Towns

While I didn't know that game has some minor issues when I bought it on Steam, after playing it for some while, I must say it IS indeed playable in the current state. You just need to get used to its gameplay elements. Where "get used to" means same as "getting used to" RTS, FPS, RPG or any other genre or subgenre (like JRPG or CRPG). What is genre of this game? I'd like to call it "Sandbox town-building game with RPG and RTS elements". While I would never, ever touch Dwarf Fortress because of its graphics or lack thereof (seriously, ASCII? Are we in 80s? Even Nethack, rogue-like with originally ASCII graphics has graphical clients such as Falcon's Eye or Vulture's Claw), Towns are pretty fun to play with. Those who say interface is non-intuitive, probably never played game such as Age of Empires 2 or other old RTS games like first editions of The Settlers or Civilization. In case of the latter THAT'S confusing and non-intuitive interface. For me it is pretty simple after few (2) hours spend with it. At left you have production automation tools which let you make food, produce items, etc. At right - town building tools (setting up walls and placing utilities/furniture/decorations, etc.). And finally at bottom - order menu - here you can give massive orders, e.g. mining/chopping down trees/gathering wheat/apples/pears/bananas/etc. and set up stockpiles (magazines) for each type of resource, and zones (if you ever played Evil Genius zones are roughly equal to room types). Now, final words. While that game isn't completed yet, I'd say it's pretty close. If I would need to compare it to level of polish of some version of Minecraft, I'd say SMP is at level of Minecraft Beta 1.6. AI is a bit wonky, but it'll work in time (heard on official forums that AI will be main focus in Towns v9, a.k.a. 0.90)

I think this is quite a funny game, even if it could be much better: the interface is quite lacking, and the interactions are not so various as it might seems. This said, i find it funny and entertaining.

I first found out about Towns during a Steam sale, and they offered a demo, I liked it. Although Towns can use a better interface, do not get the wrong idea; the interface is manageable. It is its own game, There is no real genre for it. For the most part, it has some RTS elements, because you don't play as (an) individual(s), it also has some sandbox capabilities too. But I must agree with the rest of the comments, the game feels very underdeveloped. One almost has to get some mods so the game runs better.

I would have loved to give more points to this game, as the idea was good. The 4 points are for the addictive sensation you get from the demo, which disappear really fast when you see the time it takes to build anything in this game. The AI is stupid, people die all the time and do stupid things, the RPG aspect is non-existent, and you can even ruin your whole map if you make the mistake to let water flow in your caves The music is so annoying that I had to cut it, and the graphics are not sensational Conclusion : I might reconsider my opinion if the game grows a bit faster, but it seems the creators took the money and ran away with it.

Not going to bother with the Day 1 was deceptive alpha release day argument. I have never played a more frustrating game. I think ive put more time into managing my idiot townies feeding themselves and building mudhuts in the hopes of one day making a mythical BS screenshot worthy city that the game originally boasted its players could do. To this day every attempt at this game has left me with a headache and a heartache at what could have been...