Town to City is the latest city builder now in early access, and it’s a must-play for fans of the genre. This new, beautifully blocky game lets your creativity run amok against an absolutely stunning landscape, and with a wide array of customization options, it sets itself apart from other entries in the genre. Since Town to City is still in early access, fans can expect developer Galaxy Grove to add more features as the game approaches its full launch—though I’m quite impressed with what we have already.
When you boot up the game, you have two options: New game (campaign) and Sandbox mode. The game’s campaign drops you in the world of Belvue, and you later gain access to a second map, Fontebrac, which introduces the game’s farming and economy features. A third map, Rocemarée, is planned to release for the campaign further down the line.
Throughout the campaign, you’ll receive quests from your townspeople, who will ask you to make improvements to the city. Sometimes, they’ll ask you to simply plant flowers or plop down a statue here and there. Other times, they want you to roll up your sleeves and design hedge mazes or marketplace plazas. Whatever their demand, though, you’ll be rewarded with new items you can place that won’t be unlockable in Sandbox mode.
In Sandbox mode, you have five different maps to choose from: the same two from the campaign, Belvau and Fontebrac, as well as three new ones. The three new levels—Creusemont, Ventelieu, and Montedeux—all come with their own characteristics that offer something new. Ventelieu is a totally flat, open field, allowing you to build your city however you’d like, whereas Montedeux features two massive mountains with a small crevasse in the middle, challenging you to build smartly around the craggy landscape.
Though the different maps offer something new for your first playthrough on them, they’re not procedurally generated. This means each time you choose to build on Belvau or start a new campaign, you’ll load into the same Belvau map. Fontebrac always has the giant lake in the middle, Ventelieu will forever be flat, and Montedeux always comes with its two pesky peaks. The only difference between playthroughs on a particular map is where the rocks are placed. Although this can influence your early city design, you gain the ability to delete rocks fairly early into your research progression. That’s the only terrain-modifying tool you have at your disposal. Add all these factors together, and your replayability is greatly limited.
The upside is the campaign took me about eight to 10 hours to “complete,” or feel as satisfied as I could across the two maps it gave me. This comes out to about four to five hours per map. Tack on playthroughs for the other three Sandbox maps, and you get about 20 to 25 hours of gameplay. Not bad for an indie game still in early access.
When I was close to what I would consider completion of the campaign (there is no “true end”; the game allows you to keep building after reaching the largest city size), I ran into minor performance drops. My hamlet had reached the certified status of “Grandiose City,” the eighth and largest city size, with over 100 buildings. Zooming out to view my entire settlement, which only took up roughly 75 percent of the available map, caused slight stuttering and lag. It was minor enough that it didn’t disrupt my ability to enjoy the game, but it’s something still worth noting, especially for anyone who may be just at or slightly above the recommended specs.
The selling feature for Town to City is its gridless function, and although it opens the door for your creativity to run amok, it doesn’t come without consequence. When I first began playing, I wanted my hamlet’s houses to line up on perfect parallel roads. But what originally looked like concisely angled avenues to my naked eye actually ended up slightly askew, and without a grid function to clearly show these flaws, my houses ended up resembling mangled teeth against paved pathways. I spent more time than I’d like to admit trying (and oftentimes failing) to perfect my city’s lines while its citizens watched with resignation as their houses were moved around for the umpteenth time.
At other times, decorative items didn’t align with the buildings they were placed on. Objects like benches, which can be rotated several degrees but not freely, wouldn’t sit straight against walls. Now, let’s be clear: I’m nitpicking here, and you can judge just how upsetting the crooked bench or uneven fencing are in the screenshots below for yourself. If you’re a perfectionist like me, be aware that you may experience some eye-twitching throughout your playthrough.
After playing through the campaign and starting a sandbox build, though, I tried letting loose a bit, and boy, did my time with Town to City only get better. I curved my paths, embraced uneven distances between buildings, and shrugged at my decorations’ lack of uniformity. And what do you know, what I thought would be chaos ended in harmony.
You can still very much make your cookie-cutter neighborhoods if that’s what you so desire. It might be a bit more difficult than other city builders, but it is very much possible to arrange your roads, buildings, and miscellaneous decor all neat and tidy. If I, a certified neat freak, could offer some advice, it’s to learn to let go. The game is more fun when it’s played with the freedom it’s designed for.
What duly impressed me about Town to City, though, was its impressive number of customization options. Not only is there a large amount of decorations and building types to unlock with each branch of the research tree, but how those decorations can be placed varies depending on where you’re trying to place them.
Take a flower patch, for example. This one simple item changes its shape depending on where you try to place it. Hover it over a window, and it looks like a flower box. Line it up against a wall, and it becomes a hanging flower garland. Place it in water, and it becomes lily pads. This mechanic opens up a level of exploration in design that most other city builders simply don’t offer, and it had me excitedly unlocking decor in the research tree at every chance I got. Forget unlocking a bakery or a carpenter’s station. Give me my flowers!
All in all, Town to City might not be without minor flaws, but it is an incredibly enthralling city builder. I was glued to my computer when building my villages, and I’m looking forward to tackling the other maps I haven’t gotten a chance to sink my teeth into yet. There are enough replayability options to keep me hooked for a healthy amount of time, and I’m hoping fans get even more gameplay features as the game approaches its full release.
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