SteamWorld Build is a unique robot city builder that runs into trouble underground

297987

SHOULD I PLAY STEAMWORLD BUILD?

SteamWorld Build is a great choice for players new to economy management games. Despite the fact that it adds underground mining and adventuring elements, though, it’ll come across as fairly basic to anyone familiar with the genre, particularly the Anno series. It’s a game about establishing a robot mining town on a robot Wild West planet, and while it throws in some neat ideas, it can feel frustratingly limiting at times.

TIME PLAYED

I played five and a half hours of SteamWorld Build. Over the course of that time, I established my first town, descended into the mines, unearthed the first three pieces of the ancient technology my people needed to escape the planet, and explored the first two underground levels pretty thoroughly. Starting with workers, I unlocked the engineer, aristo-bot, and scientist classes, and reflected a bit on how each newer, wealthier, and more specialized robot type pushed the lower-skilled bots out toward the edges of my expanding city.

WHAT’S AWESOME ABOUT STEAMWORLD BUILD?

• Intro to economic management. Diving headfirst into Anno 1800 or Victoria 3 is something only sickos like me tend to enjoy, so it was great to see some of the same principles at work in a much simpler, more approachable game like SteamWorld Build. Each type of robot had a set of needs I needed to fulfill in order for them to be eligible for upgrading into the next class. Workers, for example, needed access to a general store and a service station, but when they became engineers, suddenly they needed charcoal, hamburgers, and a surveyor’s office.

This meant that the core of my town, where I was trying to concentrate all my shops and production facilities to overlap as many of them as possible, was constantly under renovation as new bot types became available. Once the aristo-bots showed up, I had to relocate the saloon to the outskirts of town to make way for the casino and fine dining restaurants the fancy folks needed. It’s an object lesson in gentrification and the challenges that come with it.

• Cool mining layer. SteamWorld Build isn’t just about laying out a bustling little robot boomtown. I also was in charge of the mines, which completely changed the game. Starting out from my initial mineshaft, I had miner robots dig out chambers where I could lay out quarters for additional miners, prospectors, guards, and mechanics. The mines contained hidden riches like gold and rubies, but there were threats too: a creeping alien vine system that I had to root out with flamethrowers, and bug-spawning hives that sent ravenous giant beetles and grubs into my tunnels. Fortunately, as I developed new technologies, I was able to set up defensive turrets and automatic extraction systems that delivered resources to the surface over conveyor belts.

• Bright, lively art. The SteamwWorld games have always had a colorful, storybook look to them, and that’s carried over into 3D in SteamWorld Build. I loved looking at my city as it grew, with its shanty houses, smokestacks, and cactus farms all humming away as citizens bustled along the streets carrying boxes or heading to dinner.

WHAT SUCKS ABOUT STEAMWORLD BUILD?

• The mining layer feels limited. After my initial excitement about getting to build a second settlement underground, I was disappointed to find that the mining layer wasn’t very free-form at all. Indestructible “bedrock” blocks funneled me into very specific mine layouts, so I didn’t feel like I really had the chance to get creative the way I do in Dwarf Fortress or Dungeon Keeper.

• Strict progression path. The limitations I felt in the mines kind of extended out across the rest of the game as well. There were hard stops on my progress throughout the game, and I’d have to have a certain number of aristo-bots to proceed past one and unlock a piece of tech for another. This is a game that should feel like forging new ground, like exploring—but instead I felt like I was following someone else’s plan the whole time.

• Unclear rules for production chains. Each of my buildings had a specific range for its effectiveness, which makes sense on its own, but started to get confusing with the addition of raw materials extraction facilities, production plants, and retail shops. It was too difficult to diagnose problems ahead of time, and instead I found myself having to react to entire populations of bots being mad that they weren’t getting an essential product or service.

PLATFORM TESTED

PC, via Steam