The Wandering Village is such a sweet idea for a city-builder, taking place on the back of a huge walking creature. It's in Early Access with Linux / Steam Deck support and a big new update just arrived.
I played this through shortly after the release and it is really enjoyable, but once you’ve built and stabilized your town and used all the space there’s nothing else to do. You can keep walking through the world but it’s just an endless series of repeat biomes and there’s no more growth potential so none of the side quests are of any interest.
Adding some endgame content might really help this.
That seems to be a thing with a lot of citybuilders, they focus on the systems but not the endgame. It’s why I ended up not getting Timberborn despite the good reviews. Well, that and the ultra slow updates.
‘The endgame’ really only started to become a thing with te launch of live service games. Or more specifically at that time, MMO games.
There was a time when it was perfectly okay to have a game you thoroughly enjoyed for say 10-, 20-, or 30 hours, and then ‘ended the game’.
With game backlogs also having become a thing, I’m fine with playing a game like this, enjoying it while I am working through it, and then moving on to the next thing.
I don’t do live service or MMO games. I DO do games that have an ending of sorts, something to strive towards. E.g. launching a rocket in Factorio, self-sustaining in ONI, etc. With Timberborn to my understanding there’s no such thing.
There was a time when it was perfectly okay to have a game you thoroughly enjoyed for say 10-, 20-, or 30 hours, and then ‘ended the game’.
Any citybuilder I put down after 30 hours is probably one I consider a failure. The key thing with citybuilders is they’re supposed to have replayability.
Replayability because the core gameplay loop is fun, I whole heartedly support. I still (re)play (Open)TTD for this very reason and that’s been here for decades with no end in sight.
In comparison with other city-builders Wandering Village isn’t very deep. There isn’t much in the way of complex systems. The art is nice though and it’s fairly relaxing to play.
Timberborn is a lot more involved and there is a lot more depth to population management and economics, and it’s pretty fun when you get to the level of reshaping the ground to suit your purposes. My favorite challenge is to arrange to keep the whole map green through a drought.
Wandering Village is more like a story or adventure game with city-builder mechanics, so it kind of needs a proper narrative arc.
I played this through shortly after the release and it is really enjoyable, but once you’ve built and stabilized your town and used all the space there’s nothing else to do. You can keep walking through the world but it’s just an endless series of repeat biomes and there’s no more growth potential so none of the side quests are of any interest.
Adding some endgame content might really help this.
That seems to be a thing with a lot of citybuilders, they focus on the systems but not the endgame. It’s why I ended up not getting Timberborn despite the good reviews. Well, that and the ultra slow updates.
‘The endgame’ really only started to become a thing with te launch of live service games. Or more specifically at that time, MMO games.
There was a time when it was perfectly okay to have a game you thoroughly enjoyed for say 10-, 20-, or 30 hours, and then ‘ended the game’.
With game backlogs also having become a thing, I’m fine with playing a game like this, enjoying it while I am working through it, and then moving on to the next thing.
I don’t do live service or MMO games. I DO do games that have an ending of sorts, something to strive towards. E.g. launching a rocket in Factorio, self-sustaining in ONI, etc. With Timberborn to my understanding there’s no such thing.
Any citybuilder I put down after 30 hours is probably one I consider a failure. The key thing with citybuilders is they’re supposed to have replayability.
Replayability because the core gameplay loop is fun, I whole heartedly support. I still (re)play (Open)TTD for this very reason and that’s been here for decades with no end in sight.
Endgame however, not always required.
Build the city, you did it!
New game, some variations and randomness to events and resources, and that’s all ya needed.
In comparison with other city-builders Wandering Village isn’t very deep. There isn’t much in the way of complex systems. The art is nice though and it’s fairly relaxing to play.
Timberborn is a lot more involved and there is a lot more depth to population management and economics, and it’s pretty fun when you get to the level of reshaping the ground to suit your purposes. My favorite challenge is to arrange to keep the whole map green through a drought.
Wandering Village is more like a story or adventure game with city-builder mechanics, so it kind of needs a proper narrative arc.