Review – Microlandia – Gamerview

Before we talk about Microlandia, let’s start with a maxim: if a game is considered a classic, it’s because it did something right. However, the test of time is brutal, and something that amused us in the past may, today, fail to awaken the same sensations. Who has never spent hours configuring an emulator to play that game that was part of their childhood, only to play for 10 minutes and see that the experience was far less than expected? Personally, I had this same feeling not long ago, when I bought SimCity 4 to remember the golden times of . As you can imagine, I uninstalled the game so quickly that I even got a refund. Perhaps we are unaccustomed to advances in quality of life – or, taking a more melancholy view, perhaps we have become old and unable to appreciate the same things we enjoyed when we were young.

Nostalgia is a double knife theedges. On the one hand, it transports us to a simpler time, when we could have fun with very little effort. On the other hand, when we are tempted to relive this effect, we notice some flaws that make the search for that happy feeling almost impossible. With that in mind, there is a market for games that offer a retro experience, reminiscent of that era, but with all the advances that make the player’s life easier. It is in this scenario that Microlandia fits, with the look and simplicity of games like , but without the stress and peculiarities that make old games practically unplayable.

Simple but complex

Microlandia is a city-builder simple. If you are one of those who manage public money worse than a corrupt politician, here, most of the time, you will not have any problems. The simplicity is not only in the graphics, but also in the mechanics. It’s a very easy game to learn and far from the tangle of information found in other titles. Well, that’s all in theory, because in practice, all it takes is something going off track to create a gigantic snowball effect. The complexity is not in the mechanics, but in the simulation that takes place behind the screen.

The classic mechanics of dividing zones into industrial, commercial and residential has been simplified. In Microlandia, you only have two types of zones: commercial and residential. The industry is embedded in the commercial part, and you still need to place polluting factories on the outskirts of the city. Note that I used the term zone to refer to this mechanic, but there is no zoning in Microlandia. Instead of designating an area, you choose a building type and add it within the city. In theory, you can mix the residential part with the commercial part well. There is even the possibility of building buildings that have both residential and commercial apartments on the ground floor – a particularity that exists in more modern games, such as Cities Skylines.

In addition to commerce and residences, public services are also present. Hospitals, schools, police stations and other services also exist, and are built in the same way as commercial and residential buildings. Microlandia leaves aside the more technical aspect, referring to infrastructure (energy, water distribution, garbage collection, etc.). It’s a concession that helps simplify the gameplay, but may bother players looking for a little more realism.

A labor of love

With all this simplicity on the scene, Microlandia ends up becoming a game to be consumed in homeopathic doses. In a few hours you will have seen most of the game, and you probably won’t feel motivated to continue. At the current stage of development, the game has few building options, which gives the city a homogeneous look. The choice to eliminate the zoning element is largely to blame for this. In other games of the genre, the issue of variety of buildings is resolved by the game itself, since you, as a player, only have the power to choose the area and be surprised by the new developments that emerge.

Something that deviates from the simple Microlândia standard is economic simulation. Don’t expect the depth of a Citystate or Tropico; expect a competent simulation with small nuances that clash with the casual tone. That said, understanding the game’s economy is not a big deal – in fact, you can ignore much of it and just start building cities, letting the economic simulation do its job. It is possible to see the income of the stores, the impact of taxes and also carry out a kind of census.

One negative point is the lack of an option to speed up time. You are forced to play at standard speed all the time, and the constant pace hinders the most anxious players, who have to wait extra time until they can collect the money or points needed to build something. The constructions are also not immediate, requiring a wait time until it is completed and, after that, filled with workers or inhabitants.

Despite the problems, Microlandia sells itself as a city-builder simple in scope, but with complex simulations regarding the socioeconomic part. The simulation is based on real data in order to guarantee a realistic experience that brings insights about city management, as well as challenges for the future. However, this factor does not seem to influence the gameplay that much, and all elements of realism can be easily ignored. The simulation parameters were made available by the developers themselves, and anyone can look and understand how things work, as well as the sources used.

Microlandia is a project developed with a very clear vision. He knows very well what he is doing, but the execution is still not 100%. It seems to me like a case of a game that, despite the release of version 1.0, is still in early access. It lacks content, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for the future, as the developers are active and release constant updates. In two weeks, I counted a total of 10 updates – including a major update regarding tourists. The developers have guaranteed that there will be no second title in the franchise, no DLCs, no microtransactions: all new content will arrive in the form of a free update. With a guarantee like that and such a low price, there is no reason not to support the project and imagine that, in the future, it could become as profound in its proposal as similar titles of the genre.