![]() According to a couple of TED Talks I’ve seen (thanks, Moyse), this is just a natural part of getting older. If anything, all the real knowledge that used to exist in my mind has been replaced by scenes from The Simpsons and a list of things I should be doing instead of whatever it is I’m doing at the moment. I’m forgetting names, dates, and titles more often than before. ![]() My brain doesn’t work all that well these days. My mind will just start telling stories about what each building in my bustling city is, and with Townscaper ’s minimalistic presentation, there is plenty of opportunities for my imagination to go nuts with details for these crooked conurbations. When I play an Etrian Odyssey game, for instance, my imagination will draw up extensive backstories for each character that I never really bother writing down, but always carry in the back of my mind as I ascend each stratum. My mind has a habit of filling in the gaps when it comes to story and character. ![]() Not only does this relax me after troublesome days at work, but as a natural storyteller, crafting this whimsical city gets my creative juices flowing. I’m just tapping my iPad screen, watching a sprawling city emerge from the light blue depths of this shallow sea. I’m doing something I love-city building-but in a manner that requires no forethought or extensive planning. You can swap the colors of the buildings and change up the lighting, but that’s all there is to it.įrankly, it doesn’t need much else. All you need to do is tap the screen for paths and houses to start popping up along the purposefully curvy grid. It’s more of an interactive art project where you create your own idyllic town in the middle of the ocean. In fact, I’d be hard-pressed to call it a game at all. It’s not a simulator with goals and scenarios to complete. A love for the genre that blossomed back then is still blooming today, if my adoration for Townscaper on iPad is any indication.Īdmittedly, Townscaper is a hell of a lot simpler than anything the Sim City series has produced. We didn’t have a PC at my house at the time (or at least one that could run the game), so I only ever got to experience the joy of city planning when I was hanging out at his place and he wasn’t using the computer to play Red Alert. On a dreary Washington afternoon, he showed me around the city he’d been building for the past month, detailing the different bridges he’d named and taking me through the trouble he went through to develop a sufficient water pipe system. I was around 10-years-old the first time I laid eyes on it, and I couldn’t believe something like that could be a game. I’ve been a fan of city builder simulators since the mid-’90s when a friend of mine introduced me to the magic that was Sim City 2000.
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