This is sort of a simple toy. There’s no goal, you just create a city. The controls are incredibly simple: You press A to place a block, and press B to remove a block. The only customisation you have is colour.

As you place blocks, they will morph into buildings and other structures depending on the surrounding blocks. There are some cool hidden things to find based on specific shapes.

Unfortunately, this is also the biggest limitation of the game: the game has its own set of rules. If you want to create something specific, you will be constantly fighting the game and the game will win. You can’t decide when you want a road or a building, and things like ramps are impossible to make – there’s a lot of room you can build vertically, but you can only create layers of buildings with more roads on top (sometimes even when you don’t want one). The grid the game works on is also curved and random, so even getting the shape you want can be difficult.

Townscaper works well as a 10-20 minute idle distraction where you just place blocks and see what happens, but for actually making a town of your own, it’s just a pain.