Silicon City Preview

Silicon City gave me a bad impression at first. The writing of the tutorial—although clearly not important in a city-building sim—was atrocious. It failed to convey information that helped me understand how to do everything well, such as what the point of the farmlands are. The graphics took me aback at first as well. Although they looked charming in the Steam profile, they seemed different in the tutorial mode. This is even before mentioning the backwards—and misplaced—tildes in the Spanish text, along with some typos.

All of my complaints stopped the moment I entered Classic Mode.

The game offers you the capability to customise a couple of things from the menu before you enter your city. You are given the option to choose:

• Map size (Extra small, Small, or Medium).
• Difficulty (From Very Easy to Very Hard), which dictates how much money you start with.
• Coast, Water, and Forest modifications.
• Main Land, Island, or Desert terrains.
• Classic or Sandbox Mode.

I entered my first city after playing the tutorial; a Main Land, Small city on Easy difficulty.

Although the game’s tutorial felt it was horrible at explaining anything to me, I found that I’d learned everything I needed to know. The game was easy enough to pick up, even though I’d gotten lost in the tutorial and misunderstood something—admittedly, possibly my fault.

I’ve had a city in SimCity before that I played for a long time, so I feel I am adept enough to assure you that the Easy difficulty felt a tad too unchallenging; it isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. The Easy mode—let alone the Very Easy one—should be simple enough to pick up for anyone that isn’t adept at the series, or wants something forgiving (but not as straightforward) as the Sandbox Mode.

The game and its mechanics are overall basic. You are given several building options, and it works similarly to how every other city builder does. For example residential areas shouldn’t go near factories, you need enough jobs for everyone that lives in the city, and you can control taxes which will help you get an influx of money.

One thing I did appreciate in the game, however, were the missions I received to help me through progression, or offer other interesting challenges. At one point, almost half of the civilians of Zennan (my city) gathered signatures begging me to reduce taxes for a year. It was fun because I had to work around the lower income from the petition, and it’s quests like these that made the runs so interesting.

Silicon City is set to release Q4, 2022, so I’m definitely excited to see what else will be added throughout the Early Access period, given the game already feels full enough as it is.