Buildings Have Feelings Too! A different way of building cities

What heartless gamers we are as construction strategists. We strive to make the city flourish and our inhabitants happy, but don't spend a second on the heart of our metropolis: the many houses. So it's lucky that Buildings Have Feelings Too! from Merge Games is preparing to focus our attention on the really important things.

The somewhat different city structure

This city has undoubtedly seen better times. The buildings are as dilapidated as the economy, the prospects for the future are miserable - we have to get to work. Our avatar is a nice little house that marches through the streets and vows to do better.

Instead of the obligatory Farm raw materialsthe focus is on fulfilling needs. We act on the basis of gold reserves and fulfill wishes by building pubs, opening shopping facilities and uniting houses with, well, house friends. Sounds fun, and it is.

A study of needs

The first steps are, typically for a building game, straightforward and easy to master. But what begins as a fun game with clever ideas soon turns out to be surprisingly complex.

There is not enough space at the back and front. It often takes several clicks to find out who or what is in the houses and how to optimize the mood and thus the level. Players should be prepared to do a lot of reading and memorizing. And so Buildings Have Feelings Too! sometimes too leisurely and fiddly for its own requirements. However, with a few changes to the gameplay and, above all, the rather sprawling menus, these stumbling blocks could easily be eliminated.

Good ideas, mediocre implementation

Buildings Have Feelings Too! does not redefine the genre by any means, but it knows how to equip it with interesting ideas. It is also proof of why city-building games don't need a main character and can be made worse with too many game elements. Highly complex mechanics can work, but they can also make a game look overambitious and try too hard.