14 DAY TRIAL // 
It is often said that cities are living organisms, that have a soul. It is an interesting concept, one that usually refers to the people and communities living together. Buildings have feelings too! switches things around, and as the title suggests it focuses on landmarks rather than humans. Is it a city builder? Is it a puzzle game? Read on to find out.
The apogee of SimCity and other city-building games is long gone, the fans of the genre being neglected by the developers. Beyond Cities: Skyline I cannot recall a game in recent history to have offered the strangely pleasant struggle of managing a city ad shaping it into a wonder of brick and mortar. That is why I was so excited when Blackstaff announced Buildings have feelings too! hoping to relive the glorious days in the picturesque setting of Ireland. But, as often is the case, the first impression can be misleading.
It all starts with our hero, a building that was the witness of the great times when landmarks and glorious constructions dominated the landscape. To restore the neighborhoods to their former glory, our brick and mortar hero will become a manager/therapist for the surrounding buildings. In theory, you will manage the cities, in reality, you will deal with the feelings of the buildings. Your ultimate goal is to reach a high score for every neighborhood, by listening and answering the particular needs of each building, and then moving on to another area.
Beyond the landmarks of each city that often are unmovable, you will be able to erect new buildings, in different shapes and sizes, give them a purpose by turning them into residential areas, offices, factories, or pubs. The better you do, the more bricks you will earn and you will be able to build more advanced structures.
Each location offers limited space and you will have to make do with what the producers offered. There is no way to expand the space, and since each building will be either positively or negatively affected by its surroundings, pretty soon you will realize that this game is a big puzzle, cleverly disguised as a city building experience.
You will have to juggle pollution, the smell of food emanating from the bistros, the need for peace of the family buildings, the need for entertainment of the tenants, and the fact that often these specific traits are in conflict with each other. Residential areas are reacting negatively to industrial areas, even if the latter is needed to supply the shops that ensure the development of the family houses. All these variables are presented as an intricate network of feelings expressed by the buildings. The only leeway in your struggle to achieve a state of harmony is that most constructions can be uprooted and repositioned. But, the process is cumbersome due to the imprecise controls.
Even if you have clear objectives, the game does not do a very good job in explaining how you can best achieve them. The tutorial is a summary at best, and often you have to piece together cryptic hints about what buildings need to evolve. You will have to stay constantly on your toes, relocate constructions, demolish them, and erect other ones, constantly changing the landscape of the neighborhood until you reach the desired level of happiness.
Despite giving you the impression of freedom and offering a variety of building sizes and types, the game is quite linear. You will be always focused on solving the current puzzle, rather than developing the city of your dreams. The biggest problem is not the disguised puzzles, but the very steep level of difficulty. The game throws you in deep water before you have learned how to swim.
After the introductory part, there is little room for error, because unhappy buildings will start to devolve. When the red circle above their roof goes full circle they will become abandoned and you will need to spend precious bricks to demolish and replace them. If you are not careful, things will quickly spiral out of hands and you will go bankrupt. If that happens, you will have to restart the game, since there is only one save slot used by both manual and automatic saves. And since the game tends to activate autosave at the very worst moments, and because there is no option to restart a specific chapter, you will have to start over the entire game.
Unfortunately, this is not the only annoying design choice made by the developers. The menus are clumsy and not very intuitive, the control is very unprecise and things only get worse when you have to react fast to avoid crises. It is very challenging to juggle several buildings if they start decaying at the same time, and the control scheme makes it hard to swap them around quickly.
The visual style is a very interesting blend of hand-drawn constructions, that create a unique atmosphere. Despite the enticing artistic direction, the overall graphics are not particularly cutting edge, so it is impossible to explain the very long loading times.
The Good
- Unique visual style
- Plenty of challenging puzzles
- Interesting concept
The Bad
- Very steep difficulty curve
- Unforgivable long loading screens
- Poor save game system
Conclusion
The game leaves little room for error and it is frustrating that it does not allow you to retry a specific chapter, rather it forces you to restart the entire game. Even if you like solving puzzles, the level of difficulty will be off-putting because they are paired with clunky controls.
