TownCraft Review – iOS

After nearly a solid week of “trying” I can no longer spend any more time with Flat Earth Game’s new town-builder, TownCraft; a new mobile game that tries to slip somewhere between the genres of MineCraft and Civilization.   While the game does an admirable job of carving its own unique niche, that niche would be better serviced on a PC rather than a mobile device.  When I actually find the time to play a mobile game it is usually for 15-30 minutes at a time.   It’s called “pick-up-and-play” gaming and TownCraft is as far from that concept as you can get.

Originally released last September on the iPad, TownCraft has just been downsized for the iPhone sparking a bit of renewed interest in the game and this review.  TownCraft starts you off with a Mario-esque looking character in the middle of a procedurally generated (random) landscape of varying terrain types.  You’ll definitely want to complete the optional tutorial that takes you through the basics of scavenging for raw resources then combining and crafting those materials into other more useful items.  The level of minutia in this crafting system is borderline ridiculous, forcing you to smash rocks into rubble and trees into sticks, which can then be crafted into axes and other tools that will allow you to build a variety of buildings and stock them with implements like an oven to cook meat or melt silver ore and fabricate utensils and other finery you can trade with the local merchant.  Creating a thriving village is akin to creating life on earth from a single-cell amoeba…and takes about as long.

Once your creation finally springs to life, you’ll need to balance all sorts of activities like farming, fishing, and trading of raw good and manufactured products.  The sheer number of individual and combined item creations is staggering and even a bit overwhelming for a mobile game.  In fact, that is the best word I can use to describe TownCraft –“overwhelming”.  Admittedly, crafting games are not my forte and I would typically avoid this game even on the PC, but unless you are a frequent coast-to-coast traveler there aren’t enough mobile gaming hours in a typical day to get invested in a game of this magnitude.

Thankfully, the designers avoided the pitfalls of in-app purchases or any type of pay-to-cheat system.  For the initial purchase of $5 you get a complete ad-free game without being constantly bombarded with requests to spend more money to bypass gameplay mechanics.  Admittedly, there are some wait times for several processes in the game like cooking and building but they aren’t terribly long and even add a bit of realism to the crafting experience.

The graphics are charming, especially if you compare them to the block-like constructions of MineCraft, and the interface and menus are loaded with fun art and icons.  The interface is a bit touchy on the iPad and I had trouble with sticky slide-out menus and having my taps register; especially trying to gain access to building interiors.  Things got even worse on the smaller iPhone screen (this is a Universal app) and I even had to reboot the game on two occasions to restore controls.

If you have hours to spend playing a mobile game where you make very little progress then TownCraft may be for you, but my mobile gaming time is almost entirely reserved for short bursts of sporadic entertainment; stuff like endless runner games or a quick race or match-three puzzle.  TownCraft is far from entertaining, and it quickly turns into a lengthy and complex tiered system of chores that is neither fun nor rewarding and ultimately left me wanting to play something else.  TownCraft is not a bad game if you are a fan of the genre, but I don’t think it has a home on mobile devices; especially when it will take you hundreds of steps and countless hours to build that home.

Author: Mark Smith
I've been an avid gamer since I stumbled upon ZORK running in my local Radio Shack in 1980. Ten years later I was working for Sierra Online. Since then I've owned nearly every game system and most of the games to go with them. Not sure if 40+ years of gaming qualifies me to write reviews, but I do it anyway.

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