Maybe it's because I live in a coastal town in real life, I don't know, but I do know that if I don't provide my people with some kind of buttress against the wind then it's going to whip through that town mercilessly. I've even found myself obsessing over the weather. All the time I build, I do it thinking what's best for my people? I can't possibly put that building right up to the edge of the harbour because how will the people who live there get in? And it's no good putting a house there because the tower nearby will block it - the people who live there will get no sun. It's very clever because it gives Townscaper meaning. Yet there are no people, only this impression of life. This is me rather carelessly building, but like I say, you cannot create an ugly town. Build close together and washing lines are strung between them, drying little clothes. If you make verandas, chairs and pairs of wellies appear, as if people have been sitting out on them. They're gorgeous to begin with, with rows of daintily tiled roofs and chimneys sticking out, seagulls perched on them, but when you make space around them, little benches and potted trees appear. Every time a building dynamically adapts to what you're doing, there's a delightful tinkling of tiles and a popping noise, and an animation that reminds me of a blob assimilating another blob like slimes do in fantasy games. Similarly, if you use the unbuild tool like a chisel to chip away at a building like a sculptor, what's left won't be a jagged ruin somehow suspended in midair, but a rounded-edged marvel of archways and properly supported flourishes. Build out over the sea a few floors up and you won't see an ugly and impossible corridor jutting out but one supported by metal stilts stretching down into the sea. You can't do anything wrong because there are no rules, and you can't make it look wrong because the game adapts gorgeously to whatever you do. So, I've provided some shelter from the wind as well as a nice wishbone pier which can serve as a jetty, because obviously there will be ships arriving. Build a row of houses and they clump to make a terrace, build in a square(ish) pattern and they make a bigger kind of house. But exactly what kind of building depends on what's around it. You know if you build in the water that a kind of harbour block will appear, with nice red trim and fences for safety around the top, and you know if you build on top of it, a building will appear. What I love most is how you're never sure what's going to appear. Availability: Steam Early Access for £4.80.Even if you try to build a square, the edges bow and warp. It's as if the game adheres more to the warm, wobbly lines of your imagination than it does the cold angles of real life. You cannot even build in a straight line. There's no discernible aim to the game other than to make your town look nice. It's a game about building a town and the only buttons you have are to build and unbuild and select a colour. Townscaper might be about the simplest game I've ever played.
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