Village Tale Review (PC)

I was somewhat reluctant to chuck myself into yet another city-building idler at first, mainly due to the fact that I had only just bolted the doors on Furry Company before Village Tale came strolling along to introduce itself. The concept itself wasn’t drastically different from the remainder of its ilk. Moreover, it utilized a lot of the same basic spiel as kin—with words that varied from build, craft, and upgrade filling out its description. I figured, if I had already built a plethora of cities, and had crafted enough materials to construct countless tools and upgrades, then I would’ve needed something with a little more pizzazz to persuade me into doing it all over again in an alternate universe. I wanted to see it, but I also had a multitude of other iterations vying for the same spotlight, too. Oh, Village Tale had to shine.

A laid-back idler game at its core, Village Tale doesn’t employ any convoluted mechanics or means of solving obscene problems — or anything of that nature. Like most, if not all of its competitors, it vies for but a tiny fraction of your attention—a slither of time, if only to give itself the opportunity to expand its quarters and present you with the chance to broaden its appeal. It doesn’t force you into doing anything that you don’t want to do; on the contrary, it grants you the freedom of being able to tend to more pressing matters elsewhere whilst it lumbers the brunt of the slack. The only thing that you need to do, similar to your typical idler, is make the occasional contribution to help elevate the general growth of your desktop-based operations.

A Tale of Two Narrators

Village Tale unfolds in a similar fashion as you would naturally expect from a traditional idler, with its world gradually building upon the foundations that you yourself first spread, and its economic development evolving over a drawn-out period of time whilst the player caters to tasks on another application or desktop environment. Through that, a city can thrive, but cannot surpass its potential without frequent instruction from the one who’s pulling the strings from the side. That’s where you come in, governor.

For an idler game that consumes just a small portion of your screen, I’m actually quite surprised by just how much content it shovels into its nexus. Although it isn’t quite as pulpy as a full-fledged city-building IP à la Civilization, it does cater to some smaller, more beginner-friendly audiences — particularly those who share an avid interest in pixel-centric storytelling and smaller scale progression. With a solid emphasis on creating a world over a relatively longer period of time, Village Tale prefers to pique your imagination with small but somewhat meaningful milestones—an extra sawmill here, or a collection of better mining tools there, and so on and so forth. And it does a lot of this incredibly well, even though it does take matters into its own hands by picking up the slack whilst you’re AFK.

A Community That Cares

While the buildings, decor, and general structural designs aren’t particularly fresh in the eyes of the city-building world, players can expect to find a significant improvement over several alternate idlers, including a wider variety of blueprints to construct, resources to accrue, and townsfolk to keep motivated. The actual process of developing the town is often a slow ordeal, I’ll admit, but with an abundance of items to choose from and progression-locked milestones to conquer, there is enough here to keep you plugging away. And that actually counts for a lot.

Thanks to its non-intrusive appearance and warmth as a communal space, Village Tale doesn’t possess any particularly difficult challenges to overcome. As it turns out, the only thing that you need to concern yourself with is earning the in-game currency and developing experience—a job that can quite easily be accomplished by selling resources and making general expansions in the region. To that end, you can spend as little time as you want on the taxing side of things, as the rest of the game more or less fights your corner and fills in a lot of the leftover blanks, so to speak.

To add to all of the above, Village Tale also idles in receipt of a pleasantly charming soundtrack and a cute yet not-so-cluttered visual style that’s incredibly easy on the eyes. Think Stardew Valley, complete with all of the sprightly painted NPCs and wholesome small town aesthetics, and you’ll have a rough idea of what we’re getting at. It’s that, but on a much smaller scale—a pocket-sized, easy-to-minimize scale, at that.

Verdict

Village Tale may not reinvent the wheel with its assets and familiar pocket-sized city-building fodder, but it does take the initiative to lay the groundwork for a pleasant idler experience that bears the weight of a memorable tale that’s surprisingly refreshing to watch unfold on its own accord. And while I can’t bring myself to say that it boasts the best features in the world, much less the workings of an artistic visionary, it does, on the other hand, settle for a formula that will no doubt appeal to those with a keen heart for minute design choices and accessible UI elements that don’t interfere with your regular workflow or daily exercises.

With thanks to its charming thumb-sized composition and its generous range of building blocks and other city-building fodder, Village Tale stands tall as one of the more impressive cousins of its sizable family tree. Again, it isn’t stupendously interactive, much less as hands-on as your traditional strategy city-building game. And so, if you’re looking for something with a great deal of depth and added vigor, then you might be surprised by just how simple Village Tale can be to flow through. If you’ve a smidgen of extra space on your desktop for a second home, however, then I could certainly think of a much worse place to wipe your feet and hang your coat. Take from that what you will, folks.