MEMORIAPOLIS Reviews

I think its a lovely game! But be WARNED it is a "one more turn" type game... I thought I was only playing for an hour but it turned out to be 4 ;.; I am excited to see what new updates bring <3

It's a game with a massive identity crisis -- too mechanically imprecise to function as a proper management game, too mechanically dense to work as a chill ~experience~. Most of the game amounts to waiting for resources or workers to become available, occasionally making choices with minor or nebulously defined impact. It feels like navigating via kaleidoscope.

Very cool city builder its extremely good looking and fairly simple to play and understand. If you love city builders and a relaxed game without the stress of something like city skylines. The games main unique trait is its natural evolution of the game residents will build homes is desirable locations. You can build a massive variety of age appropriate buildings to increase desirability. Managing resources is simple as well Overall 4/5 as game not finished but it has a very good future with active developers

Game is good, but it's yet quite unpolished. 1. technical state is far away from release (unpleasant crashes still happen, a bit more optimization might be required) 2. Core game loop is good: * build production to get resources * build cultural buildings to attract citizens (main secondary resource) and increase citizen satisfaction (it gives you great bonus) (if possible wonders, prioritize service buildings) * expand with towers * identify what you're lacking to grow, buy blueprints * repeat 3. Many additional things happen all along > faction mechanics (it does not feel like enough "infighting" between them is happening, plus visual representation/their strength is not visible) and taxation > trade system (money & goods flow) > rampant building What I liked: * organic grow, focus on core gameplay --> less micromanagement (and please don't introduce it, roads and distances are irrelevant and that is ok, that layer would make it unnecessarily complex) * every epoch has unique challenges (especially the jump between ancient and medieval can be quite hard, even if you have managed to build a wonder and thought "you're good enough", that is good!), dynamics and mechanics of governance changes * visuals change over time * some sort of story decisions are neat What I disliked: * "deep forest"-soil mechanic (you can't build buildings on it even if you already cut down the whole forest) * very strong cascading effects: if you managed to ace the first epoch, it becomes easier to ace the second one and third one feels a bit too easy in process (at least one standard map). * building space mechanic does not always make enough sense --> at some point you're placing wonders somewhere far away from the city, because building it nearby is impossible (the tower of pisa stands somewhere alone behind a forest along with 2-3 houses, because it does not attract enough people to settle nearby), this looks ugly --> it's too efficient to build the new city center as far away from the first one as possible. This way you get 3 city centers all build way too far from each other to be counted as "one city". Would be cooler if you got Synergy effects in the overlap zone or smth. to make it a trade-off decision... * Visuals and relevance of military and seaports are kinda underwhelming. Access to sea and trade routes as as well as military points should play a bigger role. * In the beginning, the various points you get are superrelevant, in the end you have thousands of them and not many things to spend it on. As a ressource it should be more useful

Was just not fun, couldn't really control anything felt like I was just clicking buttons. .

Fun game. Overall the vibe is "relaxed" vs "micromanage". I had no technical issues while playing. Some feedback for the devs: - A few things need either rebalancing, or some better tooltips/warnings to stop you from basically insta losing your game. For example, it costs gold to delete buildings. If you delete a bunch of buildings and use up all your gold early before you've gotten the trade building, you basically lost the game. It takes hundreds of turns to passively earn enough gold to get to the next city level. - You need a way to see resources on the map before placing your first city center. First time around I placed it in a location where I couldn't reach clay, and basically lost the game on my first click. - Game encourages you to spread out the cultural buildings, away from where the houses are. This works ok early on, but by the end of the age your city is basically a city center ringed with houses, and then a ton of cultural buildings in a huge ring in the suburbs. This does not feel natural. - In each new age you build a new city center, which can frequently feel very disconnected from the main city. I like that you get new space to build, but I wish it felt integrated with the old city. If devs really prefer this mechanic, maybe they could add some visual flourish, like a big King's Road from your old city center to your new city center. This game feels like it's in Manor Lords territory, i.e. fun game with unique mechanics and a lot of promise, but needs work. Will check back in in a few months.

It was good until the age change. Didn't like how it was so abrupt and you couldn't add on to your existing city. Also, the heavy cost of upkeep. I think it needs work. 3 out of 5 stars for now.

Too much going on, but nothing does anything. Unsatisfying game-play. Interesting the first glance, but it's all very samey a short way in. No challenge, and you end up just sitting and waiting for your numbers to be big enough to place the next mildly impactful building while your city grows "organically". Again, it's really only novel at the very beginning. I felt like every run was the same. Place buildings in disjointed ways because you want bonuses but it looks terrible. Sit around. Repeat. Advance. Repeat. Then you have way too many buildings to place, but again none of them feel impactful. They're at least somewhat interesting, but the city doesn't really absorb them well, nor can you fit them very easily. It could be fun for someone wanting more of a automatic diorama type thing that you leave running in the background, but I have a really hard time playing it directly.

Without an option to clear the land so you can build, you're stuck to cutting camps and the little storage they have, which is another problem in the game, the lack/limit of storage. Production stops a lot and you dont have space to build at all, yet they put a reforestation option (crazy), the original limits need to be at least 3 times of the ones right now, sometimes they are asking to rebuild something that you dont have the storage limit to even get there, both the amount and the lack of storage are a terrible synergy with it. Not being able to erase roads or fix them, makes it really chaotic and annoying. It needs a lot of fixes so it can be enjoyable, primarily the storage limits and the ability to clear out are indispensable for this game to be playable.

It's a beautiful game with a lovely idea - that ancient city structures neither just disappear, lose function or instantly get "upgraded" once you progress through the ages, instead remaining and forming a lasting and organic part of cities. Unfortunately, the gameplay loop did not work for me. I played for 11 hours (on regular speed, only pausing very seldomly) until I reached the end of the renaissance a few minutes ago (which currently leads to one getting unceremoniously dumped back to the main menu). This was my first (and perhaps only) playthrough. I generelly didnt know what I was doing, had to look up how to get certain ressources or buildings online and didnt really optimize or strategize for anything. I kept refusing certain factions to settle in my city purely because I didnt like their identities (Screw you, brotherhood of flagellants lol). I still got to "the end" just fine, having built 3/6 wonders of the renaissance and having reached 22'000 population. And, truth be told, I have no idea if that or anything that I dit beforehand was actually any good. Did I do poorly? No idea? Did I do amazingly well, since I didnt run into any major issues? ... Maybe? None of it felt particulary challenging, I never felt like I had to solve any particulary interesting or compelling puzzles. Logistics are a non-factor, you cant really do any forward looking city planning either, since the wonders and city centers of new epochs have to be placed at the far end of your periphery (why?)... Its not very satisfying from an architectural or aesthetic point of view, since you as the player cant determine roads or mansions, so while it all looks very organic and realistic, its never really beautiful either... Because I had to place the medieval and renaissance city centers so far away from my previous settlement even the main idea broke down - the settlements of the different ages didnt really grow into each other, instead I built three separate, segregated towns. I just dont know who this is for. Maybe this just isnt for me. (I wish all the best to the developers. Its really is a very beautiful idea.)