PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
I almost gave up playing this game at all. It took me ages to figure out that I have to build at the first street. Building anywhere else is forbidden. :/ Okay, so the game is basically a very simple sandbox. You can basically only do 3 things: Collect power from wind turbines, and build streets and houses, and power them. That's it. Building costs money, but powering a building (or street) gives you back the full cost. So there is literally no strategy at all required here. You could theoretically make your city infinitely large (well, at least until you hit the ocean or hill, because slopes and bridges don't work yet).
The controls are kind of awkward and simply due to Minetest's limitations. Since Minetest is at its core a first-person game, top-down city-planning games are somewhat awkward to do, but the game tries its best. You have to awkwardly rely on Minetest's "fly mode". This is one of the more special games for Minetest which shows the limitations of the engine. Another big limitation of the controls is that you can't really build long streeds or housing areas properly with drag-and-drop like in other city building games. Again, Minetest's fault.
The graphics style is really cute, something really refreshing to see in Minetest. The ocean could look better but apart from that I like it a lot.
As for the gameplay: Really basic sandbox building game, except you can only build streets and like 5 types of houses that don't do anything. It feels very incomplete. Needless to say, it gets boring very fast.
And because of this, I give a thumbs down (sorry!).
PLEASE NOTE: This review is written for the 2021 Minetest Game Jam version of this game, by a PARTICIPANT. I used Minetest version 5.4.1 to playtest.
I almost gave up playing this game at all. It took me ages to figure out that I have to build at the first street. Building anywhere else is forbidden. :/ Okay, so the game is basically a very simple sandbox. You can basically only do 3 things: Collect power from wind turbines, and build streets and houses, and power them. That's it. Building costs money, but powering a building (or street) gives you back the full cost. So there is literally no strategy at all required here. You could theoretically make your city infinitely large (well, at least until you hit the ocean or hill, because slopes and bridges don't work yet). The controls are kind of awkward and simply due to Minetest's limitations. Since Minetest is at its core a first-person game, top-down city-planning games are somewhat awkward to do, but the game tries its best. You have to awkwardly rely on Minetest's "fly mode". This is one of the more special games for Minetest which shows the limitations of the engine. Another big limitation of the controls is that you can't really build long streeds or housing areas properly with drag-and-drop like in other city building games. Again, Minetest's fault. The graphics style is really cute, something really refreshing to see in Minetest. The ocean could look better but apart from that I like it a lot. As for the gameplay: Really basic sandbox building game, except you can only build streets and like 5 types of houses that don't do anything. It feels very incomplete. Needless to say, it gets boring very fast. And because of this, I give a thumbs down (sorry!).