Free-form town-builder Foundation, which popped up on Steam & GOG early entry final week, falls squarely into the class of “games I wholeheartedly recommend but struggle to say many useful things about.” It’s like a shower. Baths are good. I like baths. You ought to take extra baths. But I’m moderately certain you don’t wish to hear about what I listened to on the radio, what I used to be excited about as I stared on the ceiling for twenty minutes, what color my towel was or how totally I scrubbed my armpits. (And should you do, let me know and I’ll arrange the Patreon instantly).
Foundation is indulgent. It’s about doing what you need, which is to say constructing a candy little medieval financial system, with out a lot else getting in the best way. Soaking in bubbles, by the use of constructing bakeries and shearing sheep.
Foundation is a midway home between the extra intimate scale of a Settlers game and the god’s eye view of one thing like Cities: Skylines. We’re speaking residents within the low a whole bunch, however nonetheless having the ability to ‘paint’ sizeable sections of an unlimited, picture-book-pretty map as residential, farming or harvesting hotspots.
In phrases of theme, that is what number of management-strategy boats are rocked: zero. We’re speaking wheat farms and windmills, mines and market stalls, in harmlessly pristine and clear cod-Medieval trend. The worst factor that may occur on this evergreen Disneyland is that any person leaves city in a little bit of huff as a result of there weren’t sufficient berries for his or her 318th consecutive meal of berries and berries alone, or that the pew-to-bums ratio in your tiny church had grown inadequate as inhabitants swelled.
Like I say, a beautiful, heat bathtub. I don’t say this to belittle Foundation in any respect. It is demonstrably not staring you murderously within the eye, digging its nails deep into your quaking palm and daring you to not flinch as your blood dribbles off the desk and onto your sneakers, as is usually The Modern Way. Its strategy – and it’s one which’s extra cutesy than blandly sanitised – is to go away you free to get on with planning a city, determining how the financial system works and choosing a complete lot of berries.
Foundation isn’t a troublesome game, but it surely’s not a easy one both. It’s underpinned by many administration/technique tropes, all gathering assets to construct shacks and farms, assigning roles to your unprotesting townspeople and organising commerce routes, however lots of them are thoughtfully askew, just a bit totally different from conference.
Zoning’s one instance – we’re most conversant in it from outright city-builders, whereby you designate specific areas as being purely for the cramped properties of shattered commuters, or for poison-spewing factories or unfettered consumerism. Here, it’s smaller-scale. That forest may be chopped down, this meadow can have homes in, farmers can farm on this patch or timber may be re-planted on this scrubland.
There’s no nice have to maintain issues orderly. You can construct anyplace, aside from steep slopes, with out actual restriction, and also you gained’t pay a worth for it (although some spots are higher than others for e.g. farming). Your city isn’t going to go to hell as a result of most of your homes are clustered round a coal mine or as a result of it’s an extended, lengthy stroll for the shepherd when he must shave a sheep or two. This system does have some sensible functions, comparable to guaranteeing berry-pickers really decide berries, however exists principally on your personal pursuit of aesthetic perfection. “I want my houses here and my wheat fields there, because it looks nice.” It sounds so meaningless, however in apply it’s weirdly significant. Make it the way you need it.
Then there’s a form of quest system, whereby you’ll be able to select to earn the favour of both the frequent people, the distant church or the equally distant king, by donating stockpiles of sure assets. Couple that with elevating three several types of ‘splendour’, and also you get to choose from an à la carte menu of latest buildings and upgrades. I’ve fed the cat and put the children to mattress, now: candles or bath-bombs?
Like a lot of Foundation, this isn’t a problem as such, however somewhat a matter of getting round to issues if you’ve received your financial system operating easily and fancy throwing a couple of new toys into the combo. I’ve completed washing my hair, so perhaps I’ll learn a couple of pages of my guide.
But then! Maybe the upkeep prices of your new manor home or church spire are a bit of bit past your revenue, so you might want to go fiddle with the commerce settings and promote some extra wool or iron. You can get into a couple of short-term messes like this, however the fixes are easy, a minimum of when you’ve sussed out the at the moment too-functional interface. The water’s gone a bit of chilly, so I’ll run a bit of extra scorching.
I’m aware that all the things I say about how Foundation works possible sounds terribly acquainted, however whereas enjoying it’s most undoubtedly a snug expertise, I’m in no way on auto-pilot. So many little issues are a bit of bit totally different than the norm. Not a lot, however sufficient to make Foundation really feel its personal game, somewhat than the sum of different folks’s components.
It’s so fairly, too. The Playmobil folks I can take or depart, however the huge expanse of chubby timber, lush grass and depth of field-kissed homes is regularly pleasant. Foundation could be very a lot not a screensaver – you’ll be busy all of the whereas – however I believe seeks to evoke among the zen calm a superb screensaver can – and succeeds.
And that is simply the primary alpha construct. Oh, you’ll have the ability to inform instantly that it’s an early entry affair, from the straight-outta-Windows-95 UI to occasional game-stopping glitches to an outright ineffective problem-locating system (which suggests a complete lot of shut scrutiny and guesswork if you finish with a logjam someplace). Such ugly chips on the bathtub’s enamel disappear as soon as it’s stuffed with beautiful bubbles.
Tell you what, I’m planning on taking a lot of baths over the following few months.
