What’s that? Look closer. It’s water: a little eruption of it, a hopping splash of droplets. With each building you place in Townscaper, each new disturbance on its flat ocean, you get a splash of water to go along with the brisk, genial popping sound as you press the button. Pop! A ripple on the surface. And onto the next one.
Townscaper reviewPublisher: Raw FuryDeveloper: Oskar StålbergPlatform: Played on Switch, PCAvailability: Out now on PC and Switch
Townscaper is a simple thing, as simple and clear as the face of a wristwatch. But like the face of a wristwatch, it pulls you in, its own little universe for you to peer down at and ponder for who knows how long. This is a game-like toy, an art tool in which you create – and erase, if you wish – little towns, starting with a still stretch of water and ending with busy centres, suburbs, cathedrals, tower blocks, hamlets, burgs, you name it. One button to place a building, one to remove it. Zoom in, change the colours of the next blocks you put down, drop the whole thing out to white box to make it look truly sculptural, change the position of the sun, take a screenshot, tinker away some more.
Townscaper Gameplay Watch on YouTube
It’s brilliant.
Why? The immediacy for sure. It’s hard not to make something in this game, and once you’ve made something it’s hard not to think of ways you might muddle with it, improve it, expand it, or concentrate it. Pop pop pop! (The sound effects help.)
1 of 3 Caption Attribution Edinburgh? Hastings? Seville?
But there’s something else too. As each new block pops into existence I’m still surprised by how dynamic everything is. There’s that splash of water as a new settlement rises from the seas. But there’s also the way a building will switch roofs as it grows, from gable to spire and back again depending on what’s growing around it, or maybe the spire will turn the section below it into a little rounded tower, pinched inwards, walls breathing in, as it were, and holding the breath, until you place another section.