Recent reviews by m4gic

This has mixed reviews because some people do not have sufficient graphics or because they did not give the game a fair chance, IMO. I like the game.

It needs more variety, though. More and different types of buildings, expanded geography, etc. Hopefully it gets there if enough people support it; but for now it is enjoyable as it is.

Instantly intuitive and fun game that is so casual with infinite possibilities and no possible way to mess up until..what? I am out of tiles?
Ok...no problem, new game, this time with a bit more care put into relaxing and peacefully placing tiles and making a nice little setting with plenty of ti--
what?
out of tiles?!
Ok...third time....this time placing tiles strategically, making a deliberate effort to select the right bonuses and ... only 51/52 buildings!
Argh! Ok...THIS time...last building AND CANNOT PLACE IT!!!
FIFTH TRY. Nailed it, calm, relaxing, peaceful game.

SEGA and Creative Assembly are just terrible. EA and Origin, too. Constantly releasing titles and abandoning them, requiring all kinds of third-party overlays and log-ins, data-mining and micro-transactions. Stay away from these rapacious developers who bring nothing but rehashed garbage. Support small, independent developers who are giving people what we want and who won't abandon their projects for not meeting corporate revenue targets.

I cannot believe they still want $60 for this.....

I waited to give this a review. I have very mixed feelings. On the one hand -- I have been wanting a multiplayer city builder for a long time, and was excited to see this on the Store. On the other hand -- this game is far too simple in its design and mechanics for true city building freedom and pleasure.

This is not really a city builder. it is a resource manager akin to Anno, with the same cookie-cutter buildings that I am sure took the dev awhile to create and perfect, but at the end of the day lead to an incredibly static, homogeneous and boring experience for the player.

Here's one specific issue that is indicative of the larger problem with "playing" this "game": The aesthetics are decidedly European medieval. That's a bit white-supremacist, but it's fine, I guess. However, if you make a house (and only a house) on a desert tile then the house spawns as an adobe structure with pottery and cloth awnings, like it is in ancient Baghdad or Colonial Hispaniola. It is great to have variety -- I just wish there was more and that it was more consistent. All of the other town buildings spawn as medieval European style, even if you make all of your homes and your city in a vast desert. The homes even change appearance, becoming larger and more ornate, when they have access to a variety of goods. Next, once the homes on desert tiles reach a high level (I think level 5 or 6, if I recall) they will change from adobe to medieval European.

In a genre ALL ABOUT variety, aesthetics and builder freedom this game just falls far short. It reminds me of the difference between an RTS classic like Age of Empires and poorly made resource management games with lackluster PVP elements, such as Anno. This game is neither a city builder nor a co-op nor a PVP RTS. It has some elements of those, but has an identity crisis.

it does not help the game that the engine appears to be a very basic Unity build with a grid system underpinning everything (does not allow organic building patterns or curves) and, as I mentioned, a very cookie-cutter approach to the look of the map and town.

Once you've played one map all the way through, like Banished! before the dev stopped developing it and the Mod community stepped-in, you've essentially played them all. You can re-seed a map as often as you like and change the settings as much as you want and you'll have roughly the same "game" experience each time.

This is broadly true of most, if not all, games, but some titles have a degree of variety that does a sufficient job of masking the monotony. This game, at least in its current state, does not even try. It is monotony and cartoonish homogeneity that quickly loses any semblance of challenge once you master a couple tricks (hint: manage your storage!).

Things I would like to see to make this more fun and repeatedly playable:

1. Co-op mode where cities (multiplayer or single player with AI) trade directly with each other instead of with an unseen world market. In addition to this I would like to see two or more players controlling one city. I am not sure exactly how this would function from a game play or coding perspective, but I can imagine something like a city council that decides or votes on infrastructure and zoning.

2. Competitive mode on maps specifically designed for this. Currently the worlds are so large (even the small world) that you may never get close enough to a rival to use points you've earned to take territory - only vassalize them. There should also be some offensive / defensive structures or capabilities that actually animate. I read the Dev's reasoning on this, and I can appreciate that a pure PVP structure will create a mini-game (or even take-over the entire game) of strictly PVP players, but give the people what they want, right?

3. MOAR VARIETY!!! If houses built on deserts look adobe, why don't they stay adobe as they level-up? Why don't the other town buildings also look adobe? Maybe when the town center is placed the player could select one of a few styles, and it should dictate how ALL of the town's buildings look. Maybe there could be the medieval European style, an adobe style, maybe a far-east style (China/Japan inspired?), maybe a thatch roof style (Norse, Celtic or Zulu?), maybe a white plaster and flat roof style (Greek islands / Egypt?). This would allow people to more fully enjoy a variety of cities rather than one fairly mundane "play it once play it all" experience. Also - last time I checked not all people lived in the same-sized home, and in the medieval age that this game appears to use as a setting the homes in cities generally touched each other side-to-side, making for a more urban appearance vs a pastoral one. Perhaps as homes developed they could expand to be wall-to-wall with their neighbors and the street, so that an increasingly urban look would be achieved?

4. Beasts. Especially beasts of burden. Where. Are. The. Horses? Horses could haul, deliver, transport, trade, and add to military or influence points. They'd also need to be fed, watered, and stabled. They would need leather harnesses, bridles, saddles, and iron shoes and tack. Now do donkeys and oxen. Where are the roving flocks of sheep? They were never in pens. Where are wolves/wild cats/bears & birds?

5. Great Works or Wonders. This game is just resource management. All other aspects are just window dressing, from the cards to the gold and the points that you can accrue. None of it matters if you don't have storage space and supplies for food/fuel/goods that drive EVERYTHING else. Even as you seek to expand territory it does you no good whatsoever if you cannot exploit it by building structures near enough to or within the new land to produce/store/retrieve the goods you need to sustain the game. This makes the game devolve almost instantly into JUST resource management, when the truly enjoyable part of a city builder is the constant evolution of the city itself. The eye candy is its own reward in city builders. I've already said what I think about the finite amount of eye candy in this game in its present state, but at the risk of repeating myself - there is nowhere near enough variety. The grid system locks everything into a rigid frame. You can rotate buildings but only at 90 degrees to a universal plane, so despite your best efforts every single city you build will look virtually identical to every other city you build. Even adding the "style" variety I mention above would have a limited effect on this; but one thing that could greatly help is a handful of Great Works and/or Wonders.

a. Perhaps a University or Monastery comprised of a main building with expansion buildings? This could lead to temporary or permanent bonuses, such as accelerating and/or cheapening the cards, or giving bonuses to research, or making other things more efficient or sustainable. Could also lead to increased happiness if paired with service buildings such as a temple, holy place, church or cathedral (with a monastery) and maybe a grand library and/or a few guildhouses (with a university).

b. The highest level of the town center looks like a tall medieval European castle. I'd rather it did not, and looked like a town center / square instead throughout all of its levels, but I would love to see the ability to build a Fort or Castle with some kind of defensive or offensive bonus related. This could also potentially have expansion buildings that could be added to increase its complexity and variety and bonuses.

c. Great Statue or Monument. There should be something to add character and awe to the city - a giant obelisk or statue or victory arch or something. This could be built or rewarded after unlocking a milestone or achievement, such as attracting a certain number of new citizens from other cities, or taking-over a certain number of rival provinces, or vassalizing a rival.

6. Orchards. Currently you can gather wild fruit, but you cannot cultivate fruit or nuts. Why?

Intense and immersive single-player game that already has great potential when/if they make it multi-player.

For now, your time is consumed by learning all about your environment and the objects you can pick up and you can alter many items -- once you've learned to switch things from one hand to another (hint: you learn by doing so just pick things up a lot and you'll unlock the "switch hands" ability when you lie on a sleep mat and press E).

After you learn all you can in the starting area you can set-out to explore. This is fraught with danger.

Stay off the ground. There will be times when you have to go to the ground - to drink fresh water or to find some horsetail (stops bleeding when stripped into fibers and applied, helps heal broken bones when eaten whole) but I have discovered that the saber-tooth cats have a trigger -- the nearest cat will come to attack after you have been in contact with the ground for so long. I don't know exactly how long it is, but it is not more time than it takes to drink 5 or 6 scoops of water....so be fast when on the ground, get what you need, and climb to safety.

If you are attacked by a cat, try to get up into a tree or up a wall ASAP. That's not always easy, because each time the cat attacks you have an opportunity to dodge, but it will spin you around or to the side, so you are disoriented and need to find the tree or wall again in a hurry, because the cat attacks pretty rapidly time after time. Even if you dodge, you will still likely sustain bleeding. This can be healed by finding the fibrous nuts in the higher branches of the skinnier trees with leaves like Maples.

This brings up the second most cause of my deaths so far in this game: falling from too great a height and dying on impact. ALWAYS make sure you know exactly where you are jumping -- leaps of faith often end in death. Also, try to aim so that if you miss your first target in a leap you will have one or two more things in the same line to try to grab before you go splat! on the ground.

The other wildlife is dangerous - from poisonous green snakes to gigantic python constrictors to alligators, boars, and even eagles that can attack from the sky when you're in the high tree canopy.

A good tactic is to stay up in the cliffs -- where you may get lucky and stumble on a precious stone like an emerald or a ruby (gives you a buff against fear of an unknown area, you'll see). However, if you are being followed by one or more clan member be aware that they do not follow up onto cliff walls and can get stuck behind, just standing there. In this mode they won't eat or drink and eventually they will die unless you return and cause them to follow you back to safety, or unless you switch into their body and control them to get them either back to your settlement or get them something to eat/drink.

So, there are a few mechanics to work out, and multiplayer would take care of the "follower fail" thing, but so far for a new game built in Unreal Engine by a team of French Canadiens this is a good effort, indeed.

This game is the latest offering in the "grind without purpose" genre of games. This is a "sandbox" game except it is not. A sandbox allows the player to do anything they want. This is basically a more graphically pleasing version of the game Salt, which came out a few years ago and went with a blocky, Minecraft-like look. Atlas has pleasing graphics, and the sailing is interesting, for a minute. Then you realize that every island is the same - different plants and animals, but all boil down to the same thing in the end. Sure, if you want a specific type of something you may need to sail to get it, but that's all the game is. Sail here, get this, get that, sail back, build this, build that, get more of something else, repeat. There are treasure maps and there are bosses you can quest after, but in the end this is just a grind game for resources with no end. You can build a boat, sure, but you can only build the size, shape, and type that the game allows. Ok. So you build it. Then what? You sail for more resources. You tame an animal. Now you can ride it, or it can haul a cart, or it can gather resources and carry much more than you can. Great. Now what? Grind more. Get more resources. Build an enclosure. Raid another player. Maybe you knock the player out and put the player in a cage. Yay. That's fun. Now what? Grind more.

I am sorry to be so cynical, but this game is nothing more than an exercise in spending time. The payoff is fairly attractive graphics, and momentary triumphs like taming an animal, capturing another player, completing a boat, etc. Even the skill tree, as varied and extensive as it is, does not salvage this game, in my opinion. Worth $5 on sale? Yes. Full price? Nah.

In the tradition of Banished! comes this latest clone. Cartoonish in appearance and simple in function and production chain. If the developer fixes the few obvious bugs (new arrivals named "Female#121239" or "Male#891231", envoys from "Img121" and a few other little coding errors) and adds nothing else, this will be a very simple vanilla game that modders may be able to add variety to, as was done with Banished! once the developer stopped developing that title.

Enjoyable, laid-back city builder with a small learning curve. Once you understand the market income is by far the best source of revenue, the game loses a lot of challenge and just becomes a "how much time before this bridge is done" game. Without added variety and complexity, this game is quickly tiresome.

For example: there are currently four varieties of food, three varieties of luxury goods, and only one variety of basic goods (clothing). There should be several more varieties of food, basic goods, and luxury goods. The luxury goods do not seem to cause an upgrade. When villagers gain access to clothing the houses start to upgrade, but when they gain access to luxury goods, nothing happens. This makes the monastery functionally useless.

Anyway, not enough here yet, and only a couple buildings in-game say "coming soon!" so, if the developer doesn't add more variety and complexity, and/or the modding community doesn't, I am afraid I have to say this game has a very finite amount of enjoyment in it.

Update: Have not returned to playing this game at all after my first two or three days. I reached the apex of what the game offered at this stage -- no further resources or buildings to unlock, and I have zero desire to play this again until it has a lot more content. They just released an update with bug fixes, which is great, but unless they roll out more content fast, people may not buy the game due to the number of reviews like mine that say there just isn't enough to do in this game at this stage. New content should be the developer's #1 priority.

Not what it was sold as. If this had said "phone game for children"...