I Played 20 City Builders For 2 Hours Each To Find The Best Ones

Citybuilders. You know how sometimes you want to just like build a city, but it's way more expensive and bothersome than you feel like dealing with? Well, lucky for you, there's a whole genre in video games that let you do it for way cheaper, and that's what we're checking out today. I've been really excited about this video because I've been a fan of citybuilders for a long time now, and I find the early game phase particularly fun. Don't show me a bunch of land unless you want a city founded and abandoned in the span of about

6 days, cuz I'll start a damn city on you. I'm a city starting son of a b. Anyway, I started 20 cities for this video is what I'm trying to say. This is a really interesting genre because while at their core they're all basically offering the same thing and many of them feel very familiar from one game to another, there's quite a wide variety of the types of experiences you can have from game to game. And that's really the point of the video. Playing them all back toback like this really makes the differences easier to

see and get a feel for what some games do better or worse than others, who tried to innovate and had the most success doing so, and just how different the overall vibes can be across games that have so much in common. And with this video, I'll hopefully help you find exactly what you're looking for. I played 20 citybuilders for 2 hours each to see what they're all about. Couple of quick things before we get started. Obviously, these games are all far bigger than their first 2 hours. So, what I'm really reviewing are the first impressions

the game makes. How does it play? How's the UI? What does it look like? How much depth does it seem like it's going to offer later on, etc. A few of the games in this video are also probably better categorized as colony sims rather than straight up citybuilders, but I thought I'd include them to give a little more variety so that hopefully there will be something in this video for everybody, no matter the type of experience you're after. Whether you're wanting to just relax and build a pretty town or you're looking for something a little

more hardcore and challenging, or you're Somewhere in the middle, there should be something here that piques your interest. So, definitely let me know in the comments if I put anything on your radar or gave you the nudge you needed to try one you've been eyeing for a while. With all that said, which city builder is best for you? Let's talk about that. We'll kick it off with Blacksmith Master. This is an excellent little game. Depending on how technical you want to get with the term citybuer, you might think this doesn't belong in the video, but

it plays very much like a citybuer, except instead of an entire city, you're really just building a blacksmith empire of sorts. And it has a lot of really cool stuff going on. I wasn't really sure what to expect going into this one. It came out in May of 2025, and you know, sometimes, even often times, it can feel like it's kind of difficult to find actual quality games and not just cash grabs these days. And this is really a quality game. The progression is very smooth and something I really appreciate about it is that from

the very beginning it puts you in the position to have to make a choice about what's the most important thing to you in the sense of how you want to progress. The tech tree is organized in a really nice way and there are good choices in every direction. So you have to decide if it's more important to you to be able to start gathering your own resources or being able to produce more at a time or if you want to actually be able to start expanding your building or how quickly you want to be able

to open up a shop and start selling items and just so much more. This seems to be a really tough thing for developers to balance in a way that makes it interesting without making it feel overwhelming or like there's only one correct way to do it. It's really nicely done here, though. There's also obviously a lot of consideration paid to the smoothness of gameplay and the automation to your operation as you expand it with you being able to assign certain tasks to each employee, as well as set guidelines for them to automatically assign points as

they level up if you don't want to manage that as you grow. The UI is exceptional here. It's so easy to know who's doing what and where and make changes to the flow of everything that's happening. I really can't praise this enough because This is one of those things that can make or break a game. Doesn't matter how fun a game is. If the UI is a jumbled mess, it can really suck the joy out of playing it pretty quickly. Another really cool thing here is that at any point you can take control of any

employee. So, if you're looking for a more active experience, you can jump in and do the jobs yourself. And there are little mini games for each stage of the process for any given job that make it a little more interesting. I think the game was more than fine without this, but the fact they bothered to add it is really cool in my opinion. I really like the aesthetic here and I noticed over time that there was actual weather in the game which is a nice touch. And overall I think it's just a very nice looking

little world. There also seems to be quite a bit to unlock and grow into over time with different mines and forests for different materials, trade routes, the shop mechanics I mentioned before that I never got into in this two hours and a lot more. The game plays so smoothly. Everything is very intuitive. The consideration of quality of life and the player's ability to automate all the different details of their operation are fantastic. The game looks really good. The tutorial is excellent. The building is great. and I really just don't have any criticisms to give it

at all. I definitely recommend this one, especially if you're someone who finds yourself getting overwhelmed by other citybuilders as things get too big and start to feel out of control. It feels very manageable and approachable while also seemingly having more than enough going on to keep you interested for quite a while. Definitely worth a play. Up next, we have Frost Punk. This one is very difficult. It's quite a change of pace compared to other citybuilders. It seems specifically designed to be challenging over anything else, and it's honestly very well done. Typically, when I play a

citybuer, I'm more interested in something a little more chill that lets me relax a bit, get a little creative, and maybe sometimes dig a little more into the details, and then have the challenge come quite a bit later when the city is bigger and there's more going on. Frost Punk really lets you have it straight out of the gate. This game is built around making Difficult choices and trying to keep your priorities in order, and it's very hard to recover if you fall behind, so expect to fail a few times before you really get the

hang of it if you decide to check this one out. I failed my first run after about an hour and 20 minutes, and that was really a product of making some decisions very early on that screwed me. One of the big things that got me was that I was trying to leave spaces between the buildings I was placing for roads, but that's actually not necessary. Even if you butt everything you build up to something else, it still lets you put roads between them. So, I ended up wasting a lot of really valuable space right up

against the generator. Your early game resource gathering will consist of just hitting up piles of things in your crater. There's some coal and wood and steel and stuff as well as some actual deposits and bigger trees you'll be able to deal with later after you research the technology. The big issue for me was food. I felt like no matter what I did, I could not stay on top of food. I had a hunter hut with the maximum amount of workers, as well as a hot house a little later on, and I just could not keep

up with the demand for food. So, that's something to be aware of as well. Eventually, you'll get your workshop going and start researching technologies to build bigger and better buildings that will make you more efficient with coal and wood gathering, as well as treating sick towns people and even building a beacon that let you start putting together scouting crews to head out and look for more resources and people and other things. You also have to be mindful of the level of hope and discontent of your people. If hope drops too low or discontent gets too

high, they'll just get rid of you and that'll be the end of your run. In every direction, this game is beating you down. The cold is obviously a huge issue. The food is always in low supply. You have to pace yourself well with resources because eventually those piles are going to run out. And if you haven't researched and built what you need to keep coal and wood coming in, you're going to be screwed. People will die, leaving your buildings understaffed. There are events that pop up and try to nudge you into signing certain laws, and

you'll have to decide which one makes the most sense for you and your people. It's just a really difficult game, but that's not to say it's not also really fun and very wellmade. It's an excellent game. It looks beautiful. It plays very well. The UI is great. It's not clunky or hard to control or manage. It does a pretty good job of giving you all the information you need at any given time. My second run got off to a much better start. I utilized my space a lot more efficiently. I prioritized food much more aggressively

and much earlier, and that seemed to help a lot. And I also didn't let the game force me into things I wasn't ready for. In my first run, every time the game would tell me I needed to do something, like build the workshop and a beacon, for example, I would make it a priority. But the second run, I sort of tried to make sure I was as in control of everything as I could be before I added anything else to the agenda. I'd definitely say this game is worth a try. It's very wellmade, and as

long as you know what you're signing up for, it's really fun. If you want a citybuer that really puts some emphasis on giving you a challenge from day one, I don't reckon there are many better options than this one. Moving right along, we have Let's Build a Zoo. And this is a cute little game, and there's a surprising amount of content here. It's definitely silly. It doesn't take itself too seriously as a zoo simulator, but that's not to say the systems aren't all well put together, that you could play it like a bit of a

vanilla zoo sim if that's what you wanted to do. What I mean by that is that there are things like crossbreeding and black market dealers, and at one point I got offered a robo lion in exchange for any animals that die in my zoo, stuff like that. I imagine this can get quite ridiculous if you want it to. It's got a really cute little style to it. It's pretty satisfying to make each enclosure the best it can be in the sense of decorations and enrichment and all of that. Everything is easy enough to manage. The

UI isn't bad [clears throat] and overall I'd say it's fairly easy to navigate and figure it all out. You'll Have to hunt for a few things early on, but it's not too bad. The way you add animals to your zoo is a bit confusing at first, and the tutorial sort of leaves you hanging on the topic in my opinion. You get animals for your zoo, at least in the early game, primarily by trading certain variations of your animals to other zoos. I had my rabbits and geese and for several in-game days could not figure out

how to get any new animals because every trade available to me required an animal I didn't have. One of them required a goose, but I only had my two and neither of them were the right variation. So, my thought was I'd just wait on my geese to breed since that's what my rabbits were doing, and I'd unlocked several variations of those. At this point, my geese just wouldn't breed on their own. And I finally found the nursery in the research tab and was able to use that to breed them. And then things started moving forward

again. So, just be aware you're going to want to get that nursery as soon as possible. It's kind of cool. You're basically trying to map the genome of all the different species in your zoo by discovering all the different variations. And then the more you unlock, the more options you have to mess around in the splicer, which is where you do your crossbreeding. So again, I imagine as you keep playing, you can really make some wild stuff. The map is also huge. By the time you unlock everything, you're going to have a gigantic zoo. So

if you like to expand and decorate, you're probably really going to like this because not only are there a lot of different buildings and enclosure types and decorations, but a lot of different variations of a lot of these things as well. So you can almost certainly make it look the way you want it to look. There is quite a bit to manage here between the expected food and water and enrichment and all the different elements of an enclosure. But you'll also have to manage dealing with animals when they die, getting a farm going, managing your

transportation both in the zoo and out of it, hiring and maintaining employees, research, breeding, splicing, and probably a lot more than I even saw in my 2 hours. This is a really solid, silly little sim that Has a shocking amount of character and content in it, and one I could definitely see justifying sinking a bunch of time into if what you're seeing is doing anything for you. For sure worth checking out. Next, we have Against the Storm. And this is such a cool concept for a game. It's a city builder with some heavy rog light

elements. And it's really just brilliant. As I've mentioned, my favorite part of these games is often the establishing phase, getting a city started and sort of finding the layout and all that. And with Against the Storm, that's sort of what the game is having you do. And it just gets more challenging as you progress through the game. So, by the time you're building bigger cities, you're so familiar with the flow that it's unlikely you'll ever hit a point where you feel overwhelmed because you've done it so many times before that you have a good grasp

of everything that's happening. I had a blast playing this one. There was clearly a ton of effort put into this game. The tutorial is excellent, and the endgame guides are all full of information and laid out very well. There's a lot of lore in the game if you're into that. Your town's people consist of humans, beavers, and lizards, at least in the early game. I don't know if there are more races later, but they will all do any job you assign them, and they each have a couple of specialties. Beavers, for example, tend to thrive

in wood cutters huts and things that involve wood. It's simple enough to understand and manage, but the game is built so well that as the difficulty begins to scale, getting villagers into the right roles will be a little more challenging than you might think. and you also need unassigned villages so that your buildings get built and goods get transported around the town and all that. The city building mechanics themselves are just fantastic. It's so easy to do what you want to do. And one thing I really love is the option to mirror anything you're placing.

It's not necessarily a huge deal, but it really gives you room to make things fit and mix up the look of your buildings enough to make it look nice. You can also just Move buildings at will, so you don't have to stress or overthink too much about what you're placing and where. When the trapper's hut runs out of meat in one area, just pick them up and put them somewhere else. When your wood cutters have uncovered one glade, just move them to the next one. It's great. There's quite a lot going on in this game

and I can definitely see it getting very challenging after a bit of playing. Even the first run I did immediately after the tutorial had a noticeably different energy to it. You really feel it when the game stops holding your hand. But it's still really fun. As I said, the tutorials are really well done and they give you a good idea of what you're doing and what to expect as you go, but it's really only scratching the surface of the depth of the game. There's a huge map for you to work through, tons of different buildings

with different purposes, orders to fulfill, cornerstones to choose from, which are basically different buffs for the run, a wide variety of encounters and events in the Glades you'll be uncovering, and just so much to do here. And again, the way the game plays is top-notch. This is another game that I really wouldn't say I have any criticisms for. If you're someone who particularly enjoys the early phases of citybuilders like I am and you're looking for something that presents a pretty nice challenge with tons of achievements, things to collect and just a lot going on in

general, I see no reason you wouldn't absolutely love this game. Highly recommend. Next is Twooint Hospital. And this is one of several twooint games that exist now. And I went ahead and chose hospital because it was already in my library and these videos are expensive. Okay, I liked this one. I had a good time playing it. I only have a couple of mild gripes that we'll get into, but overall I think this is a really solid game and nice for those of you who perhaps like more contained areas to develop in. Instead of just being

given a huge blank plot of land And having to figure out what to do with it, you're placed into the outer skeleton of a hospital building and it's up to you to fill it up as you see fit. And then as you play, you'll unlock new locations that come with their own new challenges, building shapes, and apparently plots of land to purchase and expand into. So by the time you're in the late game, perhaps you actually do have some huge hospitals, but early on it's just manageable enough without feeling too easy or boring. It's also

not too difficult to change your mind and rearrange what you've built. All of the building and editing tools are pretty solid and it controls really well. They also got pretty cute with the design and just what's going on. You'll notice with the patient sometimes they'll very visibly show their symptoms. Like this one came in with lightadedness. It's pretty silly and it's fun to see all the different issues displayed like that. There is quite a bit to manage here as you'll have to hire staff and manage your finances to a degree and make sure everything is

running smoothly. There are several different roles to fill in the hospital with all the potential candidates for hire having different buffs and debuffs and salaries and everything. So, you sort of have to decide what works for you and what doesn't. I do wish sometimes there was a bit more information just shown to you. Like for example, in Frost Punk when you zoom out a little bit, it shows you how many people are working in each building and stuff. I kind of wish you could do that here and it would just show which doctor or nurse

was assigned to which office. Because sometimes you'll get a message saying you might have too many of a particular profession because one of them is just standing around. But it can be hard to figure out where the hole is. At least it was for me. Maybe there is a way to easily see this information and I just never found it. I also kind of feel like the AI of the employees is a little odd. Like I think when someone goes on break, they sort of unassign themselves from their office and then sometimes I guess someone

else takes their office. I don't like that at all. That makes it very hard to keep up with what my Original plans were. If I put a doctor in a particular office, I want that to be their office until I decide to change it. It wasn't a huge deal for me in my 2 hours, but I could definitely see it becoming a problem as the hospitals get bigger and you have more employees wandering around. Again, unless there's some easier way to see all that information that I never came across, I can't attest to how big

of a problem it might be. So, if anyone watching has some time in this game and wants to share some insight on whether or not I just overlook something or how big of an issue that becomes, it would be interesting to hear. All in all, I wouldn't say it seemed like a deal breakaker. Everything else about the game was really good. There seems to be so much game here. There are a lot more hospitals to unlock here than I thought there would be. Playing this game made me particularly curious about Twooint Museum, as that appeals

to me a lot more than the hospital theme. So, perhaps that'll be in part two. If you like the idea of having more contained spaces to build in and progressing through different maps into more difficult and expansive projects, this is probably right up your alley. It's a really solid little citybuer with a cool take on the genre and one that I really see no reason anyone who likes citybuilders wouldn't enjoy. Next is Celestial Empire, and I got to say, this game surprised me a lot. I'm not really even sure why, but I went into this

game pretty skeptical. It's surprisingly really good, though. Doesn't feel cash grabby at all. I definitely get the impression they were inspired by Manorlords here. it seemed to be going for a similar aesthetic and you can go into firstp person mode and run around which I think is just so cool. I would not put this game in a conversation with Manorlords per se, but it does seem like that's where they got some of their inspiration and they did a good job overall. The progression feels very smooth. If anything, I could stand it to be a little

bit slower, but that's not a criticism since you can ultimately pause time and maintain your pace whenever you like. There are also several difficulty options so you can make it as chill or as challenging as you like. I like that when you're placing residential buildings, it mixes up the model every Time you place one so that you can just run them in a line and it won't be the same building over and over. That's a really nice touch. The city feels very alive and active as you build it. All of the citizens are actively doing

their jobs or just living their lives. You'll see kids running around and playing and people cleaning fish outside their homes. Tons of detail in that area, which is something I'm a big fan of. Everything in this game is very easy to manage and fairly straightforward in his presentation and explanation of everything. You are able to move buildings around here, so no need to stress with super precise future proofing in your layouts or anything like that. I rearranged things quite a few times in my two hours, and it was pretty much painless. If you play citybuilders,

it will feel very familiar. You'll be able to settle right in with this one, and it has a lot of extracurricular features as well. There is, of course, the familiar research tree with each node having its own set of upgrades, so you can sort of prioritize how quickly you want to move through the tree versus making things you've already unlocked more efficient in a variety of ways. You'll also choose basically who your city's going to worship, and that will come with its own flavor in quite a few ways, which I won't go into any detail

about because I think it's more fun to find out as you go. It seems to be very well optimized and plays really smooth. I didn't really have any issues while I was playing. This one really had my attention. I found myself very invested in what I was doing and what I was planning to do. I really just like everything about what they did with this game. It's a really damn good citybuer. There's a solid amount of quality of life here that just keeps things flowing. Like holding right click while WD moving your camera to speed

it up. Or if you try building a building you haven't researched yet and you have the points to unlock it, clicking it will open the research tree and take you straight to where it is. And just a lot of little things like this that show the developers play these games and their own game quite a bit and are really trying to make it a good experience in every way they can. The UI Is also really solid. I have no complaints about it at all. I honestly have no complaints about anything with this game. Again, it

really surprised me. Right around my 2-hour mark, I built my trade post and could have started working to establish my caravan routes and stuff, which will open up the game quite a bit, I imagine, and I'm sure there's a lot more to come the longer you play. The map is huge, so there's plenty to grow into. It's finding games like these that are why I love making these videos. I'd probably have never played this one otherwise, and instead, it's one I'm almost certainly going to revisit and sink some time into. I highly recommend checking this

one out. I can't imagine you'd regret it. Moving along, we have Clan Folk. And this is an incredible game. I really love this little game. There's quite a bit to talk about here. I actually think I underestimated this game a bit based on the art style, but holy cow was that a mistake. This game is very deep. There are so many different things to unlock and build, and all the systems are so intricate and yet easy to control and manage. It's a very impressive game. Also, probably more of a colony sim. They had some fantastic

ideas on how things should work here. You basically start off by picking your starting clan, and I'd highly recommend you pay attention to the tutorial because it's very thorough and actually shows you some very useful, cool stuff that I'd imagine is going to be crucial for managing things a little bit later on. The way you can automate jobs and prioritize who does them and to what extent is just fantastic. One example are the eel traps. You set a couple of eel traps in the water and you apparently have to be very careful not to overfish

your lakes and rivers because you can deplete your source if you're too aggressive about it. So what you can do is set it so that each trap will only catch a certain number of eels. You can then pick a member of the clan and make that their top priority and then set a repeating job to cook and then store the cooked eels. So, with the Two traps, you're basically preparing 20 cooked eels a day and no more so that you don't overfish the area. You can do this with literally everything. Through your inventory, you can

go into the tools tab and anything you've already crafted, you can set an amount to try and always have on hand so that when that tool breaks or something, there should always be one ready to use. It's like this in literally every single direction. I am just blown away at the level of detail and depth here. And I'm dying to know what this game looks like after even just a dozen hours or so. It's almost overwhelming how much and how fast you just keep unlocking new things. New storage containers, new building materials, new tools. There's

so much. I also really like the look of the game. I know the characters aren't super high def or anything, but I like them. And I think the world itself is actually really pretty. And again, lots of attention to detail. The lighting from the fires is really nice, and just the way the lighting changes throughout the day and stuff is really pretty. The day night cycle is also very long, which I appreciate. At night, if everyone's sleeping, the fastest speed increases to 12x, so you can get through the night pretty quick. I also found myself

actually getting attached to my little people. Big shout out to the baby of the clan, Catherine, for being an absolute menace. She'd fall in the poop hole and get stuck. Refuse to go to bed at night, get too close to the fire. She was really keeping everyone busy, as if they didn't have enough to do. I think that's really cool that the babies are coded to, well, act like babies, and it just sort of seemed like everybody has their own little personalities. It's very cool. I kept trying to just build everything I was unlocking, and

as you can see here, it quickly started to look like a tornado ran through. So, for my last 30 minutes or so, I really tried to focus on getting everything organized and laid out in a way that actually made some sense. I did get a house of sorts built a bit earlier, but in this last 30 minutes, I built a covered add-on to put some stuff under that was getting damaged by the rain. Tried to get workstations that were related to one another in the same area and just get all the stuff that was scattered

all Over the place cleaned up. I think it started to look pretty nice by the end, and I really feel like I was starting to hit my stride around the 2-hour mark. This is a phenomenal game. I'm blown away at how good this one was. Perhaps the most surprising game in the video. Just really, really good. I would highly recommend that everybody check this one out if you haven't already. It's fantastic. Moving along, we have Kingdoms and Castles, and I've played this one a decent bit over the years. I had over 20 hours in it

before this video, which isn't a ton, but it's enough to make the point, I'd say. I really enjoy it, and I think it's among the more approachable citybuilders if you're new to the genre, or perhaps just don't typically like the ones that are super in-depth. This game doesn't have an overwhelming amount of buildings or mechanics, but it still has enough going on to be interesting for a long time. And it does have some things that you can get into later on in the game that make it a bit more complex with things like reservoirs and

aqueducts and exploration ships and things like that. Everything in the early and midame is very easy to follow and manage. It's pretty intuitive. I actually really like the style of this game, too. It's not realistic in the slightest, but I do really like the choices made here, and I think it goes very well with the overall vibe. And there are actually a lot of really cute little details you'll notice as you build. One example is that when you build roads that branch or intersect, it will add little street signs. It does have several difficulty levels

and customization options. So, if you find yourself hating the dragon and or Viking attacks, for example, you can turn those off. And honestly, if you're newer to citybuilders, I see no reason to have them on. There's more than enough going on here to keep you engaged and challenged as you learn. And if at any point you would like an extra challenge, you can just turn them back on. If you're interested, this is my old file I used to play. It's over a 100red years in and has over 800 citizens. and it gives you an idea

of what things will look like a little bit later in the game. If you have threats on, you'll definitely hit a point where you need to start emphasizing castle walls and different military squads and things Like that, as well as external trade and more extensive planning as you expand. So, as I said in the early game, it's very approachable and easy to keep up with. But later on, it can get a bit more complex and deep, so don't write it off as being too simple or anything. The progression is very smooth and you can sort

of grow at your own pace. So, I don't imagine there would ever come a time where you really feel overwhelmed by what's going on because it's up to you how fast the new things roll out and what becomes part of your build. As I said, I'm a big fan of this one. I'd recommend it to any citybuilding fan, but particularly to anyone newer to the genre or that has found themselves overwhelmed by citybuilders in the past. I think this is an excellent one to cut your teeth on, and who knows, you might like it enough

to not even feel the need to play any others for a while. Up next is Fabledom. And this one is really cool, man. I've had this in the library for a long time, so it was nice to finally get around to it, and it did not disappoint. I'll start off by saying I love the aesthetic here. It's very fairy tale vibes and it does it very well. I also just think it's a really pretty game and they really honed in on the details here. If that's something you tend to enjoy, there's plenty of it to

enjoy in this game. One really cool thing about this one is each little house you build, you can adjust the size of the plot and choose which little add-ons go in the plot. So, like a dog house or a beehive or an apple tree. There are several options and if you're not bothered, you can just hit randomize and it'll add stuff for you. It doesn't seem super important, so whatever you like seems to be fine here. This game is easy enough to follow and understand, but it rapidly sneaks up on you and before you know

it, you're behind on important resources and trying to keep up with all the events happening and it can get a little overwhelming. It's a pretty dynamic game in that sense. There's way more than just cityb building going on here. There are other regions on the world map for you to interact with. Something about the starting settings indicated there's some degree of romance options here. And I Met one of the other representatives from a different region, and there's quite a bit going on with the relationship system in general. Random things will pop up in your map,

like I got offered a magic bean, and of course, I took it and planted it. So now there's a beantoalk growing in my town that was actually visibly growing and after some time I'd apparently be able to climb it. There's a hero you'll unlock when you build a certain building and you actually send him around areas you've unlocked to interact with a variety of different events and points of interest. I got cursed by a witch at one point and all my citizens turned into skeletons for a while which doubled their food intake and I never

fully recovered from that. I built a street theater and you can zoom in and watch whoever you assign to it perform. It's just oozing with charm in that way. There are so many little things to appreciate and the systems all seem very well thought out and implemented. I also get the impression the game is only going to continue to pretty aggressively expand. So, I imagine if I were to put another couple of hours in, there would be a whole new review to write about the new things I discovered. It was a pretty great play, and

I really enjoyed the level of customization I had within the available building options. I think it really adds a lot to the experience and really gives you that much more room to play around with your creativity. Also, quick tip, be really aggressive about your wood gathering. I think only in my last 20 minutes or so did I start to actually get ahead of myself. I was basically waiting on wood the entire time I played, even with two fully staffed foresters with add-ons. Your town grows by having housing available for the new villagers that arrive every

few days. And right around the 2-hour mark, I unlock the ability to recruit commoners, which are a step up above peasants. I don't know specifically in what ways, but it goes peasants, then commoners, then nobles, and each seem to come with their own housing and other buildings. I began the construction of a townhouse so that I could start getting Commoners, but they are very expensive, but also seem to offer much more advanced and functional add-ons than peasant housing. So, that'll be cool to explore as I continue to play. And it makes me really curious about

what it will look like when I can start building for nobles. Also, commoners will be unhappy if you build their housing too close to the peasants. So, you'll basically have to plan for class structure when you're building for the future, as the town houses even seem to need their own wells and a new drainage option. [music] You sort of get the idea here. But the game just keeps getting more detailed and deeper and bigger and it didn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon. It seems like a fantastic game. I don't really have anything negative

to say about it. It's much more engaging than the average citybuilder. So, if you want to be kept busy, Fabled will definitely do it. I highly recommend this one. Up next, we have Banished. And this one, I think, has to be in the conversation for one of the goats in the city builder genre. It's just so damn good. I had actually never played this game before, despite having had it in the backlog for quite a while. Are you noticing a pattern yet? So, I was particularly excited to spend a couple of hours in this game.

[music] And despite being over a decade old, it's just such a great game. It just feels like such a full complete game. It's got an exceptional tutorial that does a great job explaining the important foundational elements of the game while still leaving you plenty of room to learn and grow into the game as you play it. Everything about this game feels very well optimized. It plays very smooth. It functions smooth. The UI is great and very easy to navigate. Any area you'd want information, it's there to be had. It explains itself well and really allows

you to focus on what you want to do rather than trying to figure out how things work, if that makes sense. It's a great looking game, too. I was surprised by the level of detail as things get built and stockpiles fill up and empty, stuff like that. It's easy enough to play and get started, but it's also challenging. I apparently didn't focus on food production as aggressively as I should have in this first run. And it didn't take long before everyone started starving to death. So, I started A new run at around the 1 hour

mark, 25 minutes of which was spent playing the tutorials, and decided to focus a bit more on making sure my priorities were in order and that I was actually taking care of my people instead of just trying to build as much stuff as possible. And it went much better. I got my little residential area going, a fishing dock, a farm with a cherry tree orchard behind it. I designated areas away from town for things like foresters and gatherers and hunters, and eventually even started development of a mine and a quarry. Things were actually going great.

And then a goddamn tornado came and killed like 14 of my people and destroyed all my homes. So, I'd suggest turning off natural disasters for the first playthrough. The game is challenging enough without them, I promise. There are a lot of details to get into in this game. You have to be pretty on top of where you're assigning people to work, what types of limits are necessary on the production of things like firewood and tools. And just make sure you're expanding at a manageable rate so that everything stays taken care of, occupied, and that your

town has room for people to grow into as the population grows. And again, if you're someone who likes to micromanage a bit and get into the statistics of how and what your city is doing, there's plenty of that here. Again, I think it's one of the goats. And if you're a fan of the genre and have never played it, I'd say it's time to fix that and dump a few hours into it. Next is surviving Mars. then this is a really cool way to make a citybuilder. It sort of reverses the progression in the sense

that you're starting with machines and trying to build up to having humans. I think this is a really cool concept and exceptionally well realized and implemented. But I do want to mention before we get into it that this game seems particularly complex and deep. And even if you're familiar with citybuilders, it's going to take a little bit to feel like you have a grip on what's going on. That's how it was for me at least. It took me around an hour just to get through all the tutorials. And they're very good, but it's also clear

they're just showing you very foundational things. There's plenty more beyond them to figure out. For everything available and required, I'd Say the UI is very well done. You will have to dig around a bit while you're learning your way around, but again, for how much is in the game, I think they did a great job with it. There is quite a bit to manage here. You have to, of course, focus on resource management as well as scanning sectors around your starting area to open up what parts of the map are available to you. With each

completed scan, showing you what kinds of resources and deposits and other information there is to know about the area. Generating and managing your power output is crucial, and there are several different ways to approach managing that. from shutting buildings down manually to setting shifts for when they operate and so on. Your goal is basically to develop to a point that you can start having humans sent and begin colonizing Mars, which opens up the game pretty significantly in the sense of what types of exploration and resource gathering and all the different systems you sort of scratch

the surface of when it was just your drones. There are also different work shifts and worker slots to manage in all the buildings within each dome you build. And you'll need to maintain control over who is going where. Let's say you have a dome primarily focused on research, for example. You're going to want to prioritize scientists for that one. And if you have another dome related to mining, you'll want geologist. Every system in the game seems to be pretty deep, but it's honestly all pretty intuitive, too. So, I don't think this will be one of

those situations where you have to try to learn the game in spite of itself, if that makes sense. It's also a really fantastic looking game. I think they did a really good job here. And I really love all the details of the drones and different extractors doing their jobs and all the effects of all those things happening on the environment and stuff. I bet it's really cool when you have a few domes and a bunch of people all doing their thing. This seems like a very well put together game and honestly, one of the more

unique citybuilders I've played. It's also just really fun and interesting, but again, just be aware you're probably going to spend quite a bit of time in The learning phase. Definitely recommend it if you're someone who likes a challenge and really digging into the details. Next is Sim City 4 Deluxe, and I put this on the list because it's the oldest Sim City game I could find on Steam, and I don't think I've ever actually played a Sim City game, so I thought it would be cool to check one out. This one came out in 2003,

and it really feels like it came out in 2003. And that's not to say there isn't some cool stuff going on here, but there's just a lot that feels outdated in this game. But also, let me be clear that while I'm going to talk about the things I didn't like, they're not criticisms on the same level as the other games. I'm not expecting it to have the same level of quality of life and functionality as modern games. But I still got to talk about my experience. You know, there's no WD movement, which is tough to

get used to, and nowhere to edit keybinds that I could find. The camera movement feels a little janky, and overall, the game is just clunky, which again, old game, so perfectly fine for it to feel clunky. I'm just saying I'm not quite sure I feel like this game holds up as well as something like Unreal World that was released in 1992, a game that I covered in my survival games video that I think is one of the best survival games you could play. It can feel a little clunky at times, too, though, so it's not

always a huge deal. My PC also just really didn't like this game. It does the thing where it rearranges all your desktop icons when you launch it. I had several crashes. I lost the first city I was working on over an hour in. The tutorial sort of bugged out on me here and I couldn't finish it. Also, the tutorial never told me how to rotate buildings, even though it wanted me to rotate a building here, so I had to Google it to proceed, and it's the home and end keys, and that's actually just insane. I

will say I was surprised by the details of what's going on down in the city. Some houses had above ground pools, and there were several different models of houses and yards and animations for the citizens doing their thing. It has little mini games where You can drive a car or fly a helicopter, which is cool, I guess. There are a lot of different buildings and systems to get into, and it's very easy to build. Sim City was very obviously the primary inspiration for City Skylines. In many ways, that's sort of the modern-day Sim City, so

if you played that, you'll definitely see the similarities. I was also surprised to see the auto adjustments when I was placing roads. And again, just surprised to see how many different tabs there were for buildings and stuff. Seems like you could really go crazy with it if you wanted to. There's also a god mode tab where you can terraform or cause natural disasters and stuff for those of you that are looking for some shenanigans. I think this is probably a game that if you played it closer to when it came out, you love it. And

I think for its time, it was probably mind-blowing. But I don't think it holds up in the sense that it's worth playing over most other citybuilders these days. It's kind of cool to get a glimpse into the past if you're into that. But I'd be very surprised if anyone loaded up this game for the first time in 2025 and felt like they wanted to sink a bunch of time into it. It was cool to check out, though. I have nothing but respect for the franchise and appreciate what it's done for the genre as a whole.

But part of the beauty of what it's done is that it's inspired some really incredible games. So, I'd say unless you wanted to hop in for a bit for similar reasons that I talked about wanting to, I probably wouldn't recommend it. I think it only makes sense next to move into City Skylines 2. And I was on the fence for most of making this video about whether or not I was going to include this game, as there's so much negative press about it that it kind of seemed pointless. As someone who's played quite a bit

of the first one, it just sort of seemed like there was no real reason to buy this game. I ultimately decided to include it because it just kind of felt weird not to with the legacy this franchise has built for itself. So, I'm going to just review my two hours in this game and not go into much more detail about the discourse surrounding the game and the decisions of the developers and all that stuff. This game Does feel very much like a sequel to City Skylines. And what I mean by that is they really did

add quite a lot of new features and tools to this game. Part of the concern for me with this game was that I didn't really know what the point of a sequel was. Why not just continue adding things to the base game, you know? But it seems like they really did sort of overhaul everything from the foundation up. So, if you played the first one, this will definitely feel familiar, but you will also feel like you're playing a new game because of all the new things there are here to learn and explore. The game also

looks noticeably better than the first one, but it does kind of seem like that comes at the cost of performance. It's not so bad that it would be a dealbreaker or anything, but it did get a little fra and was occasionally slow to respond. And I run a 4070, so I don't think it's a hardware thing. Again, it was all minor, but I'm not sure that bodess well for bigger cities. Anyone with some time in can let us know in the comments how things perform after your city grows. If you played City Skylines, that traffic

is probably the bane of your existence. And one thing I noticed about this game is that traffic seemed to become a problem much sooner. I started a couple of cities in my time playing, and it seemed like it took less than 30 minutes every time for traffic to start backing up pretty severely. [music] So, that's something you're going to want to be thinking about from the very beginning. There are systems like specialized industries that vary in availability based on what you have access to on your map. And that's kind of cool. If you have the

land for it, you can place a few different farms and sort of draw out their outline. So, not only can you make something efficient, but you can really lean into any particular aesthetic you want. There are a lot of different residential zones. There's office space zones, all of the public buildings and transportation options you'd expect with a space program available to unlock at Some point, which sounds fun. There are unique buildings and really just a ton going on here. You can also choose between easy and normal mode when you start, and if you're not interested

in any of the challenges that come by default, you can just turn on infinite money and build to your heart's content. I didn't see any in my time playing, but there are natural disasters you can toggle on or off. Overall, I'd say the game makes a great first impression, and it won't take long at all for you to start noticing all the changes from the first game. Outside of my 2 hours, there is a lot of talk about bugs and performance issues, as well as how quick they were to start pushing out DLC while the

base game still had some serious problems, which is not a good look for sure. I'd like to think that with how good The First City Skylines is, there's hope for them to turn things around and get the game running smoothly and get their priorities back in order and hopefully in time get their Steam reviews out of the mixed state they're in right now. As far as whether or not I'd say I recommend this game, that's a tough call, honestly. Strictly based on my time playing, yeah, it seemed great and really seems to have taken what

they did in the first game and built on it nicely. But you do also have to consider everything surrounding the game right now. My suggestion would probably be to hold off on this game for a bit and see if they're able to turn it around. There are so many other games in this video that you can feel much more sure about purchasing, and I see no reason to gamble. So, for now, I'm going to say that I don't recommend it, but hopefully someday that'll change. Up next is Norland, and it's definitely more of a colony

sim, and while it looks a lot like Clanfolk, it's a very different experience. Norland really leans more into the medieval aesthetic than Clanfolk did, but even beyond that, they are surprisingly different for how similar they look. It really gets into the details of what everyone is doing, and it's really interesting. Also, this is random, but my king and queen would Occasionally like slapbox each other and then go to their room and bang. So, that was interesting. This game was quite a lot of fun, and the longer I played it, the more it surprised me with

the level of detail and just what's possible to do here. The game is, of course, focus around growing and managing your civilization, but also your relationships with the other cities and leaders and stuff around the map. There's a pretty big emphasis on trade and relationships, and it's really cool to see how it all ties in. There's also quite a bit of customizing you do when you're creating your run. It reminded me of Project Zomboid to a degree. You can decide how many people you're starting with, what their backstory is, what their actual stats are, what

buff and debuff they'll have, and so on. It's pretty cool. You have to have your lords learn things by reading in the library, which will unlock new buildings and things. And what's really interesting about that is that once you unlock something, it's unlocked, but all the bonuses you get from whichever lord read the specific book actually die with the lord if and when they die. So, you need to be mindful of who is doing what and careful about just loading up all your knowledge into one person. You will occasionally get visitors from other regions, sometimes

even lords. And it mentions that based on their personalities, they'll be looking for different things. And it even mentions sexual adventures, which seems to indicate that I guess if you wanted to, you could run a brothel in your town. It really seems like one of those games where you can kind of try to do whatever you want to do if you'll take the time to learn how to do it. As deep and complicated as the game is though, it rolls it all out at a pretty nice pace, so it's pretty easy to keep up with

what's going on. But you'll definitely feel the pressure of how much there is to learn before you really have a solid grasp on what's going on. It's also very easy to build and navigate the UI. The game is very crisp and well put together. It's also really good at giving you important information without you having to hunt for it. Like if you zoom out, you get info like which lords are assigned to which buildings, how many employees there are, what they're producing, etc. There's a combat system Of sorts that it seems like you can sort

of decide how involved with you want to get. And it does seem pretty intense because again, when people die here, there's quite a bit of an impact. Toward the end of my 2 hours, I got attacked by one set of marauders and the knight I hired actually couldn't fend them off. So they made it into town and started setting things on fire. This is when I learned that my regular towns people will not fight. So, you do need to put some emphasis on getting actual warriors trained and prepared for something like this. Because after burning

down some of my stuff, another scarier-l looking group of people killed them on their way into town and then did exponentially more damage to my little city. So, I got attacked back to back and it did not go well. It's also worth mentioning that the world around you is just as alive as your town. People are dying and being attacked and trading and relationships are being built or falling apart. You are very much a part of this world rather than the world just being a product of you being here. It's a fantastic little game. It

has all the quality of life you'd expect in a good colony sim/c citybuilder. And for as deep as the game seems to go, it all seemed easy enough to learn and manage. And I have no reason to believe it wouldn't stay that way the longer you played it. I'd say it's definitely worth checking out if it looks interesting to you. Up next is Farthest Frontier. And this one is really, really good, man. Just a very solid citybuer. I really like the look of it. It's a very pretty game with a pretty good amount of attention

paid to the details to give it its own identity. I'd say this is a somewhat popular time period for these types of games. So, I think it's important to really figure out some ways to make yourself stand out, and they did a decent job of it here. I actually really like the loading screens in this game. If this one was a painting, I'd happily hang it in my home. I thought it was really setting the tone for me with a suggested name for my colony being Dysenteria, but it's actually not really that hard. You do

have to be moderately mindful of what you're prioritizing, but it's not nearly as punishing as some of the other games in the video. I will say Toward the end of my 2 hours, I found myself really struggling to generate gold, and I can visualize a path in the next hour or two where that would have become a huge deal. But early on it seemed okay enough. I'd say that would be something to be very focused on if you decide to play this game. I really enjoyed the progression with this one. It felt very smooth and

sensible. And I actually really appreciated that the first thing to build wasn't a lumberjack hut. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, but it was a nice change of pace for that to be something you had to work your way up to. So early on, you have to be slightly more involved in the gathering. The tools they give you to manage things are fantastic. Here with the gathering tool, for example, you can select which resources you want to include in your selection and then just click and drag an area and it will only select

what you have checked, which is very helpful at the very beginning when you're primarily worried about collecting wood for homes and firewood. This type of quality of life is spread all throughout the UI. They did a really good job of giving you enough tools, but enough of an ability to customize the tools to do things efficiently. You can set limits on how much each building is producing to manage your resources, which is particularly important in this game. There are quite a few different buildings and chains of production to build into, and I'd say it strikes

a good balance of having more than enough to be interesting without feeling like too much. I did have a few issues with some raiders, and I never got to a point where I felt comfortable sending out scouts to explore more areas, as I wanted to have a little bit more of a military presence before that, and that required gold, which, as I mentioned, I was having trouble generating. I think Farthest Frontier is a very nice step up from some of the more beginner friendly citybuilders without being so complicated that you couldn't just jump straight in

if you were a beginner. But the learning curve might be slightly steeper here than something like kingdoms and castles. And I also think it's solid enough that even a seasoned citybuer would get some thorough Enjoyment out of it. I'm very interested in continuing to expand my settlement and get an army built up so I can start exploring the map and engaging in some combat and seeing just how much this game really has to offer as you venture out of the early game. Absolutely worth checking out. Next up is Timberborn. And it really just doesn't get

better than this game in my opinion. This is just about a perfect citybuer. I think they really just nailed every single thing about this game. It starts with one of the better tutorials I've played. And it does a really good job of teaching you how the game works and what you should be doing while also sort of putting you in the position as you're going through it to have to make a few decisions on your own, like placing a few more wood gatherers or something simple like that. And just gradually over time taking the training

wheels off until before you know it, you just understand the game. And it's really well done. The progression is also as smooth as it gets. I think possibly more than any other game I've played. strikes such a nice balance of being very approachable and easy to learn as you go while also offering so much depth later in the game. I don't even know the full extent of what the light game offers yet, but I've seen a bit of content on it and it's just wow what people have built and what you can get into in

this game. Also, it's beavers, so I just immediately love them more than when it's people. Like, look at this little bastard and tell me you don't want to break your own arm and get denied a bank loan. I can't think of a quality of life feature that's missing from this game. Again, everything about it is just so fully thought out and it really seems like no idea was too small. if it would make the game better. It really seems like they added it. Like the way the UI expands at the top as the types of

resources you obtain grows, or how when you build a storage building and you're setting which item to store, there's a little bar next to everything you already have, letting you know how close you currently are to being full on that item. So, you can set new storage buildings based on what you need without having to search for that information. It's little things like this peppered throughout the whole game that really make it stand out. The building is also great. You can rotate buildings, of course, but you can also flip them, which is always a nice

touch. There's plenty to build and unlock and work on. And one really cool thing is that you'll notice some buildings and structures are marked as solid, which means you can build other buildings on top of them. So, not only can you expand horizontally, but also vertically, which means you can really get some wild stuff going on. Then, there are, of course, dams and levies and reservoirs to build and all of the mechanics associated with the water in the game, as you will have to prepare for droughts and different problems throughout your time plan. As your

city grows, you'll want to start assigning districts and routes for resource management and all sorts of things like that. You can adjust all the settings to make it as easy or as challenging as you like. And there's even another faction of beavers to unlock that I don't know much about yet, but seem like they could make for a pretty interesting playthrough. Here's a quick look at my city from my first time playing a while back. I think this is maybe around 3 or 4 hours of play time. And you can see a little bit more

of what's going on here, but this still doesn't even begin to showcase what's possible later on. I really do think this is a perfect citybuer. I can't imagine what would make this game better. It's one that I legitimately have no criticisms at all for. And if you like these types of games and haven't played this one yet, that should change as soon as possible because it's just an incredible game. Next is Foundation. And this ended up being one of my favorites from the whole video and it was one of the last ones I played. This

was yet another game I'd had my eye on for a while and just never got around to. But I really enjoyed myself here and I'd say more than any other game in the video, this is the one I really felt compelled to keep playing. There's just a lot of stuff going on here that's so different and I really like it. It's also very customizable. So if you just want a cozy builder, you can do that. And if you'd like a good challenge, that's also here. One of the things this game does so well for me

is make all the things that tend to be a little more complicated or involved really easy to approach. Like trading, for example. That's typically something I don't really spend a lot of time getting into because it tends to just seem a little more complicated that I'm in the mood for. But as important and meaningful as it is here, it's very streamlined and something you don't really have to spend much time thinking about. You make the required resources to initiate a trade route with the surrounding region, which will unlock the ability to buy or sell certain

items that you can easily manage from this menu. And then you simply hit the up arrow to have an ongoing buy order or the down arrow to have an ongoing sell order. And if you want to keep a minimum of any particular item in stock, just set it and that's it. From there, it's pretty automatic. And over time, these trade routes will level up and you'll be able to do more with them. But it's so easy to manage. Another thing I really enjoy here is the zone painting. Think something more along the lines of City

Skylines. You don't actually build individual housing. You paint residential zones and leave it to your villagers to build what they want where they want. And I really like seeing how that turns out. They're also pretty efficient. They do a good job of rotating and filling the space you give them. Paths will also start developing naturally depending on where different buildings are, and I also love that there's quite an emphasis on things developing naturally outside of what you're controlling, and it's really satisfying to watch it happen. There are some elements of the building system that I'm

also a huge fan of. The controls themselves are top-notch, but a lot of buildings in the game, as you unlock upgrades, give you the ability to start building add-ons that affect the building in a variety of ways, whether it be more workers or more efficiency or whatever. You also have your manor that has a lot of different add-ons so you can customize it to your heart's desire while also adding the important parts of it like a tax office and stuff. And eventually you start graduating into bigger things like castles. This is another one that feels

very approachable but it seems to promise a lot of depth The longer you play. The progression is exceptional. Everything is very smooth and you can move your buildings around as you expand and need to reszone and you will absolutely find yourself reszoning. It does require them to be rebuilt but it doesn't cost new resources. It's just the building phase which is totally reasonable. I think they did a fantastic job here of making a game that feels familiar to the genre while also innovating and trying some new things as well as the way they implemented some

of the more typically in-depth systems like trading. It really seems like a lot of thought went into this game and I'm really glad I finally played it and will absolutely continue to play it. I definitely recommend you check this game out. Moving along, we have Manor Lords. And I think this is hands down the best looking game in the video if you're looking for realism. This game is just beautiful and at certain angles and zooms it could pass as reality. And on top of that, the details, man. The details. It's like there was no detail

too small for this game. You can lock the camera to any random NPC and just watch them live their life. And it's so good. The wood cutters will go through the entire process of creating firewood. The lumberjacks cut down trees, debranch them, chop them into logs, and store them so that they can be delivered to the storehouse once it's built. It's really awesome how every single task in this game is broken down into steps that make sense, and you can actually watch your town's people do them. It doesn't really matter, but I know some of

you are as into that as I am, and it's here in spades. The game is just also really fun and wellmade, which is very impressive because it's such a small dev team. I think it started with one person and over time it's grown slightly, but still relatively small compared to AAA devs that are regularly pumping out terribly made games. This was definitely a passion project and one where the creator was seemingly not willing to compromise the vision. I think this was the most wishlisted game on Steam at one point. There are a few different ways

to play the game, too, so it's really cool that it sort of caters to different Groups of fans of citybuilders. If you want to just keep it chill and build, you can do that. But there is also a pretty heavy focus on military advancement and conquering territories in other game modes. And it's pretty customizable, so you can really tailor it to whatever kind of vibe you're after. This is a game where I'd say the learning curve is a bit steeper than most. There is a lot to learn and manage here, even in the chiller game

modes. You will be spending some time getting used to navigating the UI and juggling families around the different buildings depending on your needs early on. But it's thankfully pretty well optimized in that sense. The UI is well done. You can access whatever information you may need at any given time fairly easily and it's pretty easy to understand early on. The building is really cool and a bit different than anything else I think I've played. Residential areas, for example, you will build by setting anchor points on as big of an area as you decide. And the

UI sort of gives you the information about what's going to be possible here based on what you're outlining. Each home can sort of have a bonus job if you give them enough space for it. So something like a small vegetable garden or chickens and other livestock with more becoming possible as you unlock it in the research tree. Everything can also be upgraded, which will come with a variety of perks as well as visual changes. You will eventually unlock the manor, which will open up the game a bit, as well as start establishing trade routes with

other territories, which again will be its own new full system to learn. And then if you're playing a mode where combat is on the table, that's also a whole extra sector of gameplay to try to manage. It's a really full game already, but the developers continue to improve and add to it over time with no signs of slowing down anytime soon. I think this is absolutely one of the best citybuilders on the market, particularly if you're into realism and looking for any degree of immersion. 100% add this one to your Library if it's not there

already. It's a mustplay. Up next is Dwarf Fortress. And this is just one of the coolest games of all time in my opinion. I am so in love with this game. And if you've never heard of it, you might be judging it based on how it looks, but just hear me out. First off, this is definitely a colony sim and not so much a citybuer, but as I said, I wanted to include a few just to mix it up a bit. And this is just a pure colony sim. These little guys are about as close

as I think it gets to NPCs with souls. They have thoughts and feelings and reactions and struggles and likes and dislikes. And it is actually insane how deep it goes. It really makes you think about simulation theory. Like, are we all just someone else's game of Dwarf Fortress? This game is incredibly complex. It will take you a really long time to get a decent grasp on what's going on. And I honestly don't even know how long it would take to master this game. It came out in 2006 and it looked like this. And then in

2022, it released on Steam with the graphical overhaul you're seeing here. And there are people who have been consistently playing this game since 2006 who very likely still don't know everything there is to know about it. You will watch dwarves live and die, fall in love, lose their minds, become legends. As you explore, you'll come across other races and all kinds of different beings underground and wildlife. And it's just such a full, deep, complex world. For as complex and as deep as everything is, it's easy enough to navigate, although you will need some time to

get the general idea of where you should be looking for things. Here we have the workshops tab and the construction tab. And some of these tabs open up other tabs and so on. You'll guide them by telling them where to mine and build, assigning workstations and living quarters, creating work orders, and just so much more. There's no way I could tell you All of it. This is a game that I think is very much worth watching a few guides on. If you're new, having someone walk you through the early stages can really make it feel

less intimidating. And as you get more comfortable with the basics, you'll be able to focus a little bit more on not only some of the more involved systems and chains of production, but also the individual dwarves and what's going on with them. It can be very interesting sometimes to sort of follow one around for a little bit and see what they're doing and thinking and feeling. I'm really bummed out that all of my old saves are gone. I guess I lost them when I got a new PC, but I had a couple of civilizations going

and there were some really interesting things happening in them. And one, I dug down too far and forgot to close up the hole and a race of lizard people came up from the depths and killed everyone in my colony. I've also had ghosts. My friend had a dwarf that slowly lost his mind and wouldn't stop crafting some random item. I can't remember what it was, a guitar or something, until finally snapping and attacking other dwarves until they finally had to kill him and then he haunted them. They'll create religions. It's just unbelievable how much is

going on here. If you're even slightly interested in this concept, I really think you should try this game. If I haven't made it clear, I'm a huge fan of it. I had over 40 hours in it before this video and I was still very much a beginner, which on one hand might make it seem overwhelming, but on another hand is really cool. It's virtually impossible to get bored with this game because there's so much to do and learn. And even once you do learn it, it's still a lot of fun because of how dynamic the

game is. Every time you play, it's a new set of dwarves, all with their own personalities and tendencies and experiences. So, you'll never have the same playthrough twice. It can definitely be a little intimidating at first, and it does take a bit to learn, but it's so worth it, and I don't think I've ever played a game that delivers the experience that Dwarf Fortress does. It's very unique, and I really hope you'll give it a shot. And last, but certainly not least, we have Town to City. And this is the game I was most excited

to play for the video. I've had this wishlisted since I first heard about it, and by the time I purchased it, I'd already planned this video, so I've been holding out on playing it until now, and it far exceeded all of my hopes. This is a really nice little game. It's very much a cozy game. It definitely has some management, and as the city grew, it got a bit more involved. But compared to most other games in the video, this is a very relaxing play. For starters, I think this game is gorgeous. I really like

this voxal art style, and it really gives the game its own little charm in the genre. And the way it plays because of this style is fantastic. One thing I really like is the system for adding roads. You can have it set to basically just paint wherever you move your mouse or there's a line tool and you can control how wide or narrow it is as well as the material. There's a substantial amount of customization here for just the paths. And there's potential to do some really cool stuff if you want to take the time.

You can also upgrade the roads later on with a paintbrush that you just color over them with and it only upgrades what's there. It doesn't pave new roads so you don't have to worry about affecting what you've previously laid down. It's also the same with residential buildings. You will unlock the ability to upgrade them to two and three-story residences later, allowing them to hold more families, as well as upgrade them to artisan homes a little later on, which is really nice because it basically eliminates the stress of trying to futureproof your town layout. You can

just build basic homes everywhere, and whenever you decide where the fancier part of town will be, simply upgrade those homes to artisan homes and build around them Appropriately. I was also pleasantly surprised about an hour in when it directed me to the world map and sent me to a second city where you'll be more focused on farming and providing for your first city. That's another really cool idea. So, you don't have to try to block out a bunch of space for farmland in your first city. You can basically hop over to your other town, manage

your agricultural side of things, which also has to be grown and developed just like your first city, just with a bit of a different vibe, and then head back to the first town and continue your business side. There's also a third map that at the time of recording isn't here yet, but I'm very curious to see what that one is all about. All of the systems here are fairly easy to learn and manage, and it does seem like a lot of thought went into how to make this game as cozy and relaxing to play as

possible. There's very little stress here. You'll start getting requests in the form of mail from your citizens and they'll ask you to do specific things for them. Here, one of the kids asked me to make him and his friends a maze and another asked me to make this little cemetery. Others would ask for a fence or for an outdoor reading spot. Just random things like that that make you sort of step out of your plans and potentially your comfort zone to a very light degree and make you explore building some things in your town that

you otherwise may not have even considered. And I think it really contributes to making everything look better and a bit more natural. Again, I just can't get over how pretty this game is. Just look at some of these views. This is a really wonderful little citybuer that just seems to have done everything right. All of the tools you'd expect to be here or here, and in some cases even better than most other citybuilders. It's got more than enough quality of life. The UI is great. Any information you could ever want is very easy to access.

It's all easy to understand, and it's just really fun. I'm very excited to see what people build with this game the longer it's out, as well as how the game continues to develop. It has all the promise in the world right now. So hopefully the devs keep doing what they're doing with This game because so far they're doing a fantastic job. I know sometimes a game being in early access can be a bit of a deterrent, but honestly, if they never dropped another update, I still think it's worth the price. Highly recommend you check this

one out. And that's going to do it for this video. I hope you found a couple of new games to check out or maybe got the nudge you needed to try one you've had your eye on for a while. Let me know if you decide to pick any of these up and I will definitely do another video on the genre in the future. So, leave me some suggestions of some city builders you'd like to see in the next video. If you haven't and you feel compelled to do so, hit the like button as that can

help get the video out to more viewers. Subscribe if you want to see more of what I do in the future. and the algorithm thinks you'd really like the video on the screen right now. So, see if it's right. I appreciate you guys watching. I hope you have a good one and I'll see you next time.