Buildings Have Feelings Too! Reviews

I had to give this game a go just before going to bed! I've had it in my wish list for such a long time and it's finally here. Is it as silly as I expected it to be? Yes! Is it fun? Yes. I'm an average gamer and I take games as they are, without expecting things that they don't oversell. The lack of options didn't bother me, I just hit Alt+Enter for windowed and lowered the volume on my speakers and I was ready to go. From the "first area" which I completed, I can understand how it might become more difficult in putting the combos together. From the "map" it seems like there are quite a few areas, so I feel that this is a game you'll come to on and off and enjoy progressing through it and playing it for what it is. So for me, it is definitely something I'll be spending a weekend on with a cup of coffee. Is this the game for you? Take a look at the trailers, take a look at the screenshots. If it gets you excited to play it, I say go for it. Watching other people play it first, might spoil your experience in it. I think you know whether you'll like this game or not. It is not aimed at Hardcore CS GO players that want to play something while the team comes together. If you're not sure, it's probably why you're looking through the reviews :D Take a look at your wallet and go with your honest gut feeling.

At first the game and its ideas are nice. Once you come to the third neighbourhood, there is no way to go forward with the building permit and somehow remove the orphan homes and there is no help with it at all. After that the game keeps on crashing on steam proton and I can't enter it again. Not playable now, so not recommended.

so many bugs still. I keep having to reload every few minutes. And for some reason, you can't manually save/load game. So if you screwed up big time, you're gonna have to start aaaaallllll the way back to the beginning.

I usually love these types of puzzle games but unfortunately I just couldn't get into it. The game feels really clunky, at least on pc and the playability was more exhausting then it was fun. I feel like most of the time I was just running back and forth, I wish I could have zoomed out a little but there is no option for this. It's a real shame because the art is gorgeous, the music cute and the overall theme of the game is great, unfortunately I just couldn't get into it. The explanation and the guides were a bit much too and the transition between levels needed more explanation/guidance. I play games to have fun, not to read, this games explanations felt like an ikea pamphlet.

This game is a lovely puzzle. It plays very similarly to Reus. You place can place different buildings along a limited number of horizontal spaces. Each kind of building can hold different kinds of businesses like apartments, cafes, and the like. Each building provides benefits (and sometimes costs) to their neighbors which when stacked properly allows you to upgrade them. Fully upgrading a building unlocks more advanced buildings as well. Unlike Reus, the missions are not timed, and a core mechanic is that you can pick up and shuffle building locations with a cute jogging animation. So, the game is much more forgiving in that sense. This game also has a very easy UI, and I find it easy to gather necessary information. I can quickly see what each building gives to its neighbors and wants from them. If a building needs something (like vegetables), I can quickly see what possible neighbors could fill that need. The menu also has an easy to use encyclopedia of buildings unlocked and the next rung available to unlock. By comparison, I had to make a notebook full of combinations and upgrade paths when I play Reus. I have played the first half dozen missions, and I quite like the game. The art, dialogue, and music is charming. The puzzle is engaging though not overly difficult. The only real challenge in a game is that you must keep buildings happy or they fall into disrepair and shut down. If you upgrade a building, it comes to expect certain benefits from its neighbors. So, swapping out that grocery store may cause the whole neighborhood to slowly collapse. This is easy enough to avoid with some foresight or a quick reshuffling. My only complaint about this mechanic is that there is no undo button. If I miscalculate and swap an fully upgraded building for something else, I may not be able to recreate that fully upgraded building fast enough to save the neighborhood. I haven't had the same frustration with controls that other people have. I prefer to use the xbox controller over the keyboard, but both seem fine. It did take me a few missions to realize that I could shift buildings down rather than stress about placing them exactly where I wanted them - perhaps this is what frustrated other reviewers? The game seems bug-free. I am not sure there is as much depth as Reus, but I also haven't gotten to the highest levels yet. It is also unclear if there is a sandbox mode. Perhaps there will be once I beat the game? If you enjoy combo puzzles like Reus or Islanders, you'll enjoy this game.

[h1] TL;DR Great concept, terrible execution. Possibly the definition of form over function. [/h1] I want to love this. It's a interesting and engaging concept - anthropomorphised buildings with likes and dislikes all jostling for a position in this weirdly 2D side-scrolling city. Unfortunately, the controls are fiddly & frustrating and the mechanics poorly explained if not simply poorly thought-out. That the game is [i] difficult [/i] is no issue at all - it's an engaging enough concept to make puzzle-solving fun. Alas, the mechanics are so convoluted and unclear that it quickly becomes frustration central. Although each type of business has set requirements and effects, these are very poorly presented, with the player having to go back through the menu system time and time again to remind themselves of what they are. You will waste such considerable time scrolling through poorly-designed menus that any fun is sapped out of the experience. As much as I love the [i] idea [/i] of anthropomorphic city, this concept would lend itself much better to an abstracted tile-based puzzler with a clean, refined UI able to display all necessary info on mouse-over.

Cute and charming puzzle game with just absolutely terrible controls and hampered by a poorly designed tutorial. The controls are keyboard focused, it's VERY fiddly to use WASD to move correctly and select specific objects or spaces, and the keys used in menus change from panel to panel. It's not intuitive or friendly at all. Just as an example: when you open up the game, there's a button next to "New Game" labelled "A". If you push the "A" key, because that's what you do when a button is on a menu and labelled with "A", the icon suddenly changes to a space bar, and that's what you actually have to press to start. The tutorial didn't start for me until I'd begun testing keys to see what moved me around, and frequently the bread crumb trail was missing or hidden - it would often wait until I had opened a menu before popping up, but never indicated to open that menu, or would be indicated by a talk icon slightly larger than the normal talk icon. If you're willing to slog along with it, or if hotfix for some level of mouse support they just dropped is any good, it seems like it's a good set of puzzles with very adorable buildings nattering on in the background. I'm not sure that I am.

This game is pretty fun, but the controls are a bit awkward, and it's easy to get stuck in the Tutorial. It's a unique idea, and I've played enough games that I love unique ideas. So I would recommend this game, if you want something unique and interesting. But understand that a big part of the "game" is fighting the controls. A big part of the problem stems from the fact that you can't go straight left-right when selecting a spot to build. If you go past the spot you are trying to select and turn around, you jump to the other side of your avatar, which is 4-5 building spots over. So selecting the right spot is tricky. Then there is the fact that sometimes left mouse click can sub for space, an other times it can't. Which is confusing. And the first time they throw you into the tab menu in the tutorial (to look up 'Construction' and figure out how to construct a building) they haven't yet explained to you that 'Q' is the way to go back, so I got stuck there pressing escape and button mashing. HINT: If you are stuck in the tutorial try pressing "Q" not "ESCAPE". Put all this together and it feels like a big part of the game right now is fighting the UI, and not solving the puzzles. Another big one -- when I want to move a building just let me click drag a building, and not do that whole lead it somewhere thing, when selecting the place you want to put it is so hard (see above). Add to that that the buildings will move over if you accidentally place a new building in the wrong spot. The puzzle should be figuring out where to put the buildings not struggling to select the right spot to put teach one multiple times.

Charming, whimsical, and unique. Hampered by clunky controls (KB/M or Controller) Refunded - I really don't like to have to wrestle with basic controls.

Charming City Building Puzzle Game. Annoying controls. I wish they would have implemented proper mouse control. Controls are clunky and they made me quit after a while. It's as if you are on a nice bike ride in a pretty environment and the chain falls out every 1 minute. You just dont want to go on anymore. Quite sad...