“All cities are mad: but the madness is gallant. All cities are beautiful, but the beauty is grim.” – Christopher Morley

There is an old saying, from someone…somewhere, that there is beauty in chaos. Never has that sentiment held more true than my time with ShantyTown.

ShantyTown has termed itself as a “relaxing diorama-building game”, which to be honest, is fairly accurate! It’s also the second title from Silk Softworks, with their first launch titled Kainga: Seeds of Civilization – a roguelite village-builder (the first that I have heard of). ShantyTown’s publishing was handled by Kinephantom Games, a new publishing studio based in London.

Gamer Social Club was able to get a slight early lead on our review of ShantyTown. We (and by we, I mean I) also had a chance to get a sneak peak of the title at PAX East this year, as ShantyTown was able to secure a slot at the coveted PAX Rising Showcase. The demo – phenomenal. The full game – even more phenomenal! That being said, let’s dive into our review!

The World & The Story

The World

ShantyTown is situated in an Earth-like setting. While it all feels familiar to areas of Southeast Asia, there are definitely bits and pieces here and there that are alien in nature. I’m mainly talking about the four-legged creatures that wander the marshlands of the planet.

So yeah – these creatures are large enough to carry full-on structures atop their bodies. Neat! That being said, I genuinely enjoyed the Earth-adjacent vibes of the world in this game. Just familiar enough to really sink your teeth into, but just foreign enough to really keep you engaged.

The Story

So, there is a story in ShantyTown. Is it extensive? No – not at all. But truth be told, it’s not really needed for a title like this, where the focus is more on setting up and designing locations. The story of the game focuses on you, the surveyor of Westmarsh. As the surveyor, it will be your role in ShantyTown to design, build, and catalogue various locations in this world. Overall, ShantyTown has eight specific survey locations to review, but 20 overall locales to design (if that makes sense).

Your journey starts in a small landing near the local lighthouse and progresses from there to various locations. From a casino atop marshland rocks, to hillside temples, you’ll have full design control over each of these locations.

**SPOILER** To cap off the story of ShantyTown, once you have surveyed all locations of the region, you’ll submit your report on your findings. You can take one of two choices – commend the people of the region for their ingenuity in designs and discuss the beauty of the locales…or focus on all the pollution and chaos of the region that must be razed to the ground. I opted for the former – as I definitely fell in love with my created world.

Seriously, HOW can you say no????

The Gameplay

Main Design Story Mode

The gameplay to ShantyTown is minimal, as all of the game’s focus is around designing a location. Have you ever played a game like The Sims 4 or SimCity? Imagine that – place your structures in a way that you see fit! But here’s the catch with ShantyTown – there is emphasis on “completing” each structure in each location so that its full potential is realized. Each structure has three “services” that are required to various degrees:

• Light – Provided from things like windows, neon signs, and street lamps.
• Utility – Provided from design items like trashcans, antennae, and a wide array of other assets.
• Decor – Provided from greenery, advertisements, and other set pieces.

A fully “completed” structure will, I guess evolve, and look much more “built”. Completed structures also generate another design asset to use in your current location, some of which are “rare” and unique to that location.

In each location, you’ll also have a handful of Objectives/Parameters to follow in your design process. It might require you to fully meet the Objectives of specific structures, or it may dictate that structures can’t exceed a certain height. And yes, you can keep building vertically in this game.

The mechanic in which you obtain your design assets functions almost like a deckbuilder, in that you don’t get to just “choose” which pieces to lay down when. You’ll have three items at your disposal to choose most of the time and they’ll only get replaced once you place one in your tableau.

BlankSpace Mode

This is for pure creation if you’re feeling the itch. You’re provided with, well, a blank space to build and build and build to your heart’s content.

You’ll also have all of the game’s assets at your disposal to design with. What also looks interesting is that you can have various saved BlankSpaces to utilize, so you can really fine-tune each canvas as you see fit.

And that covers what we have at our disposal in ShantyTown! Now, let’s dive into what I loved and what I struggled with!

The Good

Pure Design Crack

If you’re a designer, or have an angle for cityscape designing, ShantyTown will literally be a drug for you, given the pure creative angle that the game approaches from. Every time I finished up a locale, I thought to myself “I could wipe this and do it a completely different way.” That right there speaks to a good game design – I want to return almost immediately and try my hand at it again!

Unique & Tailored Design Assets

All of the design assets available in ShantyTown felt so perfectly crafted for the world of Westmarsh and the aesthetic of the region. The neon signs, the over-abundance of advertising banners – it all felt very Blade Runner-coded. And I loved it.

Vibes Alone

ShantyTown is such a mood, when it comes to design games, and it was something that I found myself looking forward to after a day of, well, my job that pays my bills. Turning my brain off, designing a little nook of Westmarsh in minute detail – that was the itch my brain needed after a long day. Coupled with the calm atmosphere and serene music, I spent a lot of time just getting lost.

The Bad

Fussy Design Features

I had very little to grind my gears about when it comes to ShantyTown, but there was one facet of the game that I found myself getting frustrated with on occasion. And that was asset placement within the world.

Many times, I found myself trying to place a design item in the world, only to find it linking to everything else in the world except the area I wanted to place it. The biggest culprits – any item that had to link from one area to another. String lights, laundry, utility poles – all of them tended to get fussy.

Honestly, it’s a small detail, but I would not be doing my job if I didn’t mention it.

The Overall

Is ShantyTown going to win Game of the Year at The Game Awards? No. But is it worthy of your time, and worthy of consideration of those numerous smaller indie awards out there? 100% it is! The beautiful designing aesthetics and relaxed vibes, coupled with a near limitless replayability, ShantyTown has definitely won over a fan of this genre of design game.

ShantyTown is available for purchase now on Steam.

Gamer Social Club was provided an early access copy of this game for the purposes of this review. This review was played on PC (Steam).