Villagers

Villagers
N/A
Metacritic
41
Steam
38.224
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Price
$2.99
Release date
25 March 2016
Developers
Steam reviews score
Total
41 (231 votes)

Villagers is a beautifully illustrated and richly detailed town-building game where you build a thriving community using the people and resources around you. Success or failure depends on your ability to create a town that can grow and prosper, and overcome the harsh realities of medieval life!

Show detailed description

Villagers system requirements

Minimum:

  • OS: Windows Vista/7/8/XP
  • Processor: 1.2GHz
  • Memory: 2 GB RAM
  • DirectX: Version 9.0c
  • Storage: 512 MB available space
Updated
App type
Steam APP ID
412460
Platforms
Windows PC
Mac
Linux
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Reviews
Write a new review
mewantie
mewantie

Way too much story dialogue. Feels like a lot of fluff with little substance, I'll stick to Banished.

Balthorne
Balthorne

Ok, so having purchased the game this morning and played about 8 hours worth today here are things I've experienced and thoughts on the game.

For those who think this is a banished clone, to some degree it is. Same concept, basically same building types also. Better graphics for sure.

Campaign mode: if your a reader and like lots of story line content then campaign mode will please you. Personally I found the story dialog banter wanter to long and tedious. Some story cut scenes required 20+ OK button clicks to get through it all before you get back to building.

Free Play Mode: As expected a sandbox mode. Where it lacks is that it only provides 5 different maps to choose from. Unlike Banished where your world terrain is generated dyamically. Once you try all 5 map scenarios returning to the game is repeat. Not only is the world terrain the same for each map, so are the resources allocated to your game session. So you will nothing new replaying a map.

Potential bugs I found:

After playing one free play map for about 3 hours at 5X time speed I STILL haven't progressed passed 20 villagers. I've built just about all the types of building that could be built. Half of them sit empty because by the time an infact grows to adult hood 1 or 2 of your working adults dies from one reason or another. Usually natural causes.

Merchants arrived only 2 times within the first 30 minutes of game play. Once I upgraded my fishing pier to level 2 not only did the trader boats that were passing by stop coming by completely so did the land merchants. So Gold income has completed stopped. Thankfully I purchased some livestock before that happened.

Speaking of livestock, I purchased two chickens and two pigs. Chickens are supposed to reproduce rapidly but I have found the pigs repoduce more than the chickens and within the hour I have a barn full of pigs and no chickens because the shepard killed them all for no known reason. I checked and had plenty of food so it wasnt due to food needs.

All my villagers complain early for wanting a bath, which by the way is maybe the most expensive building to erect resource wise. With a quarry built on a a stone outcropping that contains 150 stone resources, once my total stored stone resources reaches 40 no more stone is mined from the quarry therefore never allowing me to build the bath which requires 70 stone in total. I have a town hall that currently holds 0/15 stone resources, a warehouse that current holds 12/30 stone resources and the quarry itself which is maxed out storage wise with 32/32. I have 3 warehouse workers allocated but noone ever moves the stone from the quarry to the warehouse or townhouse so the quarry just grinds to a halt. This is a bug with AI I am very sure.

SO... first impressions are mixed. If the developers continue forward with this release, adding omre free play scenarios or a dynamic worl generator that will do alot for game play longetivity. Clearly there are bugs needing resolved. Lastly the game is badly in need of some game balancing such as I pointed out previously, population increase TEDIOUSLY slow to the point of making the game almost not enjoyable once you've got around to building enough resources to support the 15 - 20 villagers you manage to expand to. BTW.. thats a total of 20 villagers after 3 hours of game play and the free play mode starts you out with 10!

While 16.99 isn't a lot of money I found myself wondering if I my money would have been better spent on another less than 20 dollar game here on Steam.

All that said I am hoping for an looking forward to seeing if the developers continue to expand on it.

Sad_Raccoon
Sad_Raccoon

extreamly disapointed with this game, banished knock off with even smaller map size,

Cooly
Cooly

Many bugs and lack of featured

Silent Hunter
Silent Hunter

Admittedly i see exactly what people say when they say
"its exactly like banished"
but trust me i see potential in this game and i think if the developers truly stick with this game they will have a game that can beat most city builders. 8/10 for game itself 9/10 for the game itself and im really happy to say that i enjoyplaying this game. okay yes the campaign can be slightly word heavy but its great to have a campaign and actualgoals for you to attain, something banished failed miserably on.

Bored Peon
Bored Peon

If you are really bored and looking for Medieval Builder then you are probably going to buy this anyways.

I really can not recommend the game unless you have low expectations. It has a really low replay value.

The story to the game pretty much follows tutorial missions. The story was somewhat interesting yet definitely one of those stories you probably do not want to hear again.

There is a lot of comparison between Villagers and Banished. The similarities are both there and not there. Seeming how they are both medeival builders there is always going to be similarities. Meanwhile most those spouting the similarities avoid the simple answer. Which would you rather play Banished or Villagers? Since I own both I would pick Banished even without mods.

So why the thumbs dumb?

1. Maps. The game does NOT have a random map generator. I mean seriously, that is the majority of the replay value of any sandbox builder game. There is no map editor either.

2. Production balance. After playing a while the production values of various buildings seem very wonky and unbalanced.
- Barn had animals that pretty much died of old age before producing enough offspring to keep the barn producing.
- Other production issues resolved.

3. Combat. They tried putting some form of combat into the game. Wild animal attacks and raiders. Honestly never should have bothered. Neither raiders or wild animals actually killed any villagers so kinda not seeing the point in investing in guards. It looks like the raiders basically ran in stole some stuff and ran off with it.

4. No refilling jobs. Anyone who played Banished knows this one. If a villager dies their job should be automatically filled from the pool of available laborers. Not having that feature in this game made it annoying once your settlers start dying off and you miss filling their job.

5. Bugs. Quite a few have been fixed however still a couple big ones that can ruin a game through population aging and starvation.

The game is getting better, there has been work on it since release. It just aint quite there yet I would recommend people to buy it. However if I knew someone that bought it, I would not make fun of them for owning a crappy game. So almost a thumbs up.

birkett83
birkett83

This game looks like it has potential, but I found it to be very buggy in ways that spoiled the game play.

Problems I had include quests in the campaign mode that cannot be finished (especially timed quests; it will sometimes say "day 17 of 10" or whatever and never finish), each time that happened I had to revert to an earlier save and try again. Even more annoyingly, at one point my entire village simultaneously died "of natural causes", the seasons sped up to a blur of constantly changing, but despite the fact that everyone was dead according to the population screen, there were still people wandering around the village. Zombies, presumably. Also, I couldn't figure out why my farmers would only grow vegetables despite having a grain field as well, they never touched it. I even built a second farm house, but they all just wanted vegetables.

Aesr
Aesr

Don't let the bad reviews full you, its a great game.

At its base, you got a villager sim game that has a lot of room to grow on. The developers seem passionate about fixing whats wrong with this game, and I do find it quite fun. I would say in about a month, it will be a great addition to your steam library.

Harmless Yard Dog
Harmless Yard Dog

It's like porn - it looks good, but the obligatory story is excrutiatingly painful to watch. It could be an okay game if they redesigned a lot of it. There are so many city builder games that I have played that I enjoyed, but this one was not one.

Big Daddy
Big Daddy

This Game has a lot of potetial even though it does look very simmilar to Banised. But the game is a long way from being complete. Bad animations, all houses look dull and quite simillar to each other, no roads to provide vilagers with a better orientation and speed. The ESC menu is overlaping with the game so if you accidently press ESC while you in a building management window you might close the game or restart a level. Dont buy this game just yet its not worth a cent.

brandynpublic
brandynpublic

I didn't think it was fair that this game got mixed reviews. Therefore, I decided to write my own first review because I almost didn't buy it because of the mixed reviews. I am totally enjoying the game. In my oppinion it is not like bannished. Perhaps if you play it in sandbox mode. I am playing the campaign. The storyline is wonderful to me and easy to follow. Granted, it does get a little wordy at times and you have to read several screens. However, that's what makes it a story.

I did find one minor bug. My quest would not register that I completed them. I believe this was due to the fact that I was pausing the game ALOT during the storyline and all. Once I stoped doing that I didn't have a problem. So, you might want to watch how much you pause the game.

I think if your looking for a fun and reasonably challenging game this is for you. I really am having a good time with it.

{РУС}Люблю, благодарю
{РУС}Люблю, бл…

If you are really bored and looking for Medieval Builder then you are probably going to buy this anyways.

I really can not recommend the game unless you have low expectations. It has a really low replay value

ifitallfails
ifitallfails

Update April 3rd:
All of the bugs I mentioned in the original review were patched this week. I played the same map and got a bit further along and glad to see the progress so soon. I'll leave the original post to leave for display of the progression
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

Well I skipped to free play because the story was too much reading.
Built town hall. Built fishing dock. Built forester hut. Built stone quarry. Built warehouse. Built farm and field with veggies.
Built barn and bought 6 chickens and 4 pigs.

Bunch of baby making and children.
2 villagers die of natural causes.
Animals kill one.
Raiders steal me stone.
Farm produces 200 veggies....FARMERS NEVER HARVEST.
Food is at 10.
Fisherman dies. I dont see this right away, and food goes to 3.
Hovers there.
A field full of fresh veggies and the farmers wont pick them.
Warehouse guy doesn't do anything but pick up logs.
Families die, and the homeless families never move into the empty houses.
They just chill at the townhall and hate life.

Overall I rate this at 4/10 EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING out of WTF.
Artwork is good in the game... Thats about it.
I enjoyed the game for about 10 minutes, the rest of the time Im bugging out about all the bugs.
Its a new game, thats cool... just hit steam... just got outta beta.
But I just paid 16 bucks and I got bored and frustrated after 10 minutes.
I don't recommend it yet... maybe I'll change that after some updates.
Banished is a better buy at 20 bucks if you havent tried it.

Made of Stardust
Made of Stardust

Glitch and feels unfinished. would not recommend, Banish is a way better game if you are looking for one.

eBark
eBark

A few bugs and a bit slow paced but good game overall.

123
123

No bugs for me,
very nice to play

Ascend
Ascend

Jeg liker dette spillet. Billig morro og tidsfordriv. Ble litt Hektet og satt plusetlig 4,5 time. Ting tar tid og det er det verdt

ADK1994
ADK1994

Pros:
->Really impressive storyline - it makes the campaign very enjoyable, but be warned it takes quite a bit of reading
-> Promising population mechanics, I really enjoy how the villagers can have families and it is fun to watch them interact with the village
-> Challenging gameplay with production chains that are affected by weather: if winter hits before your grain is done growing...ouch. Food is tough to gather, and so is stone and iron. Water is also a resource you need to watch. The villager reproduction rate also makes it challenging because losing one villager is enough to topple the whole system. Some people think that makes it too hard, I love it.

Cons:
-> The game is buggy. Villagers do not move into houses that lose a family, so you end up with a bunch of homeless people while there's perfectly good houses sitting around.
-> Farmers do not interact with the fields very well. As far as I can tell, the 'harvest fields prematurely' button doesn't even work.
-> I had a few cases where merchants stopped showing up, I would have to build a new port or warehouse to bring them back.
-> Limited help. There's not really a 'help' program in the game and there isn't a wiki yet. The campaign will teach you a lot, but I still don't know if it is possible to demolish a building or not.

Despite the bugs, I would still recommend this game! I've logged almost 7.5 hours so far and I'm still on the campaign. It's a good, challenging game that will take you time to get through. All of my cons are bugs, and I'm banking on most of the bugs being fixed by future updates.
Finally, if you're looking at this just because it is 'like Banished', buy it with a grain of salt. Both games have you building settlements from the ground up, but Villagers focuses more on the story/campaign and less on the sandbox mode.

RubberDucky
RubberDucky

Pretty Fun until you have gardens that are ready for harvesting and your farmers dont harvest it and of course your villagers start dying of starvation.. Decent game but if you don't want to become frustrated then maybe wait a few weeks for them to patch this. Other than that it WILL BE a fun little game.

donaldrc
donaldrc

Firstly, a very enjoyable game play. I really like to game. Keep up the good work. However, when placing new structures on the map, the buildings are too small. Could we zoom in a little to see the orientation of the placement. Also could you adjust the brightness of the screen? The night time cycle to me is a bit too long. How about a map generator? It would be nice to zoom more down to a street level like in the Tropico series. So with all that said. I commend you fellows on a job well done and I am recommending the game to all my friends.

CoLS Firestar
CoLS Firestar

So many game breaking bugs!
Can't even get past some levels because the AI refuses to plant crops or stands around the town hall when there's stuff to do.
Houses with dead people don't get reclaimed by house-less people.

Broken game is very broken.
However, the devs are helpful and active so if you're interested in testing a game and finding and reporting bugs is excitement for you, I do suggest getting it.

SneakyGunz
SneakyGunz

Go with banished instead... for real.

Tuplex
Tuplex

I really wanted to like this game. I liked Banished, but eventually got bored with the late game. I was hoping this would be a new and improved version, but was disappointed. Eventually I could not bring myself to play Villagers anymore, due to a game-breaking bug - my villagers would stand there, hungry and not working, and eventually starve to death even while I had plenty of food in storage.

miltonv81
miltonv81

Good tutorial through the mission phase but dies on the freeplay side. Small maps, slow population growth, villagers get old and die faster than birthrate. No visitors to village.

NoXious
NoXious

I loved the game at first. It had a certain difficulty curve that took a few tries but once you get it, its very fun.

I have a few reasons that I am not recommending this at this price. Most of them stem from the fact that this still feels like an EARLY RELEASE STILL.

1) I found a few annoying bugs. Bad pathing of villagers, merchants especially bug out alot.

2) unbalanced. There is really no need for some of the jobs like blacksmith, pharmacists, priest. Happiness is easy to attain just by getting them food... Goodluck.. they breed and eat like rabbits.

3) Lags when you reach 55-65 villagers. There is so much going on at that point if you managed to provide enough food that you get this weird lag. I have a good computer that can run top games, so this shouldnt be an issue. I feel like it's part of the code.

shnal
shnal

I like this game, it reminds me of a game called "Knights and Merchants" which I played way back when.. It does need some work. I've experienced everybody dying even when there's lots of food, people getting stuck etc. Fair play to the developers, we've seen two releases this week and it's evident they're dealing with these teething problems. My advise - stick with it, it's going to be good.

Lawro
Lawro

If you liked Banished, Villagers is a decent alternative. I say 'decent' and not 'awesome' because Villagers appears to be somewhat unpolished, with an overly-simplistic UI. That could change with regular dev updates (see below).

There are a few hours' worth of campaign missions (read tutorial missions with a lengthy storyline), and then for those who just want to play without any interruptions, there are the freeplay maps of various sizes that do play a lot like Banished in that I-just-want-to-build-stuff-in-a-slow-and-therapeutic-fashion sort of way.

Have a look at the Community Hub though...you'll notice that the devs are constantly working on admirable improvements, and already the game has become much more user-friendly since launch. Worth it in my books, because...Banished.

Robhold
Robhold

I'm a fan of Settlers so I was hoping it would be something like that. I think overall this game is too green. There's no instant gratification, there's no entertainment. You follow the tasks but they're not even fun. And OMG what's going on with all the text! it's like the Wikipedia times 10. Everything comes witha long text even if you're just cutting a tree I mean come on! There are 6 villagers to start with, and they will all talk and talk and talk. And you cant even close those texts right away, they even have a slow slide animation. At one point your screen will be full of messages and texts of all kind, none relevant, none enjoyable, none entertaining. This game feels like filling paperwork.

And for the record I do appreciate a good story. But this is not the case. The text is just noisy. There's no script, some villager drama at min 0? why would you care about this long complaint made by a hunter about patroling woods when you dont even have a house and are trying to figure how to make the dumb villagers move and chop some trees. It's so dumb

sarasyrah
sarasyrah

I love builder games, so I'm always happy to see a new one. With Villagers, it seems like bumblebee was trying to create Banished with a campaign storyline, which is the main thing that Banished lacks, so that was a good goal. Unfortunately the missions are really buggy, and the pacing is off -- some are too easy and quick, and others are almost too hard to get through, partly because of bugs like merchants getting stuck in warehouses and never leaving. And all the clicking through the dialogue boxes can get seriously maddening.

Free play mode is more fun. The game mechanics are a lot like Banished: you have to be careful not to grow too fast or everyone will starve to death, but grow steadily or your population will crash as your villagers age. There are guestworkers you can hire, but they can't move in and start families, like the nomads can in Banished. The trading system is much too simple. It seems like I can only trade wood, stone, and iron, and occasionally pick up some beer. Meanwhile I've got two barns producing a surplus of farm animals, meat, milk, and eggs, and I can't unload any of it to buy the wood that I've run out of because the foresters seem to plant trees at a geologic pace.

Once bumblebee works the bugs out, Villagers should be fun to play, and especially if they can fix the campaign mode, it will hit a good middle ground between Banished and Settlers. Worth playing, but maybe wait for a few bug releases to be completed first.

⌬ Codified ⌬
⌬ Codified ⌬

First off, this is not a bad game, if like many had pointed out, Banished did not exist, this might be a different review. It does however, so a positive differential between these two games would swing my vote.

The initial difference you will find is the visual novel superimposed upon the game. The story is written with some competency and as is the way with v.n.'s, it's quite in your face about some of the sordid details of life. Now when I first booted this game up it asked whether I was female or male, the default being female, this told me that the developers were targeting the fairer sex and that coupled with the visual novel aspect, really puts me out in the cold.

The game itself, is fine, the standard resource collection and settlement building is in place. Nothing separating it from Banished, save for the fact the simulation is less complex. There are nice touches, the way you build a jetty was quite nice and well thought out.

The graphics, they're better than Banished but only just, there is the most desperate need for SSAO, if they added that it would look so much better. The models, functional, again no better than the aforementioned game, no specular, no bump, modest scale textures.

I won't touch on the maps, or lack thereof, the future will tell.

All in all, if the story was reflected in the code, this would be the most amazing game but at the moment, the separation between the two is so large, it highlights the loss of direction this team has experienced.

Anonymous
Anonymous

I'm sure I bought the wrong game. I'm only in for 10 minutes and can't continue. All I have been doing so far is reading a loooooooooooong introduction story and still didn't get to the end before finally starting to play. I wanted to play a game. If I want to read a book, I'd buy one!

thecrashninja
thecrashninja

So far, I have really been enjoying this game. ALOT.
The design of this game is well done and things are easy enough to get a handle on fairly quickly.

The only issues that I have been currently having to deal with are
-Farmers just forgetting how to do their jobs ( just not farming in any season )
-Villagers falling through the map and then dying due to starvation
-Foresters not planting trees or chopping them down.

All in all though, this is a very fun game and way better than bannished.

Also I have noticed that at X8 speed ( which I have set to most of the time ) villagers tend to freak out
and just run in place looking all glitchy for about a min or 2. Then go back to what they were doing.

I give this game 2 thumbs and a big toe up.
Solid game and alot of fun to play.

P.S. The updates you guys are doing are awesome.

New Review update.

So recently got my village up to 86 villagers, had about 380 food, beer, and the church.
Then out of nowhere all of my farmers ( save 2 ) just started hanging out by the water catcher and just stood there while the entire village starved to death. This is the third time i have been at 80+ Villagers and the farmers just stopped working. I was even making them tools as well.

Please adress this issue, for I have no clue as to what is causing this.

Xcaliber
Xcaliber

i for one can say this game is really good, i have played a few maps and had a good 20 + hours play time before i made this, i think it needs a little more work everything is sweet just needs a polish on the edges really good game 5 stars

GameOverRIP
GameOverRIP

Seemed like a good concept but in practice it's boring and doesn't work
No concepts of why you are really doing anything
People just stop working
The endless text sections are mind numbing
Can't lign anything up with accuracy which is a nightmare for someone that's OCD
No roads

Im sure there's many other things that others have said negative about this game, but save your money and play Banished, it's a more simple concept but all the mods give it more depth

Noodley Noodle
Noodley Noodle

I would love to see this game approved upon.

I really want to give this a good review because there are not many games like it, and I like these kinds of smaller city-builders. It has great potential to be one of my favorite games. However, it's too similar to Banished for me to enjoy enough to keep playing, and it still has some bugs that could mess up my village (farmers forever farming veggies, even when deleted. To fix: Reassign the farmers, but the field will be visually stuck there barren.).

Pros:
-Funny adult humor (ex. the stork arrives shortly after hearts fall from the sky on a house and moaning can be heard XD)
-Creative attention to detail (ex. the stork, different clothing) - I would like to see more because these separate it from Banished
-Nice new style - different types of animals run around freely, each character has a spouse (even if this isn't obvious by their interactions other than making babies), the professions have different clothing (farmers look like farmers), etc.
-I enjoyed watching my villagers. Even though they had a job, they slept at night, talked at the town hall and raincatchers/wells, and helped each other up if someone fell down.
-It feels like the environment of the map I chose, and it feels quite alive (the way the merchant comes is kinda awkward for me though)

Cons
-The map I played on was really small; I could see the issue of space down the line
-Too many aspects of Banished. It feels like if Banished was simplified, given a new look, and had a couple cool added aspects.
-Not many buildings - I know, it's small, and it does add upon and tweak Banished buildings, but it feels like there could be more since it has a villager-focus. The baths are a nice touch. Maybe a courthouse and random divorces? A school housefor the kids?
-Some aspects don't seem to work as they should - Why does the merchant only want and sell building materials if he clearly has a food stand? The journal opens up in freeplay mode behind a lot of the other menus, such as when clicking on the town hall.

Crystal Rose
Crystal Rose

Highly addictive game! Can't stop play it! If you love time management and building games with a fantastic storyline, look no further! You're in for a treat with Villagers! Sorry to hear some people are having trouble with the game. I have had absolutely no trouble with the game. It runs very smoothly, without glitches or lags. The sounds are clean and crisp. Got a winner here!...And money well spent! Great game, Devs! I would love to see more of your work in the near future! Happy Gaming, Everyone!

Razter
Razter

This game had/has a decent initial groundwork for a game. Unfortunately they never delivered the game.

I was boggled when this went from EA to full release with pretty much no changes at all.

This game is still very buggy, has major glitches in the AI and almost no content at all.

You can see all there is to see and do everything there is to do in about 4 hours. There is a "Campaign" that consists of 6 very easy tutorial missions. THAT'S IT. The entire campaign right there. You can do a "Free play" but guess what? It's the same maps you just played just without any build restrictions.

The total amount of structures you can build is like 25. That number is TINY when you talk about city/building sims. Of those, some are just upgrades and some you really never ever need to build.

This game feels like someone's Senior project from school they just decided to toss up on Steam.

100% waste of money.

Ruki
Ruki

Edit: a year later
---------------------------------
abandoned game. Zero progress since release. full of bugs and half implimented game play.
---------------------------------

It is a Fun Game with good graphics, but still in beta.
It has great possiblities.

Short version:
Gameplay is simular to banished, but without any difficutly. Like zero.
None to little replay value
Single Player mode (Campaign), which is actually a tutorial. Only takes an one hour to beat.
Beta Quality (missing text, villagers stop working and fall through the ground, animals and people say they are attacking but do not. And many many others)

Loluka
Loluka

It's supposed to be a finished game but there are still a lot of bugs. The story telling leaves a lot to be desired. I was able to blow through the campaign in a few hours. Honestly, you'd be better off buying Banished. They're basically the same game except Banished is a bit harder (more things to control) and is much better polished.

piratedel
piratedel

Final episode of the campaign:
-Focused on building for the tasks,
-Forgot to build a fishing jetty
-Everyone died except for one family.
-Began building a village from incest.

spark.milanders
spark.milanders

This game might be a good intro to city building game for someone who has never played this genre before. It's easy to pick up and play with very little challenge. I can't give it a positive rating because although I didn't encounter any bugs the game itself just isn't that great. There are not really that many buildings so there isn't a complex production chain to learn and there aren't any decorative buildings and there aren't even any roads. It doesn't seem to matter to your villagers if they live on a diet of a variety of fruits vegetables bread meat milk eggs....or if they just eat fish. Might as well just have 2 fishing piers. There is an herbalist in the game who gathers wild herbs and creates medicine. But in the entire campaign playthrough I never once saw a villager get sick and need medicine. You can build a chruch and the priest will bless houses and the villagers will go to mass, but if you turn the church off for an entire year they don't seem to mind all that much. Maybe the happiness goes down a little so they work slower but it's really not noticable. Overall the price is too high for what little you get of the game. It's lacking the complexities and decision making that makes city builders fun.

Grumpyolman
Grumpyolman

good easy game for those who are new to building gamews.

Dissappointed there was not mor e of it CASTLE AND TRADING ETC.There was a lot more to medieval life than what is displayed here.

overall 7 out of 10

lilybloom17
lilybloom17

it shows roads in the town area- but they need roads to make a Village- I just got this because it is like banish somethings don't produce such as tools- Banish has roads and it makes it come together evenly for placing houses along cobble stone roads- the people walk on the roads or paths instead of crossing through everything! I did recommend untill as I played this game alot of stuff doesn't work- it doesn't produce tools the other buildings hardly produce more than one item it just doesn't work correctly- the workers leave their jobs constantly-the barn works great not much else!
its only worth 5$ not 19.99- Bannish is way better than this at least it works and has roads so that you can build a cobblestone Village!

Skalwoods
Skalwoods

I'm biased as I love city builders, but the fact that the map remains so small, and the resources go quickly, with a workforce that is spread so thin so quick, It's REAL easy to be pigeonholed... Not sure I'm all about that. Hate that I had to spend 20 bucks to figure it out as well. This would be better if you could recruit a workforce from outside towns, and had a more realistic resource scale, coupled with bigger maps. What the hell is a city builder unless you can create a sprawling town? Come on...

carleerun
carleerun

Not much depth. Each level is virtually the same thing. Too expensive for casual gaming.

Chuck Norris
Chuck Norris

Good Game...

Different then banished but I do like this game

jpgeving
jpgeving

Worst game gift I ever have received.

dethandtaxes
dethandtaxes

The city building aspect of this game is completely shallow. The dialog and stale still-images contained therein become very repetitive and dry.

mick
mick

I never ever bought a buggier game EVER! Game play, nice, the idea, nice… but really, this is an Alpha game! Not ready to be sold yet! I wanted a refund, but played 80 minutes, and the refund says 60 minutes. Well after te 60 minutes the bugs began to show! Darn!

Nevertheless I it is a nice game and they need to fix the bugs.

indy-anna
indy-anna

This game is not complete. It needs a lot of work.

MiliaT
MiliaT

I loved the campaign mode on this game. It was challenging and interesting, even with some of the bugs in the game.

It has similarities to Banished, yes, though Banished doesn't have a campaign mode which is why I picked this up!

Unfortunately, until the makers of the game actually work on fixing the bugs that appeared after the last patch, the Sandbox mode is completely unplayable. After one turn through seasons, everything starts speeding up, seasons cycle so fast and all your villagers grow old and die.

I cannot recommend this game until it has been fixed, and considering it has been months since this issue has been brought to the developers, I don't think we'll be seeing that happen anytime soon.

Linda
Linda

good game but wish we had more stuff we could make in the game.

chmilk
chmilk

I liked it. The game felt very limiting map wise but that does not take away from the game play.

kolsto
kolsto

No, this is a very very boring game. If you buy it, i am afraid you will be very disapointed.

If it came out in the early 1990s it would have been a great game, but today it is totally waste of time to play.

This game should be used as an idea of to make a similar ww2 game, (but with 5000% better graphics) that could work, but not like it is today.

If you still dont believe this negative review, please check on youtube or somewhere for a "playable" demo first, that would kill your wish to buy this "masterpiece."

Sebathius
Sebathius

I can only assume this is a foreign game, as what felt like the translation of the "storyline" and campaign was horrid to try to fumble through. The product itself was boring, to put it lightly.

I really wanted to enjoy this. I expected more after watching the video and looking over the initial work.

Do yourself a favor, look for other options.

SawTelle
SawTelle

I got this game thinking it was gonna be good and it was... for about 15 minutes. then i got stuck on a level and tried to fix it over and over again and it was never fixed. If you want a good town building game get Banished. It is much better than this piece of shit.

Nicole
Nicole

Theres a bug that makes it impossible to play sandbox mode and its been around since the summer last year. They never update the game anymore and they havent tried to fix the bug they even ignore people that say they have it in the steam forums so I feel this game is not worth what it costs since you can only play campaign mode and they are not even trying to fix the problems with it. I dont even see why they would still sell this game because you really cant play most of it because of the bug they havent fixed. I feel they are trying to steal money from people since they are still selling this game so dont buy this game if you dont want to waste your money its one of the worst games on steam.

Biadabs
Biadabs

Recent updates - 8 August 2016. This game is dead.

tom
tom

Crashes constantly in freeplay mode. If it weren't for that this would be a good game

gamer1701
gamer1701

Awesome detailed simulation game but really, that just 6 campaings killed my interest. Pleaze make more campaigns available and I will give u a thumb up:-)

jameshardin62
jameshardin62

incomplete game, gathering values are not equal

DrolDraw
DrolDraw

Half finished, buggy and abandoned by the devs. Devs say they are sorry, but offer no explanation.

Don't buy, don't waste your money.

DeADbYDayinBlAck
DeADbYDayinBlAck

Its a middle of the road game. I am giving it a thumbs up because its worth a look and play through if you get it for sub £5

Its not bad. Its just .............mediocre.
I enjoyed playing it , it had a nice wee story but the missions feel like tutorials. I played what 5-6 hours? and I have done the game. I expected so much more. there was potential for so much but its like a damp squib. It had some interesting ideas. ( I liked the tavern/hostel so you could buy in workers on short term contracts to cover job vaccancies that was an inspired game mechanic).
Everything ( bar the story) is functional....not noteworthy just acceptable
Graphics .....fuctional.
Sounds........fuctional.
UI.............fuctional.

But in the grand scheme its a bit of a let down.

Wasted potential.

Its a cliche to say.....if you like " A" you will like this.
But this is a case where if you like city/village builders you will find a few hours of fun, but the game is never going to convert people to the genre.

BillyR
BillyR

No paths or roads in this game...really? Why would they leave that out? Villages look like a bunch of random buildings tossed out into a clearing with no paths. It seems a bit rushed to me and the animations are just dreadful....wish I could have gotten a refund on this one but I waited too long to try it out...

TKBuffalo
TKBuffalo

A lower level Banished, would be good if there was an ability to add workshop content.
This would be a good childrens game as it is not overly detailed.

Axel91
Axel91

Glitchy, unfinished game. Would not wish this suffering upon my enemies... Do not buy

Sozzals
Sozzals

Too basic. Too easy. No challenge.

SomeFire
SomeFire

Soooo slooow game. Even with x8 speed.

Vintage Japes
Vintage Japes

Its eh. It ran great, I love the idea of it, but the map sizes and lack of gameplay was lacking. You build, reproduce and gather materials. But the map sizes limit how big you can grow your colony. I like building huge colonies from only a little bit of people, but thats my personal preference.
It is playable, but for me it was not my cup of tea.

SartorialDragon
SartorialDragon

i think this game would have been worth continuing. it's a shame it's been abandoned...
i like the game, especially because it's not as hard and not as focused on endless combat as similar city building games, but more on getting your city to work (without it being regularly destroyed by enemies...)

Since it IS abandoned, i can only comment on the current status without much hope for changes:
there are bugs that are making it too frustrating to recommend, that probably won't go away if the developers have given up (like population stagnating / dying out faster than reproducing, and not being able to continue a game as free play after the campaign has ended... - both making the amount of progress you can make very limited, and all you can do is start over or keep playing without changes happening to your village...

i'm still playing this game, but mainly because i've not found a similar alternative on linux steam. (the one downside the ever-praised Banished seems to have - it's windows only.)

Tasaroo
Tasaroo

It's an ok game. If you are new to the city building games it not a bad start. But if you look for more than this game is not the best, maybe Banished would be better.
The campaign is a good introduction to the game.
Free to play is ok but after you set up all the buildings not much more to do except wait and replace the dead settler.
Unfortunately very limited amount of buildings and option to manage your settlement.
All in all an ok game, however I prefer a bit more complex building games.

UrsusPrimos
UrsusPrimos

I was hoping for continuted development, but it never came.

Story was ok, graphics were meh, mechanics could be worse. But there's just too little content to pay more than 5 bucks for.

secondcrisis
secondcrisis

I personaly dont see the point in games like Banished and am more fond of this game. I like games with campaigns, a mission, not just here you go , now survive for an internity. It seems like games nowadays are going in that trend, build massive cities, no goals, no storylines.
However this game does not provide many campaigns, as it ended at like 8, which is very disappointing. If I could make a game, I would put campaigns in a game like Banished.

KelnMaari
KelnMaari

Sooo many bugs... no recomend! Realy... Dont buy this game. Seriously! Just try another game. it's not for u man!

JokingHam
JokingHam

found this relaxing and stress reducing to play. Very easy and uncomplicated sometimes you want that.

wispie
wispie

So much hate, w0wzers. This game is Banished step sibling, the one everyone throws things at and kicks during thanksgiving.

Personally, I liked the game.
I thought the campaign mode was really well done. I really liked the art they used for it and the story was interesting.

Yes the game has bugs, which are annoying but can be played around.

If you get the game on sale, I think its definitely worth it.

Tony VN
Tony VN

I put some time in this game and find it really enjoyable even tho from what I read in discussion topics that it's not complete, has bugs, I would like to see the Developers carry on developing this great game.

bluephoenixfire
bluephoenixfire

There are good and bad things to this game. none of the bad things affect the gameplay in any way (more cosmetic like repeating texts, odd characters like # in the middle of text and such)
I love the campaigns and i hope they make more like age of empires series did (maybe one from the brothers perspective and the kings builder?) There needs to be a "demolish" button as once the quarries are finished u cant select them and demolish them to make room. Maybe a Easy/Normal/Hard versions?
This game has so much more potential and i hope they keep developing it :)

Yurw
Yurw

all great until u get futher into the game and then it faults and crashes. wasted alot of gameplay time and can progress. :(

DheerO22O
DheerO22O

After playing this game for a while, it feels that this was a Beta stage game, launched just to make quick bucks. Even at 75% discount, this game has minuscule value for money (if any). And the reasons are:

1. Game bugs: This game is infested with them, which is total spoil-sport. For e.g., Suppose I have three wood resource, say W1 W2 & W3. Now if I made a Sawmill & assigned two workers, then both of them would simultaneously attempt to extract the same wood resource (say W1). Both of them would then return to the sawmill but since it's only one resource (i.e. W1), the mill generates only two wooden planks instead of four. This effectively makes one worker redundant.

2. Illogical: At the start of the game (in Free Build mode), every villager is in high spirits but soon they start loosing happiness due to lack of either houses or food or water & so on. With only ten workers to start with, no matter how you prioritise your building units, one has a very narrow window to make it. The villagers become unhappy very fast & the game becomes very very slow. No option for setting the level of game play, i.e. Easy, Medium, Hard etc.

3. Absence of variety: There are approx. ten kind of maps or so. Plus the maps are very small.

4. Lack of in-game research: This is probably the only builder/strategy game which doesn't have any in-game research option. Some units just upgrade to accommodate higher villagers/units but that's it. One doesn't get to research any new technology or anything to make the villagers more efficient.

Additionally, one can't even save the game with a single file name. Suppose I want to save a particular game with the name "XYZ", I need to enter this name every time I save a file. The game doesn't overwrite file names it seems.

With the current set-up, not only is the game boring but a SCAM too. There are many games on steam which are priced lesser and offer more value for money. Hence, won't recommend this one.

P.S.: Didn't attempt to return this game because by the time I could make any sense of it, I was well past the 2 hours limit. So I request Valve/Steam to make provision for offering a Demo of such games so that gullible customers don't get cheated.

MrGoxter
MrGoxter

There is a bug which makes your free play impossible.
After reaching to population size late 20s, seasons starts to change every 3 seconds.
Therefore non of your trees grow, farms operate and as a result people start dying from starvation.
In other words you lose the game within a minute or two.
There is no information about an update or a patch to fix this. (if you know please let me know)

So if you want to waste your money go ahead.
I wasted mine so trying to prevent others from wasting theirs.
Steam should have never offer this product like this. I should get a refund for an unplayable game.

Lucky
Lucky

5 out of 10 stars.
I like City Builder games. This game is not in the top 20 on my list. The game did not crash (Win 10 - 64 ) and it is easy to learn. On sale it was $4.99 and I played a little over 20 hours.The main goal for me was to get 100 Villagers for the achievement, however at the end above 75 population it was a grind. No replay value for me.
I would NOT RECOMMEND to buy it for $19.99.
Helpful ?

Volk
Volk

This game falls far short of a city building game. It is loaded with so much dialog where you want to just build a town. Boring

jekel49
jekel49

this game was short but fun, however... if you play any map in free mode there is a bug with the season cycle and it will kill all your villagers. This bug has been around since the game was created and they haven't fixed it.

Jubirajo56
Jubirajo56

i dont understand why people dislike this game. this game is pretty simple no mattter how it looks like what story it has the game at least isint hard us other games and if your looking for something simple and easy to spend time on check this game out

ashtoredriver
ashtoredriver

Its fun and the mods make it great!

Adam.Podstavka
Adam.Podstavka

This game is just bad. It would have some potential if not for so many flaws clearly statings devs did not care to create a good game... Campaign is very short and half of it is rather annoying (and often not much sense making) story which is also hard to read if you play on 1440p. Also what the story tells is often not represented at all in the game, In gameplay itself your population just explodes, but not the wildlife, hunters are not able to hunt down bears or wolves, but would everything else, farming is clunky as hell and tools are broken so soon, that you'll run out of all iron on the map sooner than anything else... I see this game as only cash cow of the producers, not worth supporting. There are too many other games to have fun with to lose time with this one.

matt19852085
matt19852085

I was on mission 4 or 5 and the last task was to build a tavern so I did but then it says mission failed I have no idea why and it expects me to do it all again having spent over an hour trying to get the basics done.
I have encountered numerous times issues where I build houses and hunters posts but the progress doesnt move on without these the villagers would die so I have to restart and usually it will continue the mission story.

FrostKing
FrostKing

game is not playable. Both modes glitch out and wont let you enjoy the game. After readying more looks like game has been abandon.

nickjohnw61
nickjohnw61

It's a broken game - seasons pass every three seconds and production sops in free play. spoils completely what couldve been a good game

Terra
Terra

So far - not recommended, it's a bit glitchy and my PC isn't even slow. The atmosphere is good though. Beautiful winters.

MIGO
MIGO

It is boring game. There are better games that have the same theme of city build.