Shanty Town PAX East Preview

Shanty Town is a game I'd been following for about a year now. Getting an opportunity to play an indie game I'd been following for so long was pretty surreal, but the game itself felt even better to play than I'd ever imagined. It's a cozy town builder, so that might sound a little bit odd, but the game is pretty inventive.

I got to sit down and talk with the developer while playing the game, and have him explain some of his inspiration behind it, along with some of the finer points of the experience. This cozy game does things a little differently, since it does have levels for players to move through, but overall, there's no real rush to do anything.

It's a simple and fun game with some great artwork and fun ways to play. I didn't get too much time with it, but luckily, no one has to wait all that long to play. For this preview, I'll cover some of the things I discussed with Erik Rempen, the game developer, as well as some of the interesting design philosophies he employs to make the game a unique experience.

What is Shanty Town?

Shanty Town is a cozy game where you'll build a small community in an effort to make that area livable. Some areas are large, while others are small, and you'll get to decide how creatively you want to build your community. Each area represents an area and has certain objectives to complete, all of which are rather easy to manage.

You can swap the looks and colors of most items to fit whatever sort of design you're going with, or you can just make it the most chaotic thing you can think of. There's a lot of freedom here in how you engage with the game, which is great because the game is cozy and wants you to take things at your own pace.

Once you've managed to finish all the objectives, you can either keep building in the area or simply take a picture and move on to the next. You'll eventually run out of pieces to place and have to proceed, but there is a creative mode where that just isn't a problem anymore. It's nice to sort of have a reason to move on to the next rather than just being in a static place.

To complete objectives, you'll need to put down houses and shops and then give them the amenities they need to turn them into actual places where people can live. They have a little popping animation where they become a full-fledged home or storefront rather than a sort of collection of walls and other items.

Building Up, Not Out

Shanty Towns are a real thing in the world, and focus on building in relatively small places, so everything is sort of stacked on top of one another. The same thing applies here, which was a cool concept to employ, and gives players some interesting choices in how they want to set up their communities.

You could stack every single building on top of each other and not have a problem in theory, although if you care about aesthetics, you'd probably want to rip your eyes out. There's enough space on most of the beginning levels to let you really play around with your setup, too. You can also stack the amenities on these buildings with no real regard for safety.

It was pretty hilarious, as I was attempting to quickly play some of the levels while talking and ended up putting a building on top of an aquarium, because that's clearly up to code. Even when doing that, the game just takes it and runs, basically asking you what you want to do next.

I, for one, really appreciated the lack of seriousness in the game. It's nice to have something that you can choose to take as seriously as you like without having to worry about whether you can "win" or not. All the levels are fairly straightforward, and it's up to players how they want to go about creating their communities on these levels.

An Interesting World from Top to Bottom

Erik also has another game he created called Kainga, and that game shares a world with Shanty Town, so there is some worldbuilding for those who want to invest in it. That's also not where the worldbuilding ends. Each area you visit is connected to the previous and next areas.

Completing an area means you'll get a little flyover to the next one, and in many cases, you can see the area you came from or you're heading to in the background. It was a great way to keep the world connected and feel like you're actually having an impact. Beyond that, things all fit together, like the signs for public transport are real and will line up if you take the time to check them.

That kind of depth doesn't mean much in terms of gameplay, but for a lot of cozy players, it's a great way to immerse themselves in the world. It's really not something you often get with bigger games, but in the smaller indie games like this, it's nice to have that attention to detail.

If this sounds interesting, you don't have to wait too long, as the game is coming out on April 16th. It'll have everything cozy gamers dream of, including a creative mode where you can build to your heart's content. This is one you can find yourself playing a lot just to relax, or you can push yourself to make something unique and interesting.