When it comes to cozy city-building games, Town to City has it all. Not only is it aesthetically pleasing and unique, but it lets players have nearly complete freedom over how they want to play. The results? A cozy game that can be tailored to different playstyles, which is truly the mark of a good cozy game.
After checking out the game at Gamescom, we were able to enjoy the upcoming early access version for a deeper look, so here’s part 2 of our preview, from the point of view of a writer who specifically loves cozy sims.
Town to City has two game modes: Campaign and Sandbox. In Campaign Mode, players work at building a city from the ground up. At the beginning, it’s all about fulfilling villagers’ happiness and needs as they move in.
This is the first area that sets Town to City apart from other games – players are compelled to care about the aesthetics of their town. Villagers have different wants that affect their happiness, and many of these are related to the decorations around their homes. There’s a major focus on decorating and creating a city that’s both beautiful and functional.
There are no real limits to this, either. In fact, items can change depending on where they’re placed to come up with new ideas. For example, you can place signs near shops or stick them on a home to create a name sign. Flowers become adorable window boxes, while fountains can turn into smaller, wall fountains when placed on a building.
It’s not just items that players have control over, either. Players can determine the colors of clothes sold at the clothing store, the colors of buildings, and even choose between different styles of things like benches, flowers, and more. The level of control that players have over the aesthetics is impressive.
Plus, the free grid that players build the city on allows for anything. While there are ways to create linear paths and the buildings can snap to nearby roads, players can also freehand and rotate everything.
And that’s just the decorating side: Town to City has deep systems, whether that’s researching, food processing, farms, or even just making villagers happy. Players can take requests from their villagers, and some are as simple as wanting a few bushes, while others task players with creating hedge mazes.
All of this combined makes Town to City feel personal. Not only are players able to create a town however they want, they get to interact with the people who live there. These interactions aren’t hollow, either – players can respond to them in different ways in ongoing dialogue.
What sets Town to City apart is the ability to care about whichever systems you really want to. For example, players can randomize certain design choices when decorating their town if they don’t particularly care for (or feel like) being meticulous.
Sandbox Mode expands on this, giving players a plethora of options to make the game easier or harder than Campaign Mode. In fact, players can choose to make things strictly about aesthetics with everything unlocked and max money just to build and decorate. There aren’t many restrictions to begin with, but Sandbox Mode gives players options to take them all away.
By doing so, Town to City becomes a cozy game that can appeal to a wide variety of gamers who are looking for a relaxing time. Whether someone is picking the game up just to create gorgeous cityscapes or a city-building game expert wants a cute title to relax with, there’s a mode and options for everyone.
In cozy games, this is especially important and not often something that’s paid attention to. What one person considers relaxing can be stressful for others, and Town to City has created a city-building experience that caters to a wide range of players. Plus, it does so beautifully.
The best part? Town to City has more to come, as the game’s releasing in Early Access on September 16 on PC. More content, decorations, and even things like animals are planned for the future.
