Songs of Syx
TL;DR: Paid full $25 USD. Definitely worth it, great balance between DF and Rimworld while doing it’s own new thing. Saves not migrating versions stinks, but understandable for a complex EA game.
Amazing. Still EA and some missing features, but what is here is very well built!
I was initially turned off this game because I played a much earlier demo, but this game has grown into something truly impressive! Games in this genre tend to fall under “Dwarf Fortress” or “Rimworld”, and often fail to measure up to either. Songs of Syx strikes right between DF’s sense of scale (but then skyrockets past it as your city-state grows), and Rimworld’s friendlier UX allowing you to actually enjoy playing (but UX scaled for a massive city-state, not a couple dozen colonists).
– Real player with 242.7 hrs in game
Read More: Best City Builder Colony Sim Games.
TLDR: 8/10 (Humble aesthetics, clunky UI, but does the game play have a real arse on it…)
Songs of Syx is an increasingly curious city-builder. Though it clearly has a bit of development to undergo (0.56 is the version I am reviewing), it is making leaps and bounds with each update. Sure, maybe it’s not a whole lot to look at and things are a bit muddy and cluttered, but that’s forgivable since its function is handled with such care.
Concept
This isn’t your typical hands-on city-builder or village survival game. While it shares a lot of ground with games like Rimworld or Dwarf Fortress, it’s functionally its own game thanks to your inability to manage individual citizens. Which is kind of a blessing, since you don’t want to be able to nit and pick when you’ve bloated to a city with 1,000+ people.
– Real player with 214.6 hrs in game
Timberborn
A really great game! I mainly play colony builders and this one hooked me immediately. You are essentially building a city of beavers with the goal of conquering the ebb/flow of wet seasons and drought. The water mechanics are really unique and there’s something tremendously satisfying about planning and building your dams and then seeing the consequences (crops live through the dry season! Oh shit I flooded everything!).
The current early access is extremely polished; I have played 70 hours and it hasn’t crashed a single time and I haven’t run into any frustrating bugs. It runs extremely well even when you push the engine. Because it’s early access the content still feels a little limited; you can reach a point where you can let the game run in the background for hours and know everything will be fine because you’ve solved the current ‘water + food for Population X to survive X days of drought’ problem. It would benefit from a broader tech tree and more map events (forest fire, disease, etc). The actual wet/dry seasons are far too predictable right now and it seems like the Early Access has everything in place to have actual weather and its consequences (ie. flooding that is due to weather and not my own terrible dam designs).
– Real player with 87.6 hrs in game
Read More: Best City Builder Colony Sim Games.
This is a really fun game. It does not yet have great depth (unlike the water reservoirs which you will greatly enjoy shaping), but I would say it’s worth every penny (bought it for some 25 Euros).
Playing with the water dynamics and building vertically is really neat. Yet - as in life, unfortunately - I feel I lack a bit of purpose. Hopefully this will be amended in future versions.
Improvement proposals:
- Please fix the leeve system. I don’t see the point of adding semi-realistic water dynamics if a 1m3 wood cubicle can withstand a 10m water column.
– Real player with 57.6 hrs in game
InfraSpace
Lots of reviewers are throwing out comparable games. The first thing that came to mind for me was Anno 2070 but with actual traffic and less frustration. I loved that game, so this is a plus. I also got a huge whiff of Surviving Mars, again with actual traffic and less frustration. I was not a fan of that game, so I’m happy to say I enjoy InfraSpace more. If you liked either game, you’ll very much like InfraSpace.
If you enjoy solving traffic problems or even just watching traffic in Cities Skyline, then this will appeal to you. If you enjoyed solving logistic problems in Shapez.io, this is a must have. If you strive for logistical efficiency and optimization, well that’s most of the game.
– Real player with 77.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best City Builder Transportation Games.
At this time, I DO recommend this game, but, there are still lingering issues that I’ve found. See bottom of post for my “rant”.
[EDIT-Seems as though the #48 news corrected the issues I was experiencing. Everything else looks to be “my” problem with the routing and design of the roads]
Things I like:
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I like having a system that I have to continuously replenish, such as the residential zones.
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I like how in order to grow the residential, you need different components to create more dense areas
– Real player with 42.9 hrs in game
Going Medieval
Oke . So I want to stipulate that I did play this game before roughly around 100 more hours before. At this moment I have 200-250h play
This game is something pretty amazing to me. Mostly because it is an amazing concept with making your own Settlement.
Theoretically, you can put settlers to make stuff automatically, assigning them jobs, they get skilled on this, or draft them to attack raiders. Build underground, build castles above ground
A mix of RTS-Survival-Sandbox. Really cool.
HOWEVER. The game is obviously in a very Early Access state. Let me explain why this rating is negative:
– Real player with 213.5 hrs in game
If Sims and Banished had a child, it would be Going Medieval. This game, so far, is well balanced, enjoyable and has enough sandbox elements with the right amount of warfare. I am very eager to see the progress in this game.
IDK if this was supposed to happen, but I was attacked by bandits who had two catapults and they were pretty OP, spurring me to build a massive 8 story wall, 4 layers deep around my small city. So far, they haven’t returned, and the small bands of mercs stand zero chance with all of my well trained archers.
– Real player with 151.8 hrs in game
The Universim
March 2019 Update
Population explosion has a limit now, which in a recent game (currently year 610) it seems to top out around 250-270. The spread of the nugget stone huts seems to work in small grid pattern, 8 or so huts in a small rectangular area. What determines where they start plopping huts i do not know. Its much more efficient in some respects, although you will get a housing block started far out of the city core at times. Eventually with Tudor Architecture the nuggets will upgrade the stone huts to larger multi family homes. This is great when it comes to saving space, its just being an automatic process, you cant turn off the control. Which means houses in areas you want to abandon upgrading, while next to the beautiful Town Hall is 4 stone age huts. This means duplicate services for those out of reach areas, this doesnt hurt early game too much, but you feel the crunch later. Especially when it comes to refined resources.
– Real player with 647.6 hrs in game
1. Early Access - A Preface
With any Early Access game, you need to make allowances. There’s going to be bugs and many features lacking and not everything will happen on time - after all EA is often something that small studios do to keep the lights on while they are developing the game.
That doesn’t mean you have to put up with everything. Early access makes it all the more important, that you have proper process management, a capable team lead, a plan and a time frame, that probably shouldn’t be longer than two or three years from EA start to release. During that time what’s there of the game should be playable without constantly running into gamebreaking bugs, because if people stop enjoying the game, they are not going to stay, not to mention that it’s very bad for the word of mouth factor.
– Real player with 82.4 hrs in game
Dream Engines: Nomad Cities - A survival city builder with flying cities
–-{Graphics}—
☐ You forget what reality is
☐ Beautiful
☑ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ Paint.exe
—{Gameplay}—
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It‘s just gameplay
☑ Mehh
☐ Starring at walls is better
☐ Just don‘t
—{Audio}—
☐ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☑ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ Earrape
—{Audience}—
☐ Kids
☐ Teens
☐ Adults
☑ Human
—{PC Requirements}—
☐ Check if you can run paint
☑ Potato
☐ Decent
☐ Fast
☐ Rich boiiiiii
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
—{Difficulity}—
– Real player with 40.2 hrs in game
This game feels like it’s trying to combine multiple popular survival RTS games and it’s failing miserably as a result. In the end, we get a mess of a game.
So you start off on a world, there are native swarm type aliens on it. Killing them off is easy. In fact, I’d call them an poorly utilized obstacle. I much prefer the way They Are Billions handled this. But back on topic, you have to kill the native swarms to get access to resource nodes. They honestly feel like a placeholder enemy, and I’d be much more interested if these were a more significant enemy.
– Real player with 26.7 hrs in game
Industries of Titan
There are already a lot of excellent (constructive) reviews here already for the 21 June 2021 Steam release but I’ll add my 2 cents here to talk more about the side elements of the game and offer some advice for potential players who are still sitting on the fence.
What do you get when you combine the macro-management aspects of SimCity 2013, with FTL-like micro-management in factory management and combat, then slap on a UI that’s reminiscent of grand strategy games? You get the absolutely fascinating city builder that is Industries of Titan (IoT for short).
– Real player with 115.3 hrs in game
My first impression of the game:
The beginning is a bit confusing. You have different management levels:
1. Production
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Collect raw materials (initially from ruins, later in mines)
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Collect artifacts (also from ruins)
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Produce fuel and electricity
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manage garbage (a lot)
2. Citizens and workers
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Buy and house citizens
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Earn money from citizens watching advertisements
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convert some citizens into 24/7 workers (who then stop watching ads)
3. Build on two different levels
- Inside buildings on a square grid (reminiscent of Tetris blocks :D )
– Real player with 54.8 hrs in game
Complex SKY
COMPLEX SKY is a futuristic strategy game that takes place in a world, devastated by pollution. You’re tasked with building a fully self-sustainable city in the skies, and populating it with human settlers.
Create a world, unrestricted by gravity. Unite buildings into wondrous formations, gather resources, create production chains and develop the world’s ecosystems - all to build a fully automated, self-sustainable city among the skies.
Created by a solo developer, COMPLEX SKY is a genre-blending mix of a city-building gameplay with puzzle and strategy elements.
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Stack structures up on other structures, or FLIP buildings upside down to create landscapes unlike any other.
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Build beautiful, gravity-defying landscapes - and optimize production lines to keep the city alive and growing.
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Manage city’s mass, processing power and other valuable resources to keep the city afloat.
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Populate your utopia with people - assign your workforce properly to ensure stable growth
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Stack or flip any structure in the game
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Multiple game modes, from a story-based CHALLENGE mode to a free-range SANDBOX
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Striking minimalist art style, enhanced by a playful, upbeat soundtrack
CRISTIANO
A city building game with sail, trading, and an RTS touch, you will need to keep your people fed and happy, while producing or buying war items to defend your city from incoming attacks.
Features:
-City builder: Enjoy the power and flexibility of a traditional city building game.
-Action: Enemies will attack your town by sea and land.
-RTS: Once the enemy is on land, you can select units and organize an attack against them.
-Sail: You have access to the world map and around 20 cities to sail to and trade with, keep in mind sailors need food and water for the long trips.
-Crown: The game begins with your selection of a European city.
-Initial location: You will be able to select a city on the Caribbean map.
-Intercontinental trade: With your ship, sell and buy goods with any city, in the Caribbean, or Europe.
-Sim: +50 buildings simulating real Caribbean ones.
-Production Lines: +80 products available.
Dead of Winter
Lead your villagers in a battle for survival against relentless hordes of undead as you gather, build and explore in a post-apocalyptic medieval fantasy world plunged into a seemingly endless winter
Gather what resources you can find before your supplies dwindle and your people starve
Build shelter against the elements and worker buildings to assign tasks to your villagers
Explore your surroundings to find the most defensible locations to build and gather resources in safety
Survive a lack of resources, the unending winter and the relentless hordes of undead
