#Townscaper building types mac#
Townscaper is available now on Xbox via Game Pass – or to purchase on Switch, Windows, Mac and Xbox consoles.Įnjoyed what you’ve read? Want to support my blog? There’s no pressure of course, but every penny helps to keep this site running, as I earn no income from my writing here (though I may earn small fees from affiliate links posted on my pages). It’s definitely well worth a try if you have Game Pass, in any case – and even if you don’t, at less than a fiver you can’t really go wrong. It’s a shame that there aren’t little people populating the streets and occupying the buildings that you conjure up, but that may well have taken away from Townscaper’s serene minimalism – which, given its simplicity and accessibility, can be played and understood by just about anyone, of any age, within seconds. It’s a genuinely Zen-like experience and though it won’t last forever, its charm is undeniable and the pull to mess around with your creations is similarly compelling. It’s difficult to describe quite why or how it continues to be so pleasing and engaging despite the thinnest of premises and content, but the fact that there are so many building types and even things like gardens to discover all add to the incredibly laidback, minimalist charm of Townscaper. Little animated trees and bushes, along with flocks of birds and an ocean that gently ebbs and flows all add to the chilled out ambience of the experience. There were times I wanted to build archways leading into the park, but as soon as I connected the outside and inside, the grass turned back to stone brick. Especially when the only way to get grass/park area is to build a closed off area. The game’s logic quietly decides the shape and type of the building depending on what is going on around it, block or building-wise, making the simple placing of a block a sometimes surprising affair. Being limited to two or three different types of terrain (water, stone brick, grass) is, well, limiting. You can do this across the play area, adding thousands of blocks and houses, in whatever configuration you choose, to quite an impressively vertiginous height too if you desire.
Go up and down on the d-pad and you’ll change the colour that you’ll create a block with press the A button and a block will pop into existence (and it really does arrive in the game world with a very satisfying ‘pop’ sound effect) – press the A button on a block of land that you’ve just created and it’ll add a house (removing a block is as easy as pressing the B button – and you can zoom in and out, move up down and around your world using the triggers and right stick too).
Upon entering the ‘game’, you’re presented with an empty ocean and a colour palette on the side of the screen. Though it may be a stretch to call Townscaper a game in the traditional sense – even its product description on the Xbox store states that it’s ‘more of a toy than a game’ – there’s a wonderfully tactile, pleasing and relaxing experience to be found once you press the A button to start. Too often, gamers still fixate on the AAA, big budget blockbusters even when it comes to Game Pass – but the subscription service has allowed me to discover and enjoy countless indie titles that may otherwise have passed me by. Note that Little Cities is only available for the Quest line of virtual reality headsets.There’s a lot to be said for Game Pass and the fact that it allows you to try out smaller, perhaps more experimental titles that you otherwise wouldn’t have taken a chance on.
It's a breath of fresh air in a genre that loves to throw challenging scenarios and resource balancing acts at you. This makes the world feel far more alive and capitalizes on the strengths of virtual reality really well, and the delightful soundtrack accentuates the cosy, calming direction the game takes. You can wave at them and watch them as they go about their daily lives, whether they're indulging in some exciting skiing or hot air ballooning, or simply taking a breather to eat their lunch. With the Little Citizens update, this immersion is increased tenfold, as you'll actually get to interact with the people who live in your city. It has all the usual trappings of a city builder - laying roads, deciding which buildings go where, etcetera, but brings it to a whole new level of immersion. Little Cities takes that compelling gameplay and takes you right into the city you build thanks to the wonders of virtual reality, allowing you to see close-up the inner workings of your metropolis. One of the most satisfying things about city builders is that they allow you to create sprawling settlements that you'd love to live in.
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