Townscaper

Just bought it. Just played it. Just loved it. It is exactly what it states to be and what the pictures tell you. It is a beautiful small townbuilding game. The only con is that it can get boring very easy. There is no goal. There is nothing to discover. But the bottom line is it is a neat little game and it is fascinating how you can build structures and how it changes whole buildings just by adding a piece. Good work ... so far. I hope there is more to come. :)

This is not a game, don’t come in here thinking you have objectives. It’s a cathartic zen garden for town building. I have used it for D&D city building, distraction, and as my own relaxing safe space. The videos and images tell you what you get. It’s worth every penny.

This is a relaxing software toy in which you build a town, with no goals and no constraints. However, I'd say there are puzzle-like elements and a sense of achievement in understanding the seemingly organic and fractal-like ways in which the single "blocks" interact with each other to yield different results. You need to be observant to get a glimpse of the rules of this little peaceful world, if you want to understand what you can build, and how. Once you get to know those rules, you can go on and follow the steps of Ludwig II of Bavaria, Escher and Miyazaki in creating your own dream townscape.

It's worth just fiddling with the mouse and keyboard before looking at the instructions, just to see what you can do. W, A, S, D do as you would expect, while left and right clicking should be tested. Once you've done mucking around, check the instructions [the cog at the top right]. Essentially it's all pretty easy to learn, REALLY relaxing, and an interesting way to pass 30 minutes, an hour, two hours or so when you are so upset with someone or something and you just want to retreat from the world. There are no people, only a few seagulls, and nothing to take care of. You just build a small town in the middle of the ocean. No tidal waves, no invasions, no alien encounters, not even a drop of rain. Townscaper is a well crafted, peaceful, time waster. The graphics are beautiful, the house colours can be changed at a whim, while steps to the beaches that are created as you build are automatically generated. How high can you? I got to 20, then built sideways, and a 20 story frame was built under it by the program. I could've gone higher if I'd wanted. Delightful, pleasant, peaceful. Highly recommended for helping with stress.