iPad • We’ve known about Feral‘s iPad port of the beloved banana republic-builder, Tropico for some time now, first learning of its existence back in June. It’s been six months, but Tropico arrived today for our trusty tablets and, if you want some details, head past the jump.
PC/Mac/Linux, Switch • Another interesting announcement during the Nintendo Direct that I didn’t watch came from Paradox, makers of all things epic and real-time. Turns out they’re getting in the Switch game as well and their first (and maybe only?) release is the outstanding city builder, Cities: Skylines. The best part is that it wasn’t a tease announcement. No, they were announcing that the game was out for Switch right then and now.
iPad, PC/Mac/Linux • Ah, nothing like a warm island breeze cooling you off as you’re sipping a daiquiri from a comically tall glass on a hot beach. The only thing that could make it better would be pocketing away millions of corrupt dollars while doing so, all while avoiding being handcuffed and taken away to a reeducation center because you happened to mention that El Presidente’s mustache was looking a tad droopy this morning. If you have no idea what the hell I’m talking about, welcome to Tropico, the city building game where you play the corrupt leader of a banana republic. The original Tropico is more than 15 years old now, but it’s had a slew of sequels and, later this year, it will make its debut on iPad.
iOS, Android • We’ve lamented the dearth of decent, non-freemium city-builders on the App Store in the past, leaving us to be content building metropolises on our laptops via City: Skylines or the old Impressions titles. By the way, who do I have to pay to get mobile versions of Pharaoh or Zeus? Seriously, people, if you’re going to bring old PC games to mobile, can we start there? Anyway, back to the sorry state of city-building and management on the App Store. I was perusing Touch Arcade this morning and stumbled on a post they had about a little game called Pocket City. I’m intrigued.
PC, Mac, Linux • The current go-to city builder on my laptop is Paradox‘s Cities: Skylines. Looks like it’s getting some competition, and soon, from…Paradox? That’s right, Paradox is publishing another city builder in the near future, but set in the distant future, and I think both will coexist peacefully on my hard drive. It’s called Surviving Mars and it looks pretty freaking great.
While 4X is a very close second, I’m pretty confident that my favorite game genre is the city builder. To this day I still play the great city builders from Impressions like Pharaoh, Caesar, and Zeus. And don’t get me started on my all-time favorite, Children of the Nile. With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that I’ve been high on Colossal Order‘s magnificent Cities: Skylines from the start. A brilliant and beautiful city-builder that was lacking only one thing since launch: the ability to destroy your creation. That omission has now been resolved with the just released Natural Disasters expansion.