I came to realize that the more grandiose of these archways stood out very prominently on my screenshot-map. “For example, during building I made a number of handsome gateways and arches not out of any kind of planning but merely because I liked how they looked and I liked making them.

These included a fort, a town hall, a big church and a few smaller ones, docks, and so on.”īut once those early features were labeled, they saw more that could be done. “I knew from the beginning that I wanted a northern European Venice-style city, and so I had a list of basic urban features in mind. I asked the creator of the detailed city of Seegrad, Yalensky, whether they had ideas in mind before or whether they let the crooked generation of Townscaper lead them. Others have been sharing their layouts, not for people to explore the labyrinthine streets, but as exercises in developing fictional back stories and lore. “I feel sorry for people’s poor hands and wrists: I gotta add some kind of fast build tool so you don’t have to click for every single house block.” “People are building way bigger and for way longer than I thought,” he says. But filling in all the buildings took hours. He explained that making the actual route was the easiest part: filling in the true path first and then the tricksy false starts. The ones that really stuck with me were the ones that looked like actual hedge mazes, or complex towns, or networks of pipes, instead of just solid lines,” says Audish, so he was inspired to try with the stylish art direction of Townscaper. “Mazes were always one of my favorite ways to spend time as a kid, and I was particularly fascinated by mazes that had an artistic flair to them. That includes the mazes created by Michael Audish of Gold Plated Games. Some make their own games within the game. “People figured out a way to build floating towns without any supports, and I didn’t think that was possible,” says Stålberg, but instructions are now freely available for architects of the more fantastical persuasion. And that can feed back into the game itself. People’s paintovers of their villages have been beautiful, for example. But even that can cause the game to take off in new directions. This is often as simple as sharing towns online. Usually, though, this connection between outside tool and in-game creation goes the other way. “I took some measures, just to make sure I could keep the proportions of the island right.” “I went to SketchFab and searched for a 3D model of the town,” he adds. Though that didn’t stop them from bringing in tools from their day job to help out. “The crooked grid is what it is, and you have to adapt whatever you’re building to that.”īecause of that, Henrique says that they went for “feeling” more than accuracy.

Developer Oskar Stålberg says that he was expecting people to try this sort of thing, but that it’s actually “quite hard” in reality.

Go buy it! Go build some houses! /rhtS2B9cIOīut his design was also influenced by the fact that Townscaper isn’t really designed to make perfect recreations. Flash Games Are Leaving Soon, but Their Memory Will Never Fade.How PlayStation 5’s Instant Loading Could Change Video Game Storytelling.The 8 Best Stealth Games Where I Just Shoot Guys & Hope for the Best.“Making a medieval hilly island just made sense to me.” You May Also Like: “You have a (really interesting and very out-of-the-box) organic grid, a set of houses and towers that can look a lot like Medieval European towns, and a very beautiful and infinite ocean,” he says. That’s what motivated Reddit user henrique3d, an architect and urbanist by profession, to choose it. That’s no surprise, given its geography and architecture reflects the game’s own open water and crowded buildings. For example, there have been several creations inspired by the French island commune of Mont-Saint-Michel. But Townscaper’s strong and particular aesthetic sense has also influenced where they’re looking. For many, that includes stepping outside the boundaries of the game itself, and bridging that gap has led to many of its best creations.Īs often happens in these builder-style games, many players have turned to reality - in this case real world locations - for their inspiration. It doesn’t have guidelines or goals beyond that, allowing players to take it whichever direction they choose. Townscaper is a toybox about creating colorful and quirky towns.

Townscaper designs