ShantyTown Review (PC)

ShantyTown illuminates the potential of small nooks and crannies in a claustrophobic yet irresistibly cozy diorama in which every alley, every wall, and every space tells a unique tale of its own. With little to no panoramic views or even the breathing room to host broad serenity, it finds comfort in the tiny details—in the towering shacks, the crooked foundations, and the skewered boroughs that each tell a vastly different story. Oh, ShantyTown doesn’t opt for the traditional route; it chooses to highlight the beaten path—the course that leads to the densely populated cloisters and overhanging monoliths. It might lack the charm of an oceanic resort or the natural outstanding beauty of a tropical island, but if ShantyTown does anything at all, it makes a habit of proving that even the smallest, dankest spaces can radiate enough warmth and beauty to lift your spirits.

In most cubby-crafting terraforming sims you have the wriggle room to branch out and expand grand-scale biomes, whereas in ShantyTown you have the chance to look within the tight crevices and transform open terrain into stacked clusters—shops, neon-lit alleys, and towering apartment blocks, for example. But that’s not all that you do here. Rather, you have the opportunity to embellish each canvas with a wide variety of simple touches, from draping flora to stairs, interlocked signage to communal allotments. If you can dream it, then you can sure as heck built it here. Also, the game rewards you for cramming as much detail into your workspace as possible, too — so there’s that.

While there aren’t too many tasks for you to tackle in ShantyTown, the game does offer upwards of twenty original stages to work on, with each biome having its own livery of buildings and set pieces to implement and manipulate. As the overseer in this case, it falls to you to figure out how to make the most of the pieces at your disposal, and how to transform open spaces into tightly locked honeycomb worlds. There are no right or wrong answers — only opportunities for you to explore and adapt to the ever-evolving nature of the universe and all of its airtight ecosystems. Moreover, there are no critical timers to squash, and there are no bad endings for questionable architectural decisions. It’s just you, a canvas, and a whole bunch of creative nodes and strands to wax and tailor over a short but oh-so-enjoyable campaign.

Despite the fact that the game does pose the rather daunting task of needing to add small details to dense areas, the UI and simple terraforming tools do make it awfully easy to build, stack, and flesh out each aspect of the on-screen canvas. With a familiar drag and drop scrubbing tool and an intuitive interface that allows you to carefully adjust and decorate each section of the region, you never have to fret about the minor details or accidentally warping your entire diorama. Thankfully, the game does a lot of the work for you, to the point where you only need to highlight your chosen object, and find a spot on the screen to add it to. It might not be the most complicated of sandbox games, but it gets the job done, and that’s all that matters here.

In addition to its sizable campaign mode—an arc that fosters its own collection of dioramas and interwoven set pieces, goals and environmental challenges, ShantyTown also features a sandbox mode—Blankspace—which allows you to take full advantage of the game’s suite and build seemingly impossible creations from the ground up — literally. Granted, this isn’t a new concept in the sandbox space, but it is one that compliments the core gameplay experience and the overarching premise. It might not reinvent the wheel, but it clearly does a splendid job of giving it that little extra elbow grease to help it turn on its axis.

Suffice it to say that, if you do enjoy simple sandbox games that prefer to operate in the slow lane, away from the hustle and bustle of conventional gameplay practices, then you will probably find everything you need and want in ShantyTown. It might be a little light on technical complexity and innovation, but if you long for soothing expeditions that don’t require you to burst a blood vessel to make ends meet, then there’s a good chance that you’ll find what you’re looking for here. Visually, it’s a little on the basic side of the spectrum. But then, like most sandbox worlds, a little TLC can rectify just about anything that you might deem, well, ugly and out of proportion. It’s putting in the hard work to unearth these photogenic aspects, that’s the tough part.

Verdict

ShantyTown squeezes the greatest facets of a typical diorama-building sandbox suite into an airtight biome  that’s full of wonder and neatly designed components. With enough dynamic canvases to accommodate your creative wizardry and all of the right tools to provide you with a versatile set of terraforming options, the game itself comes across as an absolute dreamboat for the fledgling architect. It might not reinvent the wheel, but it does prove that even the strangest things can be made to feel like they belong in the hands of a densely organized ecosystem.

While it’s the polar opposite of a traditional world terraforming sim, ShantyTown does manage to stay afloat in its own cocoon as an original sandbox that contains all of the charming elements of an evergreen experience. It’s a smaller game I’ll admit, and it does make a habit of showcasing that fact in its gameplay. That being said, for what it does bring to the table, it stands out as an exceptional experience that is not only able to highlight the importance of conservation, but also the blooming possibilities that come with the smallest of packages. For that, I’d say that it’s worth the price tag.

If games like Townscraper or High Above are to your liking, then I can assure you that ShantyTown will be more than capable of keeping you occupied for two or three hours between loftier bouts of terraforming. It’s relaxing, comforting, and above all, a true feast for the senses.