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Title:  Townsmen
Developer:  Handy Games
Publisher:  Handy Games
Website:  https://handy-games.com/en/games/townsmen
Genre:  Strategy
Platform:  Nintendo Switch
Audience:  7+
Release Date:  November 9th 2018
Price:  £19.99 – Rapid Reviews was very kindly provided with a review code for this title.

Introduction

Ever wondered how difficult it would be run a medieval kingdom? Well, there’s no need to wonder anymore as ‘Townsmen’ lets you do just that. A very in-depth strategy game, take control of a number of kingdoms, grow your populations, keep them happy and protect your kingdom from bandits. Here’s a rapid review of the latest strategy game on the block.

Gameplay and Replayability

If you’ve played city building games before then, you’re going to get the basic principles of Townsmen right away. Build new structures, maintain them, upgrade them. Sounds simple enough but Townsmen has a lot more depth to it than you think. A number of buildings can only be built once you’ve built other structures, you need to manage your workers to build these structures while also maintaining the daily workflow of your town. And then, of course, there is money. You’ve got to spend your tax money wisely to ensure you don’t go bankrupt.

Here’s the thing with Townsmen, its core gameplay is fun, but my goodness is it slow. Since you require on the population of your town to build new structures, it can take a lot of grinding to get things going. There were more than a few occasions where I was able to assign my workers to tasks and then go away and do something completely different. I like my city building strategy games to be a bit more engrossing.

Despite the slow nature of Townsmen, this was nothing compared to the ridiculous control setup in this game. When you first start up Townsmen, you have the option to play through a range of tutorials or jump straight in. You would think that with a tutorial, it would you know, guide you through the controls. Nope. In the very first tutorial, I spent the first twenty minutes trying to figure out how to unassign a worker from the castle and assign them elsewhere. The tutorials consist of essentially saying; you need a building, build it. It would have been handy if it had gone through the menus and talked the player through everything? Just a thought.

Once you’ve got to grips with everything, Townsmen does have a lot to offer. There are over 20 scenarios for you to play through, each ranging in difficulty and you can also play in any of the 20+ sandbox levels. For many, the sandbox maps are where most players will navigate to and spend countless hours building their towns.

Looks & Sounds

Graphically, Townsmen is a pretty looking game even if it is a little bland. Developer Handy Games have gone for a slightly retro art style – it reminds me a lot of the original Rollercoaster Tycoon game back in the late nineties. There’s not a lot of moving animation in your kingdoms aside from smoke coming from chimneys and your citizens moving from one place to another. One neat little animation is when one of your citizens will look straight up at you and make angry gestures at you. Something has gone wrong, and I wish I knew what it was.

As Townsmen is set in medieval times, it needs a soundtrack to suit, and Townsmen certainly delivers on that. The music for each world is sufficiently medieval, instantly making me think of Robin Hood and Nottingham Forest, so it’s certainly done its job.

Conclusion

If you’re a big fan of city building style strategy games, then Townsmen is going to be a game that you’ll want to add to your collection. If you’re new to the genre and looking to try it out, then Townsmen isn’t a bad shout, prepare yourself for the weird control setup.

Rapid Reviews UK Rating

You can purcahse Townsmen on the Nintendo eShop at the following link, https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-download-software/Townsmen-1466165.html