TownCraft

All strategy games have a few elements in common, especially real-time strategy titles that take after the likes of Dune, C&C, or StarCraft. Hence, it should be no surprise when they feel very much the same as well, given the fact that your purpose is very similar in most games, regardless of whether you are protecting humans from orc invasions or a planet from aliens.

TownCraft is a very basic and unimpressive strategy game that aims to emulate the previously mentioned titles, but without any story to drive the gameplay and simplified mechanics to go along with the stiff 2D graphics. As such, while it may not be classified as a true RTS, it can be the perfect tool for beginners to learn the basics, in order to move on to the actual games with a bit of experience.

Sandbox is a term that describes the game at hand better than RTS, on the other hand, because you are theoretically free to do as you like and make up your own story. However, since you only have a handful of units and a couple of buildings to work with, it is pretty difficult to create anything more intricate than a map full of houses and indigo soldiers roaming around.

Just like in every other RTS, your main goal is to use certain structures in order to collect resources and spend them on troops. Trees, iron, and food are what you have to work with, all of which can be easily gathered by building the appropriate resources. Houses are also required in order to be able to expand the population, otherwise you get stuck and unable to spend the resources.

There are many issues that prevent you from having a good time, such as the fact that the houses only slightly increase your population cap and you have to build one every other second in order to keep up. Other annoyances include the fact that you cannot queue units, create patrols, or adequately defend against unending hordes of blobs that love to attack your villagers.

When it’s all said and done, TownCraft has a lot of growing to do before anyone can properly enjoy it for more than two minutes. Hence, as of right now, there are just too many missing elements and bad design choices that prevent you from having fun for too long.