A new “minimalist,” more casual city-builder:
ISLANDERS is a minimalist strategy game about building cities on colorful islands. Explore an infinite number of ever-changing new lands, expand your settlements from sprawling villages to vast cities and enjoy the relaxing atmosphere.
I could really groove to this kind of thing.
As always, I’ll point folks to Katherine of Sky’s youtube videos for a peek at the game. Based on what KoS has said, and various screenshots/etc., this game appears to be MUCH deeper than the simple bright graphics suggest. It appears to be a mix of Anno and Factorio, with some of the cuteness of Settlers 2.
I’m a touch more intrigued by this game than Satisfactory at the moment.
Workers & Resources - Soviet Republic is out in early access. Looks like a cross between Sim City and Transport Tycoon (in a Soviet Republic).
Nookrium has a stream of it:
I checked out some steams of FactoryTown and it seemed to me that the complexity ramped up really quickly. Not sure how I felt about that. The game looks like there’s a lot to unwrap there, for sure.
I’d like to see these games have an actual point or goal besides just doing stuff for the sake of whatever.
Agreed. Not something that’s necessarily mandated on the player, but an option that wraps up a campaign if you want that option.
Rimworld is a pretty good example of this. You can play forever (or as long as you can last as the case may be) or you can hike over to the crashed ship and fix it up and leave the planet (or build a ship of your own and leave).
That’s a good point, though in a rough sense “building everything and doing everything” could be considered an underlying goal. Given the genre, it seems like it’d be pretty easy to add scenarios to games like this. Wouldn’t necessarily require a lot of complexity, just a few goals to shoot for.
I want something like Pharaoh. Building a series of increasingly complex monuments/pyramids/whatever. It was a perfect ‘goal’ to aim for, because the cost in resources made it important to optimize. And because pyramids were damn cool to build. Factorio does this with the rocket, but it would be cool to have even more “end-game” things to build.
Yeah I agree too. Even something as basic and a goal, like grow your population to 300, etc.
However, to be fair to Factory Town, the game is still in EA, so it’s unknown to me if they will add these in later, or if other game modes with goals will exist. For now, as a sandbox builder game, it’s pretty awesome.
Have you played Aven Colony? It’s chock full of goals. Once you finish the campaign, they have a number of challenge maps which throw curve balls at you on a variety of things.
Good point. Solid no nonsense city building too.
Yep! Which is why I liked it. My content was directed towards these factory games.
Turns out this is really my cup of tea. Your description is perfect. I play without powerlines btw, I suggest other n00bs do as well. This is not a simple game, you want as little complexity as you can get to begin with.
Keralis has a stream of Soviet Republic that I recommend checking out if you want to see it in action. His vaguely Eastern European accent feels right at home here and his unbridled enthusiasm for the game made the stream really enjoyable.
I saw this game today - looks like a very interesting take on the city building - minimalist:
Really getting a lot of positive buzz on their forums. Anyone here on QT3 play it?
I’ve played it for maybe 5 minutes so far. It’s kinda fascinating
I did and it’s a really cool game. Clean, relaxing, beautiful. Also simple but deeper than it seems at first. It’s not the kind of game you play for extended sessions, but perfect for playing between more demanding/stressing games, or when you just want to unwind and enjoy some gaming time.
Yeah, Islanders is deceptively simple. I like the idea of getting points for placing buildings in just the right spot. Also gets quite a bit harder as you advance, and defeat often comes down to just a few points. Entertaining and cheap as chips, as well as beautiful to look at, so there’s really no reason not to pick it up.
Potvin sucks.
What about Bossy?