The overall game play is fun and the rotation of worlds and objectives keeps it engaging. My biggest bone to pick is with the food. Tomatoes are so far superior to bread that bread is pointless except for some objectives. It is almost a luxury good. Planting each takes the same time, as does growth to harvest. Each tomato plot produces 2 tomatoes vs each wheat plot making 1 wheat. But later on this gets balanced back when one flour becomes 2 bread despite what the bakery building says. The problem with bread starts with the harvest. Each time the little guy has to go to the barn get the scythe cut the grain then go back to the barn to return the scythe then go back to the wheat pick it up and stock it. For tomato harvest the little people just walk to the plot pull the tomato and trundle to the stock, done food available. The added time for wheat harvest is quite a lot. Then there is the windmill followed by the bakery, more labor, land and resources invested for as far as I can tell no gain. I just feel that the added complexity and inputs should garner some benefit and I do not see it. The brewery you can at least say gives happiness bonus but I am not sure how much. A smaller issue is with how the little guys seem focused on harvest over planning, if they swapped or if workers after the first could focus on planning then the utilization of the land would be much improved.

Personally this is one of my favorite Apple Arcade games, it has everything you could want out of a medieval town-builder. But it is just a bit too difficult, I want it to be challenging but not too challenging. Maybe you could add a setting where all the levels are unlocked, I tried for days to beat the Gerald level where you have to farm tomatoes. Doing this might defeat the purpose of the game for some, but for others like me it would be a great help. Also maybe you could add civilizations like the Aztec or native Americans. Which would mean adding jungles and maybe even desert environments. It could mean different house designs like Adobe or something like Chitzen Itza. Adding wagons would be a great form of transportation for your towns, and could add animals to the game like horses and mules. Hunting could come along with this, which could mean bows and swords. These could lead to blacksmiths, advanced quarries with ore, and weapon forgeries. I did happen to come across another review which suggested ships and traveling to other islands, and I love this idea. It might start trading and piracy, along with new seaside buildings. Maybe you should be able to make the leaders have children, like all the other people in game, this could upgrade the sophistication of your town and maybe it could come with upgraded leader houses and the arts. You should be able to construct canals for goods, and as your city grows you could use resources to upgrade the businesses to make them faster and more efficient. Thank you for your time

Eventually the game goes from a fun challenge, to just sheer absurdity. It gets to point where it’s completely unplayable. I got the wild Josephine level and it was laughable how bad it was. Essentially you need to erode the whole town and rebuild it somehow without everyone dying all while needing an obscene amount of wood to run a camp fire. I did end up beating it but it was not fun at all it was stressful and annoying. So much so it has made me delete the game. Waiting for those trees to grow is about as fun as just starring at the ceiling. And the waiting is about as infuriating as watching someone kick a dog. Your best bet would be to squeeze in 2 tree farm spaces and plant them at opposite times and do not take your eyes off them. If you do you WILL fail. And you will need a farm and the only place that fits a farm is the place where all the houses are and where the builders house was so I needed to build 3 homes, build ANOTHER builders house and only then could I build my farm all of which was using wood I desperately needed causing me to fail over and over and over and over. So I just made them live off 2 berry farms. Dozens died of hunger. If they ever decide to fix the tree planting system, I will play again one day. I rated it 4/5 stars because it’s a great game, I’m sure someone out there will love everything about it. But starring at my screen groaning while I waited about 30 minutes for trees to grow while your entire population dies was certainly not for me. But everything else is great.

To me, this is the best game on the my iPhone which (far as I know) was made for this platform, though you can now play it on PC. Gameplay can range from blessedly simple to complex and challenging to track, but it ramps up gradually, even in sandbox mode. However, it still feels a bit like an unfinished game—granted, one with a fair amount of levels, though they go by quickly. I’ve only played on my iPhone, which may be more prone to these issues (I’m not sure), but sandbox mode can’t handle over 200 followers. Even approaching that limit is a bad idea, and the game with crash and start to quickly overheat my phone long before reaching it. That said, I’ve played enough to know how to delicately balance the population, which isn’t easy but prevents everyone from dying suddenly. Unfortunately, my phone will still crash regularly by the time they have enough people to run the village. My biggest pet peeve with sandbox mode is that you can’t use certain styles of buildings, because they will change to a different theme when the game crashes, which it inevitably does. I’m sure if the developers keep committed to it, this will be a fantastic game. Maybe the PC is its future. I have yet to try it, but I’m sure I will eventually.