Those Foundations are used to stabilize your vertical expansion, but each part of that equation seems to grow almost at random with each addition. I can pick the direction that I want to build my Foundation in, but not exactly how it manifests. The result is a mystery polygon that seems to grow out of ground before building up around the base of a tower, upon which the cycle repeats – if you want to upgrade the towers that are a crucial part of each city, you’ll use the Foundations to lift them higher, the same almost random process of development unfolding each time. A tower might simply thrust upwards into the sky, a narrow spire pointing upwards, but at the next upgrade it might grow in heft, cylindrical or blocky protuberances filling it out. The higher you go, the more Foundations you need, and the result is an ever-evolving structure that seems to grow almost organically, any surface that can hold up an additional structure helping flesh out the city. It’s almost bacterial, this spreading, evolving system of growth on top of growth, yet strangely brutalist, blocky bastions jutting chaotically out of the rockface.
I’ve definitely not unlocked everything that Bulwark has to offer just yet. In part, that’s because the building limit in the currently-available demo caps at just 15, so my creations couldn’t sprawl quite as much as I’d like. But there’s a puzzle-y element to this city-builder that I was very keen to dig into more, if nothing else than to get the colorful lines depicting my resource allocation a little more uniform. But the two systems at its heart have definitely allowed Bulwark to get its hooks into me, at the start of what could be an intense affinity for the world of the Ursee. You can check out Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles right now thanks to its Steam demo.
Could this be a new contender for our list of the best city building games?
Source: gamesradar.com
