Foundation: Early Access release on PC: February 1, 2018

Developer and Publisher: Polymorph Games

Genre: Sim, Medieval City Building, and RTS

Considering this game is still in early access, it plays like it is in the end stages of development with very few bugs or glitches. This crowd funded city builder boasts a grid-less building system, an original soundtrack, and some of the best graphics in the genre, yet despite all of this, Foundation is far from perfect.

The key to successfully navigating a sim or city builder is knowing the ins and outs of the game. In the case of Foundation, the do or die aspect is resource management. Villagers need a few basic things in order to stay in your village: Multiple kinds of food, easy access to water, a local church, and clothing. Providing these things requires an intricate network of resource chains that can easily become overwhelmed by an influx of immigrants.

This influx is something the game fails to prepare you for. Everything seems fine one moment, and the next, all your villagers are leaving. The tutorial, unlike in most games, is simply a pop up window that appears before your first foray into the wild world. It gives you a few basic tips and explains some of the game’s more basic features. In a game as intricate as this, however, that is not enough. The tutorial needs to be a scenario that players play through. This is best way to reach all the types of learners. You can read what to do, see what to do, and then actually do it.

The most essential part of managing resources is your villagers. Without them, you have nothing. So don’t lose them. Their visual design may not be the most realistic, but they are adorable (unless you look at their portrait on the villager page, there they are quite ugly). These villagers walk with the weight of normal human beings, for they create a dirt path everywhere they walk. Most games require you to build a dirt path because that makes a lot more sense… Though these other games might be on to something because the villagers tend to create paths that make no sense, like walking all the way around a lake to build a bridge that crosses it instead of starting from the side they were already on.

Villagers receive unique names upon arrival at your village such as Edith and Frederick. Once your population grows, however, you get names like Male #456 and Female #1740. This starts to happen around 100 villagers. It is hard to imagine why the game cannot generate names for less than 100 people. It is also hard to imagine why the only way to populate your village is through immigration. Is there something in the well water? Are all of the villagers sterile or barren? If this is supposed to be historical, procreation is a well regarded historical fact.

Though the game is largely well done, there are some issues that should be resolved sooner rather than later. Hitting the escape key does nothing. In almost every other game I have ever played, that opens the menu. According to reviews on steam, the game is prone to crashing. I have played the game for a about a week now and it did crash, but only once. Villagers refuse to use clearly placed doors on churches. They simply walk though the walls wherever they please. They also get stuck in their own homes. The only way to fix it is to let them get angry enough to leave the village because they cannot eat or drink, or delete the house and rebuild it. Lastly, one of the most annoying errors is a message that says “No farm field zone for farmers”. This message comes up despite the fact that half the land I own is designated as a farm field.

What Foundation needs most is for the developers to continue on their current path, but also, to look past it. This game has the potential to be the best in the genre, but it needs something new. Give it some story, voice acting, or animated cut-scenes. I want to be making this village for a purpose. What is this city the foundation of? What we need from the game is as follows:

1.  Something new and unique to the genre. Gridless placement isn’t enough.
2. Add a speed faster than x3, at the endgame, all I can do is sit and watch.
3. Allow players the option to place houses on their own. The automation means we have less control over the shape our village takes.
4. A more modernized UI. The current one looks like it is from the 90’s and is too small.
5. Lots and lots of buildings and workplaces. Why is wheat the only thing we can farm?

 

This game is well on its way to become one of the best in the genre. I enjoyed this game, and people who like this type of play will love it too. It does need work, but it is still in early access, so it is impressive that it is already this good. I give Foundation the rank: