I picked this game up on a whim browsing the Steam store, and I'm extremely happy I did. The idea of a "roguelite citybuilder" seemed bizarre, but this game pulls it off perfectly.
You'll find yourself plopping down one city at a time and overseeing its development until you fill up your reputation bar by completing quests (called 'Orders') and making your citizens happy. As time passes you gain 'Cornerstones,' perks for your run ranging from simple supply lines that give you resources over time, to locking you out of functions while buffing others. Additionally, as your reputation increases you will unlock more buildings for your settlement. The two of these randomized options will coalesce into a strategy for your colony, hopefully one that leads it to success. You may choose to focus on simply making your villagers happy, exploring dangerous glades to discover rewards well worth the risk, or fulfilling your orders. This is weighed against a ticking clock in the form of 'Impatience,' which increases for poor performance and decreases as you gain reputation.
After each city you'll be able to level up your abilities on a page of linear skill trees. Each option pairs a unique benefit with a very generic "+% to thing" bonus. While the unique benefits may be hit or miss according to your playstyle, the smaller bonuses will add up over time. After completing a couple of runs, your expedition map will reset and you do it all again.
If you're like me, you often want to restart or reload in city builders to perfect every corner of your settlement. Here, that's the core gameplay loop. Each town offers a chance to improve on your design and planning skills from last time, as well as often offering you new and exciting choices to explore such that you don't find yourself repeating the same steps each time. Along with 5 very unique biomes, there's plenty of variety here too.
All these moving bits hit together near perfectly. Along with an excellent gameplay loop are plenty of tools to help you manage your settlement efficiently and quickly, although the player isn't always told about all of them. Being early access, new options and quality of life features have been added consistently alongside new features. If you like city builders, you can't stop reloading your old saves or you like the idea of having a set of randomized challenges and objectives to conquer every time, this game is a steal. Even without additional content, I'd be content with the money I've spent, not to mention that I know more updates will come consistently to keep me coming back.

Reviewed on Dec 13, 2022


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