look very similar to Timberborn, but that game was about helping your beavers survive droughts. There wasn’t very much in the way of trade and economy, which is where Whiskerwood diverges significantly.

It’s looking very feature-dense. There are forty commodities to produce, conveyor belts and elevators to move them, and various mousey needs like healthcare and heating. The main challenge, as stated by the store page, is to strike ??a perfect balance between the needs of the mouse and the demands of the cat. There is also a naval aspect, as you can explore other islands and battle at sea. I thought this might be menu-based, but the press release says, "turn-based combat using ships of war." Radical.

I think it looks terrific, but then, I do love Timberborn. The promised depth in Whiskerwood just looks so focused and well-planned. I’ll be? keeping an eye on this one.

Whiskerwood will first be released into PC Early Access on Steam. No release?? window has been stated.

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Right before Christmas 2022, developer Bulwark Studios and publisher Kasedo Games released a Sci-Fi city-builder titled IXION on Steam. I admittedly knew little about the game, but as a fan of Warhammer 40K: Mechanicus, a tactical strategy game by the same duo, I decided to give it a shot. It ended up bein??g one of my favorite games of 2022, and the city builder is no??w set to hit PS5 and Xbox Series X|S in early 2025.

In IXION, players take on the role of the Administrator of the Tiqqun, a prototype space station built by one of the most powerful and influential companies on Earth, DOLOS. An unexpected cataclysmic event occurs and the station suddenly becomes humanity's last bastion of survival as it soars through space. It's rare to see a quality story in a city-builder, but IXION'?s is top-notch especially for fans of science fiction.

As you progress through IXION you'll not only unlock more building elements and features, but learn more about the stations creators, the cataclysmic event that occurred, and more while also making decisions that will affect the human race in its entirety. The only other game I can really think of to compare it to is Frostpunk in that you'll often be tasked with making tough decisions that you think are the best in the m?oment.

I'll admit, I'm not entirely convinced that a more intricate city builder like IXION will feel quite as intuitive on a controller as opposed to a keyboard and mouse. But with how much IXION continuously surprised me when I played through it, I'm confident that if?? anyone can pull it off it's Bulwark Studios.

IXION is scheduled to release on PS5 and Xbox Series X??|S in Q1 2025. It's currently available on PC via Steam.

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I’ve been laying down cities since the first SimCity. The SNES version, I mean, so a few years late, but I got in deep. Since then, it’s been one of my comfort genres. So, I’m not sure where I stand with Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic, which has just left Early Access i??nto full release.

I’m not doing a review â€?at least not right now â€?because, despite having put around 20 hours into? it, I haven’t come close to piercing its shell. I was thinking this as I was trying to set up plumbing in my burgeoning city and finding a new complication at every turn. 

“It will all become clear with some experimentation and practice,�??I told myself. Yeah, when? How many hours do I have to put in to learn this game, and will it be worth it?

At some point, I was trying to figure out how to prevent my trains from bumping into each other,  but when I looked for help, the text box I found literally said, “Please find additional guides on the Steam Workshop or the internet about this topic. It is a very complicated topic.â€?That’s, uh, hmâ€?/p>

I don’t doubt that setting up a system of train?? semaphores (as I learned they’re called) to organize the traffic of your railways is complicated, but should it be? Yes, it should.

Because there’s someone out there who wants this level of depth. I wouldn’t mind learning the ins and outs of setting up a functional railway system. I just would expect it to be in a railway simulator. In Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic, this is one singular component of a m?assive number of systems, each one with its own learning curve.

I need to make it clear right here: Workers & Resources has a number of different ways to tweak the experience. You can, for example, turn off power, water, or waste management. When creating a custom game, you can turn features on or off to tweak it to your liking. I hate having to set up my own difficulty because I never know where my skill level is at, and I’d prefer it when a developer has a default setting to tell me where my skill level should be at. The individual settings do have presets like easy, medium, hard, so it might be acceptable to start at? easy and work y??our way up. That is, if you're willing to make multiple cities.

However, even at easy, you need to set up train semaphores. And, even at easy, that is just one facet of a more complicated whole. Setting up a system where I could get coa?l from a mine to a processor to the train took me a whole lot of bulldozing. I’m not sure I ever got my? public transportation functioning properly, because not enough people were using it to get to work. Or maybe I just didn’t have enough population, I’m not entirely sure.

Setting up a distribution chain was something else. I was doing it entirely wrong for a while. Then when I started doing it the way it told me to, it wasn’t working right. I then had to f??igure out how to adjust the minimum stock level at shops and bars, which was never explained? anywhere.

Many times when I thought I was doing something correctly, I’d have to add something new to the pile and would find out I had set everything up in a way that felt optimal at the time, but turned out to be completely unworkable in the long run. It lets you work in the wrong direction unhindered. At some point, you may have to?? raze it all to the ground and build upon the ruins.

It’s hard ??to tell how much unintuitiveness is acc??eptable for the sake of complexity.

It can all be learned, of course. I didn’t know the relationship between residential, commercial, and industrial zoning until I played SimCity. But while that skill carried over to future city builders, I??’m not sure train semaphores will. I’m not certain if the treacherously steep learning curve is going to be wort??h it.

I finished the first “campaign,�which acts as a tutorial. I moved onto the second, which is another tutorial but at a higher difficulty. It has a different focus that I find more enjoyable, but it also feels daunting. The added systems are sprawled out in front of you, and while you’re given the time and money neede??d to tackle them at your own pace, just the demonstration of how mu??ch left there is to learn is nearly disheartening.

On top of this, I have further reservations. It uses generative AI for some things. Mostly portraits of characters who give you instruction throughout the campaign. It’s not a pervasive thing, seemingly?? only shown in the tutorial campaign. However, that kind of makes it worse because it isn’t necessary and could have been done by an artist. The digital bodysnatchers don’t need to be here.

The UI is also not up to the task of managing all the complex systems. It tries. In particular, managing the routes of all the varieties of vehicles zoo?ming around my brutalist cities can require digging through multiple windows just to find the one that will allow me to add and remove stops. I don’t even understand some of the displays, but I’m sure that would come with time.

Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic has a very specific audience, and I’m pretty sure I fit in there somewhere. I just can’t be certain yet, because I haven’t found the bottom. I’m not sure if I’m going to find the bottom with the amount o?f time required to ?dig that far.

On the other hand, I made some far-out stuff in Kerbal Space Program, so I ??have an appetite to learn new things on some level.

That’s just my warning to you. If you felt that games like Cities: Skylines 2 went too far with abstraction when it came to their urban construction mechanics, then Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic has a lot to dig into. You just need to be aware that it is a tremendous leap from those games. This isn’t the next level of city builder, this is quite a few steps above that. You have to have the mind for it. You have to have t??he time for it.

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The city builder genre was quite unique when 1989’s SimCity hit the scene. It was a game with no end, something rarely (but not never) seen in those days. But there are only so many times?? yo?u can maximize the density of your residential zones before it loses its grip.

2014’s Banished altered this by incorporating a survival aspect and increasing the possibility of failure. It’s been adopted by many builders since, and Against the Storm is another. And in it, we see the genre mutate further. There actually is a great deal of progression in Against the Storm that further diverges from SimCity’s “build fo??rever�philosophy. By incorporating some aspects of the roguelite genre, it’s ??able to give greater meaning to your civil development strategy.

And it’s very successful, so long as y??ou are okay with repeating the same step?s a lot.

Against the Storm (PC)
Developer: Eremite Games
Publisher: Hooded Horse
Released: December 8, 2023
MSRP: $29.99

Against the Storm is set in a world ravaged by a deadly weather pattern known as the Blight Storm. Every few years, the eponymous storm wipes all the world clean of civilization. The last s?urvivors are only saved by retreatin??g to the Smoldering City, where they are protected by the powerful Scorched Queen.

You are a Viceroy of the ??Queen, and are sent out into the wilds to establish colonies to gather resources. This means plopping settlers down in the middle of dense forests and carving out a town with a productive industry and a happy population.

The Scorched Queen is as demanding as she is powerful. Your goal for each settlement is to build your reputation to a certain point before her patience runs out. You can keep the impatience meter u??nder control by making steady and constant progress while also making sure her subjects are happy. Once you cap out your reputation meter (or max out her impatience), you win, and it’s onto the next set??tlement.

Also, the forest hates you, and you have to suppress its rage as much as possible. Against the Storm is a very layered game. I’m not going to be able to cover every facet of the game in t??his review.

You only get so much time to create your settlements before the Blightstorm pushes everything back to the Smoldering City, and the cycle begins again. I’m not sure if I’m slow or quick when it comes to playing Against the Storm, but I usual?ly only get about three or four settlements before everything starts over.

As you succeed with your various towns, you get meta resources that you can use ??to upgrade your civil abilities. These upgrades range from starting with specific buildings or simply bonuses to trading and productio?n. However, increasing your skills isn’t the primary objective of the game.

What keeps Against the Storm from growing stale really quickly is the fact that each settlement provides different challenges. You always start with three of the five available species of settler, and each one has different needs to keep them happy. Every time you start a map, the available resour?ces are randomized. Even if you had a very successful settlement that thrived because of a sustainable supply line for creating pies, doesn’t mean that strategy will be viable in the next settlement. ?One of the ingredients might not even be found on the map, which means that pie just isn’t on the menu.

?You may have to lean heavily on visiting traders who you can barter with for other supplies. If you’re short on fabric, for example, but are overproducing insects, you can trade the latter for the former. If you’re having trouble keeping your villagers happy, you can just buy a bunch of pies from the trad?er if they have them in stock. It’s a short-term solution, but sometimes you just need it to get you through until you can establish better infrastructure.

Likewise, the buildings you have access to are limited. You start out with ??the basics, then can unlock more out of a random assortment as you raise your reputation. Once again, this is an effective way of forcing you to adopt strategies based on w?hat’s available rather than what is most effective.

While randomized elements might ?not be for everyone, they not only support the repetition of the town-building segment but also put more emphasis on survival. You have to adapt to the varied elements of each map. You need to learn not just the massive array of nuanced mechanics but also how to read the game and think on your feet. 

Even the best survival city builders have trouble with this. There’s usually a threshold past which the survival element is diminished. You know how to keep your colony alive against any threat. But in Against the Storm, that threat is always changing. Each new grove that you cut into could reveal some?thi?ng you’re unprepared to face and leave you scrambling. The random nature of this never felt unfair to me, as there was always enough time to react appropriately and divert resources to solving the issue.

The final goal of Against the Storm is to connect a route of settlements to “Seals�out in the world and close it. That extends the next cycle by a number of years, which helps you reach the next Seal. There are eight Seals in all, and I’m assuming that closing the Adamantine Seal wins the overall game, but I’m not sure. I’m 40 hours?? in (some of which was during Early A??ccess), and I’ve only managed to close the first.

It’s probably best to tackle Against the Storm in short bursts. I’ve been playing the Early Access version for mont?hs off and on, and it never really wore thin. Going back to it, I always could remember the basics, but some of the more complex stuff I had to relearn. Finishing one settlement, then waiting until the next day to start another, seems like the best way to play with??out the repetition becoming abrasive. Plus, as you advance through the prestige levels, you’ll gradually earn more and more new mechanics to learn. It’s a lot to digest.

It’s also wrapped up? in a lovely whimsical package. I always love a good nature-focused fantasy, and its music is just so calming and endearing. It manages to be cute while also maintaining an appropr?iate gloominess.

I’m impressed by how well Against the Storm came together. There are so many facets and mechanics to it that I feel they must be hard to juggle when designing a game like this. ?However, they all interplay perfectly. Each one is introduced gradually and thoughtfully to ensure that you don’t get overwhelmed by all these gauges and menus. The randomized elements are probably going to bother anyone who is allergic to RNG, but the way they’re incorporated never felt frustrating or unfair to me.

Against the Storm is easily my favorite city builder to reach its full release this year. It m??anages to escape from the sometimes dull lack of progression felt in some other builders, while also providing a lot of depth to sink your teeth into. Because of that, it lives for f?ar longer than most games in the genre can claim. Eremite Games has really built something special here. A very nearly perfect storm.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Publisher Daedalic Entertainment has revealed the Early Access rele?ase date for developer Core Engage's debut title New Cycle. Now scheduled to release on January 18, 2024, New Cycle tasks players with building a new bastion for humanity on a post-apocalyptic Earth ravaged by solar flares.

An old new world

Players take on the role of leading a small group of settlers seeking refuge a?fter a catastrophic solar flare decimated Earth. In the dieselpunk-inspired city-builder, players wi?ll start with a small basic settlement of a few hungry workers with many needs as they build up their outpost. Morale, disease outbreaks, power losses, and resource demands are the primary challenges players will have to navigate to keep their settlement going.

The Early Access version of New Cycle that launches in January wi?ll feature a campaign and and sandbox gameplay mode, three different biomes, 54 buildings, 47 producible resources, three classes of society and eight different stages of development.

New Cycle reminds me a lot of Frostpunk with perhaps a bit of Anno 1800 mixed in which I'm all for. ?In the trailer it looks like the city was built around a train network which hopefully?? adds some interesting logistical challenges as well.

New Cycle launches into Early?? Access on Steam on January 18, 2024.

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I’m not terribly familiar with the Steamworld games, including SteamWorld Dig and SteamWorld Heist. I tried a bit of Dig, and it didn’t click with me. However, I am very familiar with city builders, so the latest game, SteamWorld Build, still got me excited.

This entry is done by a different developer The Station, whose previous work was also called The Station. So, SteamWorld Build is a bit of a depar?ture for both?? the developer and for the series as a whole. 

SteamWorld Build (PC [Review], Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S)
Developer: The Station
Publisher: Thunderful Publishing
Released: December 1, 2023
MSRP: $29.99

The world is ending, so some of the surviving robots are following the instruction of a disembodied robot eye and digging into the ground to try and find rocket ??parts so they can leave. Rather than do it themselves, however, they’re building a settlement directly over the abandoned mine so they can attract other robots that they can send to their deaths in the cold, unfeeling earth.

SteamWorld Build feels closest to the survival city-builder genre to me, but only in terms of controls and the management of resources. There really is no survival here. There’s no real fail state, and even if you suck really badly at things, you will probably always be making progress. Really, SteamWorld Build has its own flavor, which works bo??th in its favor and against it.

Beneath that, there’s also a mining and exploration game where you direct your robots to dig through blocks of earth to try and find resources and other objectives. Dungeon Keeper kept coming to mind as I played it, and there’s maybe a splash of that in here in the sense that you hollow out are?as and can build rooms. Some of the blocks you order your robots to destroy also contain ore, so there are at least aesthetic similar??ities if little else.

Really, the goal here is to build up your town, so you can get better mining gear, so you can dig deeper and get more resources for your town, so you can get even better mining gear and get to the bottom. It’s an effective way to entangle the two modes of play. You’re constantly switching between the town and your mine, which is helped by a control? scheme that makes it easy to get around. It feels nice.

The main flow of town building has you first plop down worker houses and have them extract resources to make products that will attract more workers. After all their needs are met, you can upgrade them to the next class of citizens and repeat the process with more and more complicated production lines. You’re con?stantly building and reinforcing supply lines so you can fit more and more robots into your society and meet milestones to unlock th??e next level of gear and production.

Meanwhile, underground, you’ll be putting your new gear to use. You need to ensure the mine is stable, that you have enough workers, and you must create infrast??ructure for resource extraction. Eventually, you’ll run into monsters and other hazards underground and need to deal with them, but I’m fairly certain your robots can’t permanently die. They can get eaten or destroyed in battle, but I think they either get fixed by mechanics or replaced. As I said earlier, it’s a hard game to fail at. You can certainly play it worse, but I don’t think it’s possible to be so bad at it that you get stuck. Prove me wrong, I guess.

Alongside this is a storyline that plays out in cutscenes. ??It’s�fine. I didn’t find it annoying, but I didn’t find it compelling either. On my second playthrough of the game, however, I was happy to be able to turn it off entirely. That’s a great option to have.

This is going to sound strange and ironic, but the major issue with SteamWorld Build is that it’s too mechanical and robotic. Progress is entirely linear, which is extremely strange for a city builder. With?? how difficult it? is to fail, if a fail state exists at all, there’s very little dynamism to the whole experience.

What this means is t??hat one playthrough plays pretty much the same as another. It’s a city builder that absolutely needs to have a narrative overlaying everything because you aren’t making one of your own. The robots under your care might as well not exist. They don’t have lives or schedules. They’re merely tools; a number that lets you know how close you are to reaching the next? milestone.

After your first playthrough, any subsequent approach to the game m?ight as well be a speedrun. You have the skills in place, you’ve solved all the problems, and you’ve seen the story. There is no other playstyle ??to experiment with, and you’re just doing everything again, but maybe more efficiently.

As someone who loves city-builders and management games as a whole, SteamWorld Build feels alienat?ing. It’s a city-builder for people who don’t like city-builders.

While that’s a big problem for a genre entry, it’s not as damning as it might be. SteamWorld Build is an incredibly polished game. And while the lack of fr??iction adds to the inhuman feel of the game, it is laudable. The graphics and music are so well executed that I honestly can’t imagine them being improved in any way. While the game itself feels so robotic, the aesthetic shows a lot of personality. It's like human flesh over a metal endoskel??eton.

What I mean to say is that if an extremely rigid city-builder doesn’t sound like a problem to you, or even if it sounds appealing, then SteamWorld Build is wor?th trying. I can honestly say that I didn’t hate the time I spent with it, even on the second pl??aythrough. It just feels empty when I think back on it. I don’t think it’s going to stick with me. But there are far worse problems for a game to have than being too robotic.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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My battle against autocorrect begins

Oxeliz has announced that their space colony builder, Quriocity, will be leavi?ng Earl??y Access on July 25. This completes its growth into a full version that began back in October, 2022.

Quriocity places you in the role of a leader of a space colony. Humans have developed faster-than-light travel, and it’s time to put roots down on new planets. More than just advancing and building up your space empire, ??you need to ensure that your colonists are comfortable this far out from humanity’s cradle. Beyond that, new settlers will be arriving on your space paradise, and you’ll need to be ready to accommodate th??em.

//youtu.be/ZKFXhdivf64

The update that is coming with Quriocity’s release is a hefty one. It includes 5 new maps, seasonal and dynamic weather, and 48 unique campaigns. Considering the complaint that I often see leveled at Quriocity’s current state is a lack of content, this will probably be enough to satisfy that hunger. The developers state that this patch is the result of community feedb??ack.

I’ve bounced off a fair few space city builders over the years. I’m not sure I have the time to jump into Quriocity right away, but I’ll have it earmarked to check in the future. I always find that games of this very particular? sub-genre have a certain sterility to them. I’m sort of seeing that same problem here, but with the addition of foliage and dynamic weather, it might break the mold.

Quriocity is currently a??vailable via Steam Early Access, with the full version ??dropping on July 25, 2023.

The post Full ??release of space colony builder Quriocity lands July?? 25th appeared first on Destructoid.

Sentinels of the Forest Update drops today

Despite its following and my love of city builders, I haven’t been paying much attention to Against the Storm. That changes today, as Hooded Horse has a??nnounced the latest update to Eremite Games�Early Access settlement game.

The Sentinels of the Forest update expands Against the Storm with a new playable race of fox people (the fifth species in the game), as well as their faction-specific technologies. Apparently, the Foxes work with “rainwater-fueled technol??ogies,�but most importantly, they make tea. There are both tea houses that can be built, as well as tea doctors, which heal people using the powers of tea.

Check out the new trailer below, courtesy of GameTrailers.

//youtu.be/vPdCARWzUYE

I also use tea to cure all my ills. Specifically, ?if I feel tired in the morning (which is every morning), I usually drink two pots of tea and f?ollow it up with a nap. That usually gets me the energy I need to make it to lunch.

Against the Storm is a city builder that has you build to survive torrents of corrupting rain. Rather than focus on a single settlement, you work to connect a network of them with previous towns assisting new?ly built ones. It bills itself as a roguelite, where certain portions of your progress are carried over to new games, and “hundreds�of gameplay modifiers ensure that no two playt??hroughs are the same.

Damn. I’m going to have to check this out.

Against the Storm is currently in Early Access on PC. There's a demo available i??f you're curious. If everything is on track, the full release should come in a few?? months. The Sentinels of the Forest update hits today.

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Hell of a tide

Don’t you hate it when you finish a hard day in the work mines, step blinking into the sunlight, and find out that the mountain you were on is now just a small island surrounded by ocean? So relatable. That’s how Flooded begins.

Flooded describes itself as a reverse city builder. What it means is that the world is currently undergoing flooding of biblical proportions, and you need to survive in small pockets of land, finish up your objectives, and escape before there’s no land left to dry your socks on. I wasn’t sure if this concept was really going to work for me, but now that I’ve played through Flooded, I realize that its design is not only palatable, but actually s??omewha??t brilliant.

[caption id="attachment_373383" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Flooded (PC)
Developer: Artificial Disasters
Publisher: Artificial Disasters, Surefire.Games
Release: March 12, 2023
MSRP: TBA

You may think that Flooded is going to have some message about climate change and the environmental impact of humans, but it’s a lot more intimate than that. You follow a small group of miners as they attempt to survive the rising sea level. They’re not sure how it all happened, but they’re pretty sure climate change doesn’t work that fast.

Rather than try to build settlements and gain population, you work to achieve your objectives and move on before the oceans swallow you up. This means gathering resources and accomplishing goals ?as quickly as possible. Human lives aren’t really a factor here, so long as you tick all the boxes, you move on. Screw all those consumed by the ocean. They made the mistake of tru?sting my managerial skills. I have no sympathy.

//youtu.be/pWAIm8y7lUw

Finality

The setup is ess?entially that you need to climb through 4 “eras�by completing goals and then spending a lump sum of resources to proceed. This might mean building a ship and exploring, creating enough of a certain building, or removing obstacles from the environment. While you do this, the water level rises every few minutes, sucking down any buildings on the shoreline. You can protect some areas by building bulwarks and artificial land, but that’s only a temporary solution, as producing enough material to do so requires a lot of land.

You need mines to get resources, then housing to keep all the workers, and then water to keep those things going. Then you’ll also need warehouses to keep your excess resources and electricity to upgrade buildings. Managing what little real estate you h??ave available is key, as is moving quickly to get everything done before you run out of time.

It’s a well-handled and unique gameplay loop. SimCity was impressive for the time, as it had no strict ending, but there’s only so much appetite for endless city builders. As familiar as I got with Flooded, I was only able to protect my most important facilities temporarily. In some of the later stages, I had to just accept that I needed to let some of my infrastructure drop into Davey Jones�locker and just focus on the task at hand. It’s not intensely stressful, but Flooded keeps a fire under your butt. Or maybe a jet of water would be more appropriate. Flooded is a bidet.

[caption id="attachment_373382" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Not my generation's problem

There are 12 levels, a quickplay, and an endless mode available. It’s not a tremendous amount of content, but I think it’s exactly the right amount. While Flooded is immensely fun, it does require a lot of starting over from scratch,?? and I feel there are only so many times you can do that before it b??ecomes onerous.

This would be a worse problem, but there’s a lot of Flooded that’s randomized. The resource you need to proceed to a new era changes each time, so if you’ve been spending your lead frivolously to try and preserve land, it could throw a wrench in the works by suddenly forcing you to pay up 12,000 units. Likewise, the island you’re on in each level is procedurally generated, and while there’s only so much it can change on you,? there are definitely some configurations that are more advantageous than others.

There is a decent amount of variety in your objectives as well, and new mechanics get added each mission. Beyond building, there’s a light RTS element as your settlers will be attacked by pirate?s occasionally. It doesn’t go hard on this concept (except in one of the endless modes), but the fact that Artificial Disasters went out of their way to create additional gameplay mechanics that aren’t necessarily typical for the genre, just for variety’s sake.

The story is also enjoyable, but not necessarily compelling. It’s very light-hearted, featuring some decent characters and a mountain of references to other media. T?he writing is optimistic, so even if it isn’t necessarily the deepest plot, it at least doesn’t stumble over itself trying to be anything more than it needs to be.

[caption id="attachment_373384" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Swallowed up

I enjoyed my time with Flooded more than I thought I would. I didn’t go in thinking I’d disl?ike the game, but I wasn’t expecting it to be as well-executed as it is. It’s just sort of unassuming, both in concept and aesthetic, but wh?en you dig in, it’s hard not to appreciate how well all its different facets fit together.

For being a rather unique premise, Flooded offers a very tight and polished experience. It’s the sort of thing where I’m afraid that if you either add something or?? take it away, it will stop working. Just a terrific execution of its thesis. I’m not certain it will necessarily soak your socks like some more expansive builders might, but your time spent st??randed will be worthwhile.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Flooded appeared first on Destructoid.

From the ground up

While SimCity happened way back in 1989, the city builder genre is in a sort of renaissance. Sure, Cities: Skylines continues its stranglehold on municipal simulation, but a sub-genre has sprung up in its shadow; the survival city builder (sometimes just known as settlement-builders). While this genre has technically been around for decades, it only started finding its identity in the wake of 2014’s Banished. Since then, a number of games like Settlement Survival have picked up the ball where it was left, and other games like Frostpunk have taken the concept in different directions.

Management games, in general, and city builders as a whole are big relaxation games for me. While games that require a hyper-focused state, such as Doom Eternal, help me manage my anxiety, ??it’s city builders that help me unwind.

The genre shows no sign of letting up, with games like Stray Fawn Studios�The Wandering Village and Team Kerzoven’s Circle of Kerzoven on the horizon with differing approaches. Both games are from Switzerland and un?der the SwissGames umbrella??, which gave me the opportunity to talk to both of them.

[caption id="attachment_372135" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

One step further

Circle of Kerzoven is the most closely adjacent to Banished of the two projects. The big difference is that the environment is simulated within it. Not only do you manage the needs of your settlers, but you also must balance their needs against the resources available. Not respecting nature can cause animals to go extinct or even “explosively multiply.�/p>

“When Banished was released, I was extremely impressed by the consistent simulation of the villagers,�described Marco Burri, founder of Team Kerzoven and Lead Developer on Circle of Kerzoven. "You could observe the life of each person, which was unique at that time. However, I thought to myself, ‘Why not go one step further? Why not simulate and represent plants and animals this way as well?�Furthermore, due to my background as a systems engineer, I have a flair for detailed simulation models, control loops, and complex natural processes.�/p>

Despite the survival element of the game, Tearm Kerzoven still focused on making Circle of Kerzoven a relaxing experience. “Who does not want to be cozy? I think in our everyday life, we experience a lot of stress and find ourselves in an ever faster-changing world. Circle of Kerzoven also relies heavily on the element of slowing down as part of the gameplay experience. That's why a lot of Kerzoven is about observing things like ‘how does nature behave?�‘Is the soil moist enough for my forest?�or ‘is the wolf population doing well?’�/p>

[caption id="attachment_372136" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Team Kerzoven[/caption]

Principle of Symbiosis

Stray Fawn Studios�The Wandering Village has a different approach but still has the same focus on co-existing with nature. You build your settlement on the back of a massive, wandering creature called an Onbu. You not only need to keep your villagers healthy and happy but also tend to the needs of the very land itself. “At its core, it’s a game about the biological principle of symbiosis,�described Philomena Schwab, co-founder of Stray Fawn Studios and game designer on The Wandering Village.

“The game’s setting is inspired by Indian and northern mythology. The legend of the ‘world turtle�can be found in many movies, books, and games, but there has never been a game that makes the creature its primary game mechanic before. In terms of story and world-building, we are strongly inspired by the 1984 Japanese animation movie Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.�The narrative link there is that the wo??rld is overwhelmed by toxic fungus, which makes the relative safety of the Onbu that much more important.

I asked Schwab what they thought of the rising popularity of cozy games, and they had this to say, “The target group for games has become much wider in the past few years, allowing many new genres and topics to find an audience. Also, I believe that people are seeking comforting experiences in the wake of the recent events that are happening to our society.�/p>

Personally, I prefer the term “dumpster fire�to describe the ??recent events that are happening to our society.

[caption id="attachment_372137" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

The influence of beavers

I already loved city builders back when I was a kid, and SimCity had a huge effect on my development. It created an interest in urban planning and cities in general that has lasted to this day. I wanted to hear?? what the developers considered the best games in the genre.

For Marco Burri, “Some of my favorites can be seen in Kerzoven: As always when developing a game, I borrowed some mechanics from the best. For example, the fact that several player villages in different climatic zones are simulated simultaneously is inspired by the Anno series. Of course, an old master must not go unmentioned here. Dwarf Fortress. It has always fascinated me, and it is thanks to Dwarf Fortress that I focused on a rich simulation of nature and all living things in Kerzoven. There are a lot more great games with great mechanics like Timberborn, Wandering Village, or Cities: Skylines.�/p>

Meanwhile, for Philomena Schwab, “Personally, I greatly enjoy Kingdoms and Castles because of how accessible the devs made the game. In many city builders, you have a steep learning curve, but this game lets you jump right in. I’m also a fan of Timberborn, because of its adorable setting, and I played waaaay too many hours of Banished.�/p>

All great games, but I have to echo the love of Timberborn. Still in Early Access, Timberborn is a fantastic survival city builder that combines urban planning and engineering. Plus, all your villagers ar??e beavers, which makes it even better. I’m very happy to see both developers give it a shoutout.

[caption id="attachment_372138" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Team Kerzoven[/caption]

The value of failure

Speaking of surv??ival, one of my favorite parts of city builders has been the disasters. While suffering is always fun to watch, I also enjoy trying to rebuild and rise from the ashes. However, their random nature can be frustrating, so I wanted to see what modern developers think of the mechanic.

Marco Burri from Team Kerzoven had a unique thought on the facet, “I like disasters or dangers which are emerging from the simulation, for example, when you shoo away all carnivores and then get a rat plague, which then eat all the vegetables and corn around the village like in Circle of Kerzoven. You can see the issue building up and have the chance to mitigate the problems or learn for the future. I personally do not like event disasters in games like tornadoes or earthquakes if you can not prepare or avoid the disaster.�/p>

It’s sort of interesting to see the contrast of Philomena Schwab’s answer, “Personally, I’m always a fan of survival mechanics in city builders. Feeling that everything I build is fragile and could be destroyed if I’m not careful gives me a greater sense of purpose and value in city builders (and many other genres too). I love to fail, figure out what I did wrong, and try again.�/p>

I like seeing meteors gouge big craters out of the landscape, then building within the new landscape feature. Perhaps it's my storyteller's? perspective; the peo??ple have this reminder of the disaster beneath their feet. It shows that you can return from destruction.

[caption id="attachment_372139" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot by Destructoid[/caption]

Swiss bank account

Both Circle of Kerzoven and Wandering Village are small indie productions. They recieve funding in part by Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia’s SwissGames initiative. I asked Oliver ??Miescher, Head of International Platforms, about the requisites to obtain funding (beyond being based in Switzerland).

“The Swiss game studios who are supported by Pro Helvetia must convince a jury with international experts,�they explained. “They select projects with originality and a high artistic quality which have an international market potential. They also have an eye on the technical approach, how the game was made, and how relevant it is compared to other indie releases around the globe.�/p>

Oh gosh. That sounds intense.

“One of the biggest challenges for indie studios is the short runway that indie studios have, i.e., the length of time a studio can work on a proj??ect without additional funds. Especially in Switzerland, we do have a lot of talented game studios with a lot of great game ideas, but in Switzerland, there are no investments."

"That’s why we bring Swiss game studios to GDC and other fairs to help them find financing partners like publishers, who make their projects possible at the end. At the same time, we also bring different game developers from Switzerland and other countries together and build a network with industry people from all over the world. In this 'safe space,' studios can exchange with people from all over the world and get valuable feedback regarding the business questions they have. We support them with business skills (coaching and mentoring activities) and prepare them to be ready with their projects before they meet possible partners at the fairs around the world.�/p>

[caption id="attachment_372140" align="alignnone" width="640"] Image via Team Kerzoven[/caption]

City eating

After a slump in the �0s, fans of city builders are eatin??g well, thanks to the indie market. In a way, the genre seems to be a great nexus for imag?ination and logical construction. Plus, as the developers have pointed out, the state of the world has created fertile soil for more relaxing genres.

However, being an indie devel?oper and trying to support yourself off that line of work is extremely difficult. Even the best executed and most well-imagined games won't get the recognition they deserve. It’s helpful to have the support of the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia to help with PR and establish mentorship.

The Wandering Village is currently in Early Access for PC. Circle of Kerzoven is also focusing? on PC, and will drop into Early Access later this year.

The post Talking survival city builders with Stray Fawn Studios ?and ?Team Kerzoven appeared first on Destructoid.

They think we know nothing

Survival town-builder Outlanders is the latest game that will be leaving Apple Arcade to plant roots on new platformers. Pomelo Games' builder is dropping on March 7, 2023.

First released on the iOS Apple Arcade in 2019, Outlanders is a survival town-builder, a genre that has been growing in popularity since Shining Rock Software’s 2014 hit, Banished. Since then, the formula has been expanded by games like Frostpunk and Settlement Survival. The focus of these?? games is on resource management, as your townsfolk suffer from a fatal condition known as mortality. Fail to ke??ep them fed and healthy, and they will succumb to their diseases.

[embed]//youtu.be/HGWqZ6mp-lo[/embed]

Outlanders attempts a more relaxed approach, but you’ll still be tasked with filling hungry bellies. It has a narrative campaign that has you follow the paths of various leaders. There is no combat, but the media around it shows construction near a volcano. Like other games in the series, you manage the workload of the town’s inhabitants, and you can pass decrees to work the ungrateful peons to an early grave. Improvements have been made to the UI and graphics to make it better suited to the good?? old mouse and keyboard setup. A sandbox mode will also be available if you do better without having to worry about goals or expectations.

Outlanders is currently available on iOS via Apple Arcade, and will be coming to PC on March 7, 2023. There is currently a PC demo available on Steam if you want to kick the tires.

The post Outlanders lays its foundations on PC March 7 appeared first on Destructoid.

Disasters ahoy

Artificial Disasters has announced that their “reversed city-builder�Flooded will be washing out to sea on March 15, 2023.

You might be wondering what a “reversed city-builder�means. For me, personally, it brought back memories of calling every single disaster down on my SimCity 2000 creations. However, Artificial Disasters is using the descriptor as a way of explaining the slowly disappearing terrain in Flooded. Don’t get too comfortable with your initial landmass because, over time, it will be washed away. The goal is ?to place your buildings carefully to escape the approaching waves.

[embed]//youtu.be/qCA1hjRS9bU[/embed]

Tied into this are some RTS and rogue-lite elements. There are ?campaign, quickplay, and endless modes to tackle. The campaign is story-driven, having you build a??rks to travel the expanding oceans to figure out what is causing them to rise. You’ll have to defend yourself from other survivors out to plunder your settlements because even when faced with the end, humans will always be eager to destroy lives.

City-builders is one of my favorite relaxation genres. However, Flooded looks like it’s aiming to add an element of stress with its constantly ticking countdown. Still, I always enjoy a bit of progress to give a nice framework to the constant people-pleasing. If I have one hang-up, it’s that I’m not crazy about the art style. However, Artificial Disasters is a solo developer effort, and it can be difficult for one person to cover every aspect of design. It’s defini?tely not a deal-breaker for me..

Flooded hits PC on March 15, 2023. If you’d like to see if it’s your speed, a demo is available via Steam and GOG.

The post Reve??rsed city-builder Flooded gushes ??into PC on March 15 appeared first on Destructoid.

A demo is also out right now

The SteamWorld team is setting its sights on the big city. SteamWorld Build is the newest game set in the SteamWorld setting, arriving in 2023 for PC and consoles.

Announced during today's SteamWorld Telegraph, SteamWorld Build is a city builder set in? the same universe that's tied together all of Thund??erful's steam-powered games.

The new city builder will see you become the ar??chitect of your own mining town, excavating the ground beneath and building a town up top. ??The overall goal is to dig deeper, unearth the goodies, and ultimately escape the planet.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd_ZTJtAW88

It looks similar to games like Dungeon Keeper or Dwarf Fortress, where you're balancing building a world and digging deeper with the impending dangers surrounding you. There are caves to explore, five different SteamWorld-inspired maps with secrets, and it will be controllable with either controller or mouse? and keyboard.

If you want to try it out for yourself, you can do so right now too. A demo for SteamWorld Build is live right now as part of the Steam Base Builder Fest, run??ning Jan. 23 through Jan. 30, so you can give this game a shot.

The wide, wide world of Steam

Even if city builders aren't your style, there's more SteamWorld games on the way too. While the team wouldn't go into specifics, Thunderful's Brjann Sigurgeirsson confirms there are four SteamWorld games currently in development. The team didn't discuss what those games were, but hey, that's a lot of SteamWorld.

As for SteamWorld Build, no firm date has been set yet but it is planned for both PC and console sometime this year. With a demo already available, I'm personally hoping that's sooner rather than later, as I could go for a good city builder with the wonderful theming that SteamWorld frequently gets right.

The post SteamWorld Build t??akes the franchise into the? city builder genre in 2023 appeared first on Destructoid.

Little vegetable people living their little vegetable lives

I am always on the hunt for a new cozy simulation game, because playing a relaxing city/life/community sim is one of my favorite ways to wind down after a long day. One upcoming title I've had my eye on is Gourdlets, a city-building simulator that has "no objectives, no points, just building." Say no more �I know for a fact that this title is goi??ng to be right up my alley, especially with its pastel color palette and adorable vegetable villagers.

Based on a new trailer that publisher AuntyGames posted, will be able to decorate their towns with all kinds of cute buildings, trees, flowers, crops, fences, and paths. Your villagers will also be able to take part in cozy activities like roasting marshmallows, building sand castles, and the simulator staple: fishing. You'll be able to "Watch the population of gourdlets grow and interact with the town as you create it," according to the game's Steam page?, and chill out as you "watch the little gourdlets live their little lives."

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni_LoaTunj4

I'm excited to see a new entry in the cozy simulator genre that's more of an open-ended, sandboxy thing as opposed to a game with a more rigid quest structure. I've been having a blast with Disney's Dreamlight Valley, but I know after binging dozens of hours of a game that requires a good deal of grinding for materials, a more relaxed experience will be a welcome respite. Gourdlets' gameplay and art style also remind me of another excellent city-builder called Townscaper, which shares in its bright?? colors and? laid-back tone.

Gourdlets doesn't have a release window yet, but the extended demo is available to download on Steam right now!

The post Cozy city-builder Gourdlets ?gets a new trailer, demo appeared first on Destructoid.

Cozy up with this relaxing village-building game on Switch starting September 29

I don't associate my PC or office space in general with "cozy vibes" �not now, and probably not ever. So it's wonderful to hear that Dorfromantik, a minimalistic village-building game that's out now on Steam, is coming to Nintendo Switch on Septe??mber 29. In terms of low-stakes, just-let-me-unwind gaming, I can't think of a better platform.

This news got buried in yesterday's Gamescom deluge, but it's worth highlighting today.

//twitter.com/_Toukana/status/1562216676057354240

Dorfromantik is a game about building out a landscape by placing down randomly-drawn tiles �trees, houses, railroads, rivers �which connect in aesthetically pleasing ways. You'll start small, piece by piece, but end up with a p?leasant-looking land that streches far.

While it's possible to play aimlessly, if you're looking for more concrete goals, there are scores to chase, and achievements to work toward. There is a way to play strategically rather than just going with the flow. Zoey's got a good breakdown in her PC review.

Speaking of which, PC players will be getting controller support in an update, presumably around the same time as the Nintendo Switch release of Dorfromantik.

Surprisingly, Dorfromantik is the first game from Toukana Interactive. With the way things seem to be going, I'm hoping the developers can take this success and run with it. In the shorter term, maybe that means more ports, potentially PlayStation, Xbox, iOS, an??d Android. Further out, though, I'd love to see where these game design concepts can go.

The post Dorfromantik is a perfect fit for Nintendo Switch appeared first on Destructoid.

Shuffle resources with arcane lasers

There's nothing quite like that first marathon session with a new city builder when everything's fresh and you haven't backed yourself into a corner yet. In the upcoming hex-grid-based colony sim game Scorchlands, you'll terraform a volcanic moon with a blend of science and magic, weaving an "indu?strial web" of lasers to transport resources.

Instead of a far-off overseer, you'll play as a ?bir??d-like Giwi on the ground. Having a colorful palette and a few wrinkles to shake up the usual city-builder format goes a long way.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjYEg5katr4

From the trailer, I can already tell that reshaping the hostile landscape and semi-strategically plopping down a bunch of stru??ctures? will feel like a nice little brain massage.

There will be combat in Scorchlands, although the developer, Ringlab, describes it as a "minimalistic" system in which "positioning will be the key." Ideally, the wildlife on Helia will keep the pressure up from time to time without being annoying. I'm not outright against combat in building sims like this, but I tend to prefer the Terra Nil approach.

Look out for a demo

Scorchlands will have a demo "in just a few days." And when it's ready, the game will launch in Early Acce?ss �Ringlab expects a year-and-a-half run before the full rele?ase.

The team has??n't announced an Early Access start date yet, but the content slate is "four biomes, 20+ b?uildings, 50+ technologies, 30+ resources, and four combat units."

[caption id="attachment_340950" align="alignnone" width="1595"] _{Reshaping the land and praying that your layout won't age poorly.}[/caption]

"While the game is currently in a good state content-wise, we still? wish to expand it by adding things that wi??ll make the game worth returning to, repeatedly," said Ringlab.

"We also want to improve the already existing mechanics and make them as intuitive as possible, especially at the ??later stages of the game."

During Early Access development, t??he (currently "lighthearted") story will be fleshed out.

Scorchlands is up on Steam and GOG for wishlisting.

The post Scorchlands is a magical colony builder on a vol??canic moon appeared first on Destructoid.

Where is my mind?

Games are very goal-driven, which is an extremely obvious statement to make, but I do have a point. Throughout the history of video games, there have been attempts at concepts that don’t have a set goal. Sim City, for example, has no real ending. You can say that the goal is to build the biggest, most functional city possible??, but how do you know when you reached that?

Dorfromantik has that same sort of mindset. Technically, there is a goal. You can argue that there’s an ending. You can even point out that there’s a competitive angle. All of that is missing the point. Dorfromantik is about putting that all aside and just letting your min??d go, but as it t??urns out, letting my mind go isn’t that great of an idea.

Dorfromantik (PC)
Developer: Toukana Interactive
Publisher: Toukana Interactive
Released: April 28, 2022
MSRP: $13.99

It’s hard to peg Dorfromantik to a genre. You might say it’s a city-builder, or perhaps it’s more like a jigsaw puzzle. I’d say it’s Solitaire. You’re given a finite stack of hexagonal tiles and that’s it. The tiles have things like streams, train tracks, forests, houses, fields, and empty plains, but there’s no picture you’re trying to complete. You can only see three tiles ahead of you, so you just have to try your best to connect them in the mo?st optimal way.

If you want to continue with your creation, you need more tiles. Certain tiles have objectives ?attached to them, such as being connected to a certain number of matching tiles. Other times, you have to connect them t??o a specified number of matching tiles, and you can’t go over. Whatever the objective is, completing them adds more tiles to your stack.

That’s all there really is to it. You just plop them down as you see fit. Maybe you want to build the biggest board possible. Perhaps you’d rather focus on creating one big megaforest. Chances are, there?’s a reward for whatever you choose to do.

[embed]//youtu.be/7nrfmZ5CpI4[/embed]

Dorfromantik is a calm, meditative game. It’s hard for me to envision the type of person who approaches it with the intention of climbing to the top of the leaderboard. However, if you really need a purpose for your tile-linking skills, there is a competitive side to it. There are high scores to be achieved and monthly challenges to win. Perhaps optimizing your strategy runs contrary to Dorfromantik’s central philosophy, but you do you.

New tiles are also unlocked by crossing certain milestones. Getting a certain score or linking enough of the same tiles might grant you something useful, like the indispensable water crossing for trains. In that sense, there is some progression to Dorfromantik, but it’s all linked to your ability to be?tter your landscapin??g skills.

There is also a creative mode available that allows you to craft your own landscapes without worrying about the tiles in? your stack. As it turns out, a solid framework of rules and guidelines is necessary to keep me engaged, but it’s there for anyone who just enjoys painting with ??hexagons.

But while I speak of the game’s meditative mindset, I have to circle back to the fact that it didn’t work favorably for me. I found that Dorfromantik allowed my mind to wander too easily, and while it would start by making up stories for the little private islands I’d create, eventually it would start digging up the darker parts of my psyche. Due to this, I actually found?? the game uncomfortable to play.

That’s a me problem. It’s obviously contrary to what Dorfromantik is attempting to achieve, but I feel like it’s necessary to bring it up to highlight the fact that this isn’t necessarily going to fit everybody’s needs for relaxation. For one thing, the fact that you need to let go of the idea that every tile is going to have a perfect fit on your board is going to aggravate certain people with OCD. For me, it merely gave my mind too long of a leash. Sometimes, I need games as a distraction, but as it turns out, the best way for them to calm my brain worms is to keep them occupied. With that in mind, Doom Eternal is a better meditation for me than Dorfromantik.

At the same time, I won’t argue that Dorfromantik seems to meet its vision and philosophy quite well. If there’s feedback I can actual??ly give it, it’s that I’d love to see more variation in tiles. There are “biomes�that you can find by branching out far enough, but these merely change the colors of the trees, ground, and houses. I think it would be neat if enough village tiles would give way to more modern skyblockers. The contrast of forest and rural towns to highways and urban areas would feel satisfying to me.

I’m not certain if I’m personally going to return to Dorfromantik following this review, simply due to my mind’s response to its relaxing gameplay. On the other hand, I would at least recommend giving it a try. The price seems right for something that you may either embrace as a calming way to take a moment, or bounce off of because it’s just not for you. However, in terms of execution, I’d argue that Dorfromantik absolutely nails it.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Dorfromantik appeared first on Destructoid.

With options ranging from "idyllic" to "brutal"

Grim Dawn ended up hitting spot for a lot of action-RPG fans, and this year, Crate Entertainment is coming for all of the city-builders in the room. The studio's next project is Farthest Frontier, a game about starting a town "at the edge of the known world." We've seen screenshots on Steam before, but today, there's a cozy gameplay trailer.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWnAItzIWtc

As the trailer footage shows, your colony will start off very small �and very vulnerable to the elements. One moment, your villagers are chopping trees, growing crops, and?? fishing; the next, there's a bear attack. And a raging house?? fire. And a brutal winter.

Th?at's just the eye-??catching stuff they're showing us now, too. Think about all of the long-term threats to a quiet village life that are lurking beneath the surface, simmering.

Before you panic �admittedly, I'm starting to! �there will be options. As the Steam listing for Farthest Frontier explains, "customizable difficulty options allow players to turn off features like invaders and disease, for a more tranquil experience or max out difficulty to truly test?? their town-builder prowess." I'll avoid the latter at all costs, thanks.

Some of these bullet-points really are worth a look, whether it's talk of avoiding "old-timey diseases," planning out "crop rotations to maintain soil fertility," and developing an economy with the right mix of raw materials. There's plenty to consider bey?ond just which specific road sh?ould go where and who's responsible for what duties.

If you're curious why everyone is constantly running around, Crate Entertainment says that "villagers actively live their lives and perform their jobs in real-tim?e." The hustle!

When does Steam Early Access start?

[caption id="attachment_310400" align="alignnone" width="1920"] _{Stocking up for a long winter.}[/caption]

Farthest Frontier will be playable on PC sometime in 2022, but it's kicking things off with a Steam Early Access launch. From there, the road to a 1.0 release is expecte??d to last "probably 4-8 months, depending on how much we feel the need to alter gameplay systems or add to the scope of the game before we're ready to call it finished."

As it stands, the game will have "four tiers of town-building" and "10+ hours of gameplay," with "all listed features [working] when we release in [Ea??rly Access]."

It may look very familiar, but I don't consider that a knock against Farthest Frontier.

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Plug it in, change the world. You are my electric girl

I remember the first time I picked up Simcity on the SNES. I didn’t understand a damn thing about urban development, the terminology, or how roads work. Strangely, I have a clear image of w?hat my first attempted town was, and it was really just a mash of the prebuilt ??buildings. What were these R’s and C’s that appear in squares?

I probably would have been between the age of 6-8 at the time, so cut me some slack. I’d eventually pick up the finer points and build a few cities on rock and roll, which I think is pretty good for that age range. I quickly grew to love Simcity and fill my sma?ll-town brain with lots of romanticized notions of urban life.

But my years of digital city development did not prepare me for Power to the People. Sure, I’ve slapped down some power plants and strung up some power lines, but I never had to think about how simplified the experience was. Then I tried my hand at building a grid, and the popping sounds of m??y failure filled my ears.

Power to the People (PC)
Developer: Hermes Interactive
Publisher: Crytivo
Released: February 8, 2022
MSRP: $14.99

Power to the People is like somebody’s sick ??idea of a mod for any popular city builder. Someone grew dissat??isfied with the unrealistic nature of the power system and decided to amp it up. So, instead of actually building a city, you simply need to keep one powered. Then another one. And another one. Then someone starts mining for cryptocurrency, and your already strained grid starts buckling under the pressure. Fireworks!

I’m not an electrician or an engineer. I’ve mucked around in the internals of some old consoles, but I wouldn’t claim I know how to wire a house, let alone a city. I’ve never really thought about i?t. Electric juice flows through rubber strings and into my home, and if one of those strings is knocked down,?????????????????????????? someone needs to come and put it back up. Did you know there’s more to it than that? It surprised me, too!

It starts off pretty basic. You need a source of power, a way to change that into a lower voltage that buildings can drink, and if you’re feeling sassy, some storage units th?at can hold excess juice for when you need it. But then, the city starts expanding, and then another one forms, and you need to stretch that grid out to meet their needs. It takes more than just running wires, however, because if too much power is funneled through one place, it will overload and explode. Yeesh.

[embed]//youtu.be/bNWmC8nWj8o[/embed]

When I started off in Power to the People, I was awful. The goal is to survive as CEO for 50 days without your approval dipping below 50% or bankrupting your company. For the first few areas I tackled, I limped across that finish line. Portions of my grid were going off like popcorn kernels, but as long as I patched them up ??quickly, no one would get pissed off enough to fire me.

Eventually, I did learn, however. My octopus “grids�gave way to stable setups that usually only required occasional tweaking. From there, it’s managing weather events, the occasional disaster, and expanding as the cities do. The pace of Power for the People is essentially one day at a ti??me. At mid?night, everything pauses to allow you to make repairs and upgrades in peace, so there isn’t much to do during the day aside from hitting the fast forward button and putting out fires.

I always found getting established to be the most difficult part of any given level. There isn’t much room for error as you work with limited resources, but once you start pulling in a more stable income, you can easily reconfigure the grid as you see fit. That’s perhaps the most unrealistic part of Power to the People: you can make changes in an instant. If a particular area is causing you trouble, you can simply plop down whatever you need to shore it up, so long as? you have the money.

As you complete levels, you’re given access to more gear. However, little of it is very game-changing, and that is perhaps Power to the People’s biggest downfall; there isn’t much variation from area to area. Once you have the basics, there’s little to be surprised by. Unlocking a more expensive power plant doesn’t really change the strategy, and the landscapes might as well be randomly generated by how much impact they really have on gameplay. It starts to ?feel like going through the routine.

There are some attempts at variety, su??ch as different climates, map-specific perks, and other obstacles. The issue is mostly that they don’t really affect much. If you’ve proven you can manage a grid, you can probably do it again barring some unforeseen disasters.

Speaking of which, there are leaderboards, though, given the random nature of the events in each level, it seems like a strange inclusion. On one stage, I landed low on the leaderboards because an event caused havoc on my grid. It was beyond my control, and the best I could do was survive it. Another player wouldn’t have had that same issue. I’m not hung up on my standings in Power to the People, I just thought it was stran?ge that it would tell me how much I suck due to circumstances that I couldnâ€??™t have predicted.

That’s essentially the main problem I have with Power to the People; I don’t see any lasting appeal. There’s certainly a decent swath of areas to play in, three difficulty settings to try out, and it doesn’t feel limited in content, there just is??n’t much variation to its gameplay. I don’t see myself going back to it in the future to try and advance my skills.

At the same time, I wouldn’t argue that Power to the People is well executed in everything it does. It’s ae??sthetically pleasing, has that horn-heavy soundtrack that almost every city-builder uses to lull you into a trance, and there wasn’t any part of the formula that I didn’t feel was locked solid. I recommend it if you know what you’re getting into. If you want a title about managing a power grid, have at it. If you’re hoping for a wrinkle in that formula, you’re probably not going to find it.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

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Quest 2 owners are getting the key to the city

It's easy to lose track of your surroundings once you're invested in a game like Cities: Skylines, and when we're talking VR, the immersion factor is just that much more potent. Fast Travel Games is adapting Colossal Order's popular city-builder for virtual reality with a new game called Cities: VR. It's coming to the Meta Quest 2 in spring 2022.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=noXnPV3r49g

Meta Quest 2? Yeah, I'm not used to saying that either. It's weird to take a product that you might already have in your home at this very moment and suddenly start calling it something else. Something much more groan-worthy. The Oculus na?me w??as fine!

Tangent aside, I like the premise of towering over my city like some sort of all-seeing giant mayor and feeling a closer connection to my neatly laid-out neighborhoods by virtue of VR. The announcement trailer for Cities: VR is more about setting the mood, whereas the real meat and potatoes can be found i??n ?this separate alpha gameplay demonstration.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCp5GhPHnFw

The use of a palette (and the more "h?ands-on" feel of the Meta Quest 2 controllers) gives the imp??ression that you're plopping down a world of miniatures, which I dig.

"The city-building genre has huge potential in the VR market and we couldn’t wait to work on this IP," said Fast Travel Games creative director Erik Odeldahl. "We've spent a ton of time, research, and energy to translate Cities: Skylines to VR in a way that is both approachable for new players and a new challenge for Cities veterans."

This game doesn't replace the inevitable Cities: Skylines 2, and it isn't trying to. If you're unfamiliar with the studio behind Cities: VR, it also worked on Apex Construct, Budget Cuts 2, and Wraith: The Oblivion - Afterlife. If all goes as well as it should on this project, I can easily see this being t?he developer's biggest �and best-received �VR release.

I'm already sweating the economic side, though. I can make a decent-looking city, but it's probably held together by duct tape and about to collapse at an??y moment.

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A tight 30-minute gameplay loop is one way to keep late-night gaming sessions in check

I've been meaning to cover T-Minus 30, a game about building short-term cities to get as many folks off the planet as possible before it's too late, but it fell off my to-do list. I'd probably miss t??he l??ast rocket off Earth, too. "I'm forgetting something, aren't I? Oh sh�"

It's been out for about a week now on Steam, slowly picking ?up traction in an admittedly crowded PC?? genre, and there's still a slight launch-week discount if you hurry.

Simply put: "You can't save everyone, a?nd people will st?ill end up dead, but that's life."

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBPdjvK7dyk

I would've tried to give T-Minus 30 a nod either way, but I definitely? wanted to take some time to do so after catching this launch trailer �it's not your everyday format. Instead, it's half an hour long. Long enough to see a full run, including the nervewracking final countdown in which the player scrambles to squeeze rockets into the cluttered map.

If you'd rather go at your own pace, the first minute of the trailer is a more traditional recap, so you're covered there too. The big takeaway is that you've got to transform the landscape as quickly and efficiently as possible to support infrastructure that can ultimately get humanity off the planet, and in gameplay term??s, that means lots of clicking and thinking ahead to make the most of said clicks. The maps are procedural.

"You can build up your infrastructure to support solar farms and hydro????ponics labs to stock sleek generational ships that each rescue thousands of evacuees," according to Gray Alien Games. "Or, you can remain low-tech and brute force your population off the Earth by building massive numbers of 1960s era rocketry." The graphics, while simple, fit the vibe.

This game seems like the opposite of the tranquil nature-building game Terra Nil, which is ?about revitalizing a wasteland and leaving no trace when the job's done. I'm h?ere for both!

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Moving beyond the age of coal and into oil

Survival city-builder Frostpunk is getting a sequel. 11 bit Studios announced today that Frostpunk 2 will head 30 years into the future of their frozen Earth, and they showcased it with a new trailer.

The video doesn't expla?in too much, though it looks lik??e the survivors are still looking for new sources of power. The oil extraction industry is humanity's next hope, though it sounds like that direction might be causing some rifts.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kfHUN4gFiw

Once again, it looks like tough choices and limited resources will be your obstacles. In a press release, co-director Jakub Stokalski described his vision for Frostpunk 2, and that players should expect a?? "wide universe" of ??choices, freedom to shape society and their city, albeit with consequences.

"Frostpunk 2 builds on the conflicts of its predecessor—survival vs human values, life ?vs the arctic frost," said Stokalski. "But most i?mportantly, it adds a new layer that is present in many aspects of the game—be it politics, be it society, be it technological progress—the conflict between humans and their nature."

The first Frostpunk was a neat city-builder th??at mixed management and government with the terrors?? of a frozen waste, ever-encroaching on your meager city. I remember playing it on a whim once at a PAX and quickly becoming hooked; its mix of building and surviving was really intriguing, though I've yet to go back.

There's good news for me and others who haven't spent more time with it yet though, as 11 bit Studios is making the first Frostpunk available for free on Steam from today, Aug. 12 through Aug. 16 at 1 p.m. ET. You'll have to buy the game to keep playing after that? point, but if you've yet to check it out, that seems like a pretty good way of doing so.

Frostpunk 2 has no release date set yet, though it's confirmed as co?ming to Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store.

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Leave no trace

Builder games are usually built around consuming resources. The goal is to locate a good place to harvest and spend a great deal of consumable products, so your empire can keep expanding and encompassing more territory, eating more resources along the way, and all the while managing consumption and scar?city.

I got a chance to play the demo of Terra Nil, the next project from Broforce and Genital Jousting developers?? Free Lives, and it is a sort-of inversion of the resource consumption-based builder. It tasks you with plotting out infrastructure and interlinking synergistic buildings to max out numbers. But rather tha??n eating the resources of the planet, you're returning them to the barren landscape.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8eYqNNxICE

The process is fairly straightforward. Wind turbines power your structures and act as the focal points for your expanding empire. Plotting out irrigators and machines that clean the soil, the dreary wasteland starts to change shape before your eyes. Greenery flourishes and cascades across the area you've designated, and in the place of rocks and sa??n?d, there's grass and trees.

At this point, Terra Nil launches into the goals: restore life to the soil and expand diversity through different biomes. The first par??t is straightforward: you simply construct more wind turbines, lay out more of your basic soil-cleansing solutions, and watch as the world springs back into life.

Biomes are a little trickier, and where Terra Nil starts to feel a bit more like a puzzle game. Putting beehives in trees can help to pollinate the surrounding area, allowing flowers to dot the landscape; land near rivers can be converted to wetlands, allowing nautical flora to appear; and, most drastically, grasslands can be lit ablaze using solar power to create a "controlled burn," from which a w??oodlands can be built.

My first time doing this was essent?ially playing with fire. I didn't really appreciate the breadth to which Free Lives would allow me to set this plain, upon which I had just spent 20 minutes carefully molding into a flourishing grasslan??ds, ablaze with the power of the sun. One poorly thought-out decision later, I at least had a lot of room to create some forests.

Getting good biome diversity means boosting each of these three concepts, making sure they each have their own space and enough to go around. It was a very careful process that requi??red a little bit of trial-and-error. It also meant doing some terraforming of my own, opening up new river canals or stone to place wind turbines on so I could expand and reach further.

It's fascinating how Terra Nil still manages to feel like a city-builder, even as you're constructing nature rather than ?civilization. And so it becomes all t?he more intriguing when you're asked to tear it all down, piece-by-piece. The final project, once you've restored nature to the area, is to build an airship by recycling every bit of machinery you've just constructed.

As you plop down silos to collect your buildings, watching them disappear into a flurry of greenery and then get sucked into a container by a drone and converted to building materials, it's rewarding. Dismantling an empire and leaving no mark of your presence behind is bittersweet, but as you do so, wildlife starts to emerge. Deer start roaming and grazing. Life is com??ing back to this place, ??once a desolate wasteland.

And so the airship sets off, and the demo ends with a planet left to replenish—save one area, now starting to look full of life again thanks to my efforts. It's a nice touch. I've played and enjoyed a lot of building and management games, and some even address the toll of rapid construction, expansion, and consumption on the environment and the climate. But Terra Nil isn't just about the tack-on effects; it's about undoing the damage?? and restoring life where it once existed. I'm looking f??orward to clearing many more grasslands for families of deer in the future, just hopefully with fewer accidental blazes.

Terra Nil is coming to PC, though no release date has been set yet. A demo is currently available as part of the Steam Next Fest.

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This isn't what I expected when I heard murmurs about a "reverse city-builder" game, especially one dreamed up by Broforce developer Free Lives, but I mean that in the best possible way. Terra Nil looks so neat.

We'll even be ab?le to try it out soon?? with a demo on Steam.

//youtu.be/F8eYqNNxICE

I'm watching this reveal trailer as my neighbor enters hour three of incessantly using his power sander on some boards that must be ready by now, and I needed this.

While we will be plopping down machinery in Terra Nil, the point of the game is to restore a "ravaged" wasteland into an "ecological paradise complete with different flora and fauna." If you've followed my coverage of sim games like Birthdays the Beginning over the years?, you'll know how much that premise clicks with me. And this art looks really pleasant.

I'm not entirely sure of the beat-by-beat strategy of Terra Nil just yet, but it's clear that we'll need to rebuild the natural world one well-placed component at a time, a??nd there's a ripple effect as water, soil, and trees reenter the picture. The initial screenshots on Steam show a sort of building currency needed for windmills and the like. The game's summary also mentions that the ultimate goal �once life finds a way �is to "recycle all the structures you used to get there, leaving the environment pristine." I love that concept.

Free Lives and Devolver Digital will host a playable PC demo of Terra Nil starting June 16 through Steam Next Fest, a showcase event intended to highlight cool upcoming games. ??As far as a release date, there's nothing on the books ye?t. We'll see how folks take to the demo, I guess! I know I'll want to make time to check it out.

It's also fun to go back and trace the roots of this project to a non-commercial pixel-art build hosted on Itch.io.

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Watch out for wind-up toy lizards and UFOs

We've built and run virtual cities as omnipotent mayors before, but not quite like this. In MeNic Games and Mastiff's PC city-builder Tinytopia, we're working with wobbly m?iniatures in precarious places.

The game ??is less of a typical data-heavy ci??ty-builder with lots of minutia to worry about �which can be fun in its own right! �and more of a lighthearted physics-based playground. You'll stack buildings on top of each other to transform them into "megastructures" and hope they don't topple over.

Tinytopia also has challenge levels with distinct hooks, whether it's building a well-balanced town on a teetering rul?er or c??rafting an island retreat that can hold up against a knock-off Godzilla wind-up toy.

In a note from the publisher, Mastiff said the team is looking to touch up the game before it releases on Steam this year �they want to improve the UI, tutorials, and writing, add in new level goals and achievements, and work in "a new illustrated Instructor to guide players through Tinytopia."

The game?? looks cute, which is something I've rarely if ever said about a city-builder.

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Even though my town is quickly going to deteriorate and my tribe probably won't survive, I'm down to try my luck

We're never going to run out of city-builders and management games, but what about something like Gord? It immediately stands out with its roots in Slavic folklore, a survival-oriented premise, and the ability to head out on quests??. This isn't a game to peacefully chill out with, that's for dang sure.

As your settlement grows, you'll have to tangle with threats on multiple fronts: other tribes, freaky beasts, hunger and illness, crumbling sanity, and even monstrous gods, who can grant your people incantations. (I'm willing to do potentially unspeakable acts to earn powerful spells.) Taken as a whole, Gord seems like it'll be in a similar headspace as games like Frostpunk, RimWorld, and Darkest Dungeon.

About those quests — Gord uses an "AI-driven" system, according? to Covenant.dev. "Main objectives will guide your gameplay, while versatile side quests and random encounters will send you off into the wilderness to hunt down a legendary creatu??re or fight off a nasty scourge that has infected the region."

I also like the sound of custom scenarios in which "almost anything can be adjusted." That sentiment stems from a keeping-things-fresh-over-time perspective, and also the desire to eventually win with the annoying stuff scaled back; Don't Starve comes to mind. In Gord, we'll be able to change elements like "the level size, the ??intensity of rai?ds, the environment you'll play in, the types of enemies you'll face, starting resources, and even the severity of weather. Of course, don't forget the Horrors."

The studio, founded by CD Projekt Red and 11 bit studios producer Stan Just, is expecting a 2022 PC launch for Gord on Steam. We'll be keeping tabs, for sure. Th??ere's a lo??t to like just in this first showing.

Go ahead and wishlist the game on Steam as needed (or just wishlist it in your heart).

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The Early Access version is already reeling me in

No combat, tricky trade routes, overwhelming user-interface, or need to skim a wiki rundown – the peaceful city-builder Dorfromantik is just?? a ??chill game "to unwind with during turbulent times."

There's so much beauty in its simplicity, and while it's not finished yet, I can already see the appeal in jumping in with the Early Access version that launched today on Steam and GOG. The game'??s low price point – $8.49 if you show up by April 1 for a launch-window discount – certainly helps too.

The gist is that you'll build landscapes one tile at a time, lining each piece up as you see fit to create a cozy tabletop-esque world. I like that tiles are drawn from a stack in Dorfromantik – it's a nice balance in that it gives players the freedom to create while still having some structure to push back a bit.

Titles can have associated "quests" that encourage you to design the land in a certain way (say, a deer who might want to be near "a forest with at least 50 trees"). It pays to take your time while rotating and placing tiles to find them an ideal home. Quests award fresh tiles, and if your stack runs out, that's it. 

Leaning into a "mid-late 2021" final release, the four-person team at Toukana Interactive says the "core mechanics of Dorfromantik are complete for us and we would now like to build on them with more complexity and variety. Next to a creative ?mode, we envision more biomes, more unlockable tiles (some with special behavior), more options to collect points, and more supported languages."

In other words, you can expect more content in Early Access bu??t nothing that unra??vels the vibe.

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