Tinytopia is a smaller-scale city-builder in every sense. As such, the ping-pong pace that we move from one fictional scenario to a location-based area means that I ended up discontent with half of the game. Build a city on a record player as it spins? That’s fine for a one-off idea, but I wouldn’t be able to sit through an entire game built on that sort of conceit. On the other hand, sometimes the premise of the absurd levels was just too much. There isn’t a sense of agency in the destination-centered levels to hold my attention. Sometimes I’d knock over a building and something might catch fire, but I was usually able to pick it up before the flames began. It’s repetitive and there aren’t enough varied obstacles to overcome to finish a level. Click, merge, click, merge, click, merge. To be honest, the core loop gets tiring fairly quickly. There are layers of detail, but you won’t use this screen often. It’s an easy-to-navigate system, and is, for the most part, conducive to a good time. Hovering the cursor over a unit will show which other structures are necessary to level up, as well as indicate where the placement should be. This mechanic is incredibly easy to execute, just placing buildings will usually result in an upgrade. Instead of having a ton of small apartment buildings, they will combine if placed adjacent to each other, expanding their effect and saving yourself some square footage. In order to prevent the landscapes from becoming a massive cluster of tiny houses, Tinytopia has an interesting merge mechanic that allows you to upgrade the buildings to gain better resources. Oftentimes, there are only a few types of residences or businesses to choose from, and they don’t often provide very much in the way of jobs or citizens. Basically, you need to grow the city as best as you can with the scaled-down arsenal of resources that you have to work with. The main objective usually requires either achieving a population goal or constructing “Special Buildings” (which also require a population goal). The goal of each level is mostly the same. Setting up military defense turrets on top of apartment buildings feels strikingly dystopian in contrast with the delightful charm of the rest of the game, but at least your office space will be protected from a kaiju.Īnnihilation. Asking me to build a town on a spinning record player after assembling neighborhoods in San Francisco is a fun little treat, a neat break from the standard design work.įans of classic sandbox city-building will enjoy the variety of natural disasters available at your fingertips, even if it’s little more than an exercise in deploying emergency services. Basing roughly half of the game on real-world locations helps to ground the more outlandish conditions. On the other hand, I don’t think I could enjoy a game that was just about UFO crash sites and dinosaur parks. It needs silly ideas to balance out the chore of unlocking the Eiffel Tower. Tinytopia wouldn’t work as well as it does if it was just a clear interpretation of a municipal planning tool. To say that there’s more value to be found in one style of level or the other would be ridiculous, as they go hand-in-hand. From building casinos in the desert to balancing a town on a seesaw, the variety of challenges is important to the longevity of play. Too much of one style would quickly become as repetitive as the gameplay, and there wouldn’t be any interesting creative situations to look forward to. The balance between the more straightforward and the nonsensical levels is an important part of what makes this title work. The premise for each level is different each time, bouncing between real-world places and absurd fantastical scenarios, which helps to keep the schtick interesting much longer than it should. The twist in Tinytopia is that buildings can be upgraded through specific arrangements and everything is shrunk down to exist on a coffee table. This conceit isn’t going to be foreign to anyone that has ever played a SimCity or RollerCoaster Tycoon you’re just a simple character, looking to create the greatest cities of all time. Players are put into the role of an unseen “Mayor,” who has complete control over what buildings get placed and where they end up. 3) GRAPHICS/AUDIO – JUST TOO CUTE STORY – CHAOTIC AND QUIRKY
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