TL:DR It's an interesting and good looking game to be sure, but I'm not entirely certain on how to go about things.

After just about an hour, I have concluded that City Builder is inaccurate and this is more of a 4X (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate.) The city building part really is more expanding districts to gain population and connecting to resource nodes than fiddling about with on goings of the city. You don't even have to worry about food and services for your city, just gaining the resources you need to expanded it to house more workers to gather more resources. The problem I've run into is figuring out how resources from those nodes are routed. In my current city format, I was originally producing 12 wood and 5 stone. After upgrading the bridges to stone and nothing else, I was suddenly producing 7 wood and 7 stone. More fiddling revealed the direction I connected various bridges effected how many resources I was producing, but I am still not entirely sure why. Press Tab to show the flow of resources didn't see to help as I couldn't see any changes in flow from what it had been before the bridge upgrades. Also, I haven't worked out how to acquire more extractors, though I assume base on current gameplay I find disabled ones to deconstruct and relocate at some point.

Outposts I find at see are also a bit of a mystery as well. As far as I can tell, you deconstruct them, carry them via your airship back to your city, plop them down, connect them and things happen. The refugee settlements are rather straight forward, you gain population. The others like the Surveyors and the diplomacy guilds... It's more difficult telling. Surveyors allow you to spot things farther out, but by how much I can't tell. I guess I spotted one refugee camp further out than normal, but it's hard for me to say honestly. Diplomats I truly have no idea what they do. Trading thus far has been difficult. I found one minor faction to trade with, they told me to bring in more workers to initiate trade, so I put the wood and worker transport captain on it, then I get told to connect the trade harbor to them to gather wood. Except I can't seem to do that and I don't appear to be gaining any wood or further diplomatic actions with this faction.

Combat has happened, but I missed it. Some birds flew around, I saw lasers, and by the time I figured out where it was happening and got the airship and camera oriented towards it, it was over. We won. Yaaay. No idea what happened and I had absolutely no input in that event. Maybe later as I stumble across other factions I'll figure it out. Oh, and I have a sloop on my longest trade route that will shoot at things I guess. The trade route was labeled "Risky" before is now "Safe and Protected." Now if I could get that trade route to produce something with that minor faction, that'd be great.

So now that my gripe fest is over, what so good about it? It sounds like I don't like the thing, so why give it a recommend? Well for one, the aesthetic pushes all my buttons.Stone towers and ramshackle buildings clinging on for dear life on jagged rock outcroppings jutting out of the sea. A mass of humanity clinging onto civilization in this hostile environment. The storms, the monstrous creatures, and the sea and air ships bobbing about. Oh yes please. Also, I feel that there is a game in here that interests me, but I've yet to unlock how to go about playing it in full. I keep getting flashbacks to the early '00's real time 4X games like Rise of Nations and Empire Earth. Now those games had more in-depth game mechanics to them, to be sure, but this game keeps bumping against the same base concepts and basic mechanics as them. I have a primary settlement, I expand it and my ability to bring resources to feed it's expansion. The game suggests that I set up other settlements to bring in more resources, though I have yet to figure this part out. I encounter other factions in which I engage with in either diplomacy or warfare, depending which benefits me most at the time. The biggest thing I am missing is constructing units to enforce and protect my expansion, but you do gain units in the form of recruitable captains to defend you trade routes that feed your expansion. It's causing an itch I haven't felt in some time, and I want to explore the game more to see if it can satiate it.

And I would be absolutely remiss if I didn't say that the game has seem solid in the performance department and is free of engine jank and weirdness. Sure the mechanics and controls can be a bit... Inscrutable? Obscure? But the base from which they are built are solid. To do that and make such a, in my opinion, good looking game by one person is laudable.

So yeah, the game has issues that you might have to work around and fiddle with to get the most out of the game. But there is something there and the game is good (and cheap) enough that I am willing to find out exactly what that is. So good on the solo dev for making a solid, if a bit fiddly game.

TL:DR It's an interesting and good looking game to be sure, but I'm not entirely certain on how to go about things. After just about an hour, I have concluded that City Builder is inaccurate and this is more of a 4X (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate.) The city building part really is more expanding districts to gain population and connecting to resource nodes than fiddling about with on goings of the city. You don't even have to worry about food and services for your city, just gaining the resources you need to expanded it to house more workers to gather more resources. The problem I've run into is figuring out how resources from those nodes are routed. In my current city format, I was originally producing 12 wood and 5 stone. After upgrading the bridges to stone and nothing else, I was suddenly producing 7 wood and 7 stone. More fiddling revealed the direction I connected various bridges effected how many resources I was producing, but I am still not entirely sure why. Press Tab to show the flow of resources didn't see to help as I couldn't see any changes in flow from what it had been before the bridge upgrades. Also, I haven't worked out how to acquire more extractors, though I assume base on current gameplay I find disabled ones to deconstruct and relocate at some point. Outposts I find at see are also a bit of a mystery as well. As far as I can tell, you deconstruct them, carry them via your airship back to your city, plop them down, connect them and things happen. The refugee settlements are rather straight forward, you gain population. The others like the Surveyors and the diplomacy guilds... It's more difficult telling. Surveyors allow you to spot things farther out, but by how much I can't tell. I guess I spotted one refugee camp further out than normal, but it's hard for me to say honestly. Diplomats I truly have no idea what they do. Trading thus far has been difficult. I found one minor faction to trade with, they told me to bring in more workers to initiate trade, so I put the wood and worker transport captain on it, then I get told to connect the trade harbor to them to gather wood. Except I can't seem to do that and I don't appear to be gaining any wood or further diplomatic actions with this faction. Combat has happened, but I missed it. Some birds flew around, I saw lasers, and by the time I figured out where it was happening and got the airship and camera oriented towards it, it was over. We won. Yaaay. No idea what happened and I had absolutely no input in that event. Maybe later as I stumble across other factions I'll figure it out. Oh, and I have a sloop on my longest trade route that will shoot at things I guess. The trade route was labeled "Risky" before is now "Safe and Protected." Now if I could get that trade route to produce something with that minor faction, that'd be great. So now that my gripe fest is over, what so good about it? It sounds like I don't like the thing, so why give it a recommend? Well for one, the aesthetic pushes all my buttons.Stone towers and ramshackle buildings clinging on for dear life on jagged rock outcroppings jutting out of the sea. A mass of humanity clinging onto civilization in this hostile environment. The storms, the monstrous creatures, and the sea and air ships bobbing about. Oh yes please. Also, I feel that there is a game in here that interests me, but I've yet to unlock how to go about playing it in full. I keep getting flashbacks to the early '00's real time 4X games like Rise of Nations and Empire Earth. Now those games had more in-depth game mechanics to them, to be sure, but this game keeps bumping against the same base concepts and basic mechanics as them. I have a primary settlement, I expand it and my ability to bring resources to feed it's expansion. The game suggests that I set up other settlements to bring in more resources, though I have yet to figure this part out. I encounter other factions in which I engage with in either diplomacy or warfare, depending which benefits me most at the time. The biggest thing I am missing is constructing units to enforce and protect my expansion, but you do gain units in the form of recruitable captains to defend you trade routes that feed your expansion. It's causing an itch I haven't felt in some time, and I want to explore the game more to see if it can satiate it. And I would be absolutely remiss if I didn't say that the game has seem solid in the performance department and is free of engine jank and weirdness. Sure the mechanics and controls can be a bit... Inscrutable? Obscure? But the base from which they are built are solid. To do that and make such a, in my opinion, good looking game by one person is laudable. So yeah, the game has issues that you might have to work around and fiddle with to get the most out of the game. But there is something there and the game is good (and cheap) enough that I am willing to find out exactly what that is. So good on the solo dev for making a solid, if a bit fiddly game.