Townscaper: Who Goes There?

As I've played with Townscaper over the past few days, I've built a dozen or so 'cities' as I've experimented and learned how it works. I find it quite addictive, trying new designs, seeing what the program will do when I add or remove blocks. One of my favorite features is that if you zoom in close enough, you can pass through walls and get an inside view, or a view from a balcony or window.

The grid can also be changed before you start building by right-clicking and dragging it around the screen until you see a pattern that you like. The 'city' develops on a non-linear ('organic') grid, so it isn't made entirely of straight lines and boxes. You can move the mouse to change perspective, raise and lower the view, zoom in and out (albeit not as far away as I'd like), change the lighting (including 'night' shots), and take a screenshot of your work.

However, users have discovered a few nifty tips and tricks that you should explore in online discussion forums like Steam's community hub. Really, that's all there is to it. Controls are so simple that no tutorial or manual is required, and you can learn them all by simply clicking away (you have to press ESC to make the settings menu visible, however).

No complex traffic, power or infrastructure management here - just left clicking to place a tile (a street at water level, a brightly-coloured house anywhere above that), and right clicking to delete it. It's like building with Lego blocks! Townscaper isn't a game so much as it is a virtual toy. Just plenty of building and plenty of beauty.

I've used the nighttime screenshot above as my current desktop, and the result is quite cute no matter how big or complex your city is. Your only real options are the choice of color in the structures, where to place a block, and how tall you want to build. Instead, you build a 'city' on the water using simple mouse clicks.

Townscaper is not actually a game, but rather a virtual toy or a digital thought experiment - there are no quests, no accomplishments to pursue, no wins or losses, no scores to keep. You can try a somewhat limited online version of it to see how it works by clicking the link in this paragraph. It's money well spent, methinks, as a fan of city-builder and simulation games.

Townscaper who goes there