TownsFolk review – “A charming yet familiar strategy experience”
- Manage scarce resources
- Explore to expand your settlement
- Challenging genre-standard gameplay
Short Circuit Studio’s newest strategy game, TownsFolk, puts you in charge of building a colony in a mysterious land. Treacherous beasts and deadly plagues threaten your settlement as you manage scarce supplies, build new structures, and make difficult decisions that will affect your entire colony.
Building a Thriving Settlement in TownsFolk
It’s paramount when first starting your settlement that you build at least one farm and some housing. Building homes increases your population, which is handy, considering tasks like building farms and fighting wild beasts can cost you multiple citizens, to complete. Other important buildings include the woodworker, mine, and church. Farms, houses, woodworkers, and churches can be built on any solid ground. Mines, however, can only be carved from mountains.
As you progress, you’ll unlock new buildings such as taverns, marketplaces, and lighthouses, all of which benefit your community in their own way. While these new buildings are helpful, it is vital that you make sure you have enough of the basics, like farms and housing, to keep your colony going as it expands.
To expand your settlement, you’ll need to explore by selecting an adjacent tile shrouded in fog. You’ll be able to tell what kind of terrain the tile you are exploring consists of, but what resides there will be a mystery until the exploration is complete.
TownsFolk: Paying Tribute to the King
Not only do you need to keep your settlement thriving, but you’ll also need to be prepared to pay tribute to the crown. Tributes can include citizens as well as TownsFolk’s basic resources – Food, Gold, Faith, and Production, and the amount you’ll need to hand over increases with each subsequent tribute. If you don’t have enough resources to pay tribute, you can postpone it. However, you’ll only have a few chances to do so, so use them wisely. If you run out of postponements, the King will withdraw his support, and your colony will be lost.
As you build your colony, you’ll earn points, which you can use to unlock new technologies via the tech tree. To succeed, you’ll need to choose technologies wisely, as they grow more expensive with each one you unlock. The Tech includes upgrades like Tamed Beasts, which lets you domesticate friendly animals; Fleet of Foot, which reduces exploration time for uncharted tiles; and Millwright’s Craft, which unlocks the ability to build windmills and watermills.
TownsFolk Features Three Game Modes
TownsFolk features three modes: Roguelite Campaign, Skirmish, and Puzzle Challenges. Roguelite offers a new adventure each time you play, while Skirmish mode allows you to choose how many tributes you’ll need to pay and how frequently they’re due. On the other hand, Puzzle Challenge mode tasks you with challenges like building 20 farms or gathering 150 gold.
Before you dive into any mode, the devs highly recommend you check out the five-part how-to-play tutorial. The tutorial breaks down important aspects of building a thriving settlement, like food production and exploration. Of course, if you’re adept at strategic scenarios, you’ll likely be fine giving this a skip.
TownsFolk offers a challenging, minimalist strategy experience brought to life in a gorgeous pixel art style. Though gameplay is simple, it’s anything but easy. It takes skill and a bit of luck to manage scarce resources while building a thriving settlement. While exploration is essential, it also involves risk, which raises the stakes in an already fragile ecosystem. While there is nothing distinct about TownsFolk, it delivers on what it promises, making it a fine choice for strategic play on the go.
