Fortunately, SteamWorld Build has a lot of helpful quality-of-life tools to keep management, well, manageable. The final game will have players managing four layers altogether and I was left wondering how difficult that juggling act would get by the end. Each business can be customized with different perks too, increasing their efficiency as I work to create a city that essentially functions like a well-oiled machine while I toil in the mines.īy the end, I’m a little taken aback by how seemingly complex it all gets. An “aristocrat” menu, for instance, allows me to create a plastic plant using rubbery mushrooms that I’ve harvested underground. By that third jump, I have the option to construct a staggering amount of buildings. With each step forward, I get to see how much deeper the city-building goes. It’s a tower-defense game within a city-builder, calling back to the series’ very first entry on Nintendo DS. To combat them, I can build stationary weapons that’ll auto-attack any creatures, as well as equip combat units with some tools. I also bump into monster hives down here, which constantly churn out bugs that can destroy my carefully engineered operation. Now I’m managing a second underground mine below the first one, constructing support pillars to avoid cave-ins. Just as I’m getting the hang of that, I’m sent even farther forward in the game, where things are notably more complex. It’s basically SteamWorld Dig but reimagined as a top-down strategy game. Underground gameplay initially has me building miners and commanding them to pickaxe through clods of dirt and rock to find more resources. That’s where I start to feel the clever ways Build integrates ideas from other SteamWorld games. ![]() In addition to managing a functional city, I also need to maintain several mines underground to dig up more resources and rocket ship parts to fulfill the story’s ultimate end goal. ![]() When my demoist launches me further into the game, I realize there’s a lot more happening under the surface – quite literally. Those resources go back into town building as I create even more structures and fulfill worker demands to keep everyone happy. Residencies give me access to workers who can, in turn, build structures like sawmills and cactus farms to harvest resources. I start by building a stretch of road branching off a train station and placing some buildings alongside it. When my demo begins, I think I have a full grasp of what’s happening in SteamWorld Build pretty quickly. It’s the kind of complicated balancing act that only SteamWorld can really pull off. During a demo at this year’s Game Developers Conference, I quickly learned that the full game goes much deeper than “steampunk SimCity.” The full release draws inspiration from several previous installments to create a complex genre hybrid that pulls in everything from strategy to city management to tower defense. ![]() Though in classic SteamWorld fashion, it doesn’t just stop there. The latest installment in the ever-changing series is a city-builder that has players creating a thriving town around a train station. SteamWorld Build looks to continue that tradition. Though what makes all these games work is that they’re all equally well-thought-out and fun, too. SteamWorld Dig is a modern twist on Dig Dug, SteamWorld Heist is a stylish turn-based strategy game, and SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech goes truly left field with a card-based mecha-fantasy RPG. Rather than taking one successful idea and running it into the ground, almost every game runs in an entirely different direction. What I’ve always appreciated about the SteamWorld series is its unwillingness to settle.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |