Thoughts on Retro-Pixel Castles after some major updates, a godlike village simulator on Linux

I really liked Retro-Pixel Castles when I played it initially last year, and after trying it again now it has had some major updates I have some more thoughts on it.

Note: Game is in Early Access.
Disclaimer: Key provided by developer.

First issue: The game needs Java to run, and it doesn’t come with it bundled in any way. If you don’t have it, it will tell you to go install OpenJDK. I really hope the developer is able to sort this out once it’s more developed.

It’s a mix between a village builder, a survival game and a god sim. You need to do the usual gathering of resources, look after your villagers needs, but also fend off attack from zombies, skeletons and icky slimes. You also have an influence bar, which enables you to use different forms of magic.

It has elements of a real time strategy inside too, as you will need to build up walls and defence towers to help protect your people.

Since I played the game in July last year it has gone through some massive upgrades, the most impressive of which are the higher resolution graphics and it looks fantastic. The game really does look vibrant now, and I actually love the graphical style. I appreciate retro looks aren’t for everyone, but this has the retro style done really beautifully.

The animations have also been updated to be smoother, and the UI also went through an overhaul. Overall the game has come on leaps and bounds since I played it last year and it’s impressive!

The developer implemented a feature I directly asked for too: Building priority. Now you can tell your villagers what to build first, next and last and it makes it much better. Before I was having to do building placement one at a time, and it was slow. Now you can place your entire village, and set the build order up how you want.

On top of that, it’s also far easier to see at a glance how far along buildings are, as they have a nice percentage amount in numbers on top of them. It actually looks quite good, and it’s another useful change.

This is one game I’m really happy exists, as it feels a little bit like Settlers, including seeing your workers actually build the buildings after resources are deposited for it. A fair few games either just let you place a finished building, or don’t have animations of the buildings at different stages, so that makes me really like it.

The new colour transition from day to night looks fantastic too, the developer has really improved every aspect of this game, it’s quite incredible really.

I think you guys really need to check this one out. Even now it's quite amazing what the developer has achieved, and when it has more buildings to make the town planning more fun it's going to be incredible.

Find Retro-Pixel Castles on Steam now. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.