At first glance, most people would think that TownCraft was just another Farmville clone or any other social game one would find on Facebook or the App Store. I’m happy to say that it isn’t. You don’t have to wait for an unreasonably long time just to regain energy and shell out real cash just to play again for a short while. You don’t even need to ask for help or in-game items from friends in order to progress.
TownCraft lets you build a town of your own from scratch. Make your little settlement prosper by chopping wood, picking rocks, harvesting food, and forging items to sell. It reminds me of Harvest Moon to some degree. Sometimes even Sim City when you’re managing and allocating resources. You may need to hire some help to accomplish all these chores, but you don’t need to persistently bug friends to ‘gift’ you things. The only people you’ll ever need are the villagers under your command.
You can play this game on your own at your own pace. There’s no penalty for completing a task too early or late in the game. Yet, the best part of it all would have to be the absence of microtransactions. It’s nice to see a game that strays away from the model most mobile games are built on.
As I played through the game, I noticed that TownCraft attempts to drown players for hours with countless of activities. While this gives gamers a myriad of options, there’s no structure to make sense of it all.
I started a scenario and the only instruction I had was to prepare a feast for the King. One would expect a pre-made town with a set of mini-goals to accomplish, but that wasn’t the case. My character was in the middle of nowhere. I had to start the town on my own, and then prepare for the feast. Maybe the game has this in future scenarios, but I was already disiniterested by to find out if that was the case.
I like how players have the freedom to play at their own pace, but it’s too much in my opinion. Sure, freedom is a great thing but it’s not really worth much if players don’t know what do with it. It’s also quite tedious to start a town from scratch just to accomplish the main goal. I think they should have pre-made towns for certain scenarios and let players start from scratch in a “free play” mode.
I might criticize Farmville and other similar games a lot, but at least they give you a sense of direction and you can be easily gratified by accomplishing the mini-missions available.
The game also has its share of bugs that can potentially alienate a player. I took a break from the game and pressed the home button to exit. When I went back, my progress was gone and I had to do everything all over again. I couldn’t enter a cabin one time to use a furnace, so I had to restart the game.
This game is perfect if you want to sit down for hours to build a bustling settlement of your own. However, this might be the game for you if you are looking for instant gratification while you’re out and about. You will be rewarded if you put some time and effort in, but it might take some convincing to get other players to stick around for the ride.
