Laysara: Summit Kingdom - city-building simulation in the mountains

With Laysara: Summit Kingdom, the Polish development studio Quite OK Games, founded in 2021, has created a new city-building game that combines classic simulation with some special features. The game is being published by British publisher Future Friends Games, a small promotional company that recently released the minimalist city builder The Block.

Laysara: Summit Kingdom - A people aiming high

Laysara: Summit Kingdom is a city-building simulation in which players lead a small tribe that has been expelled from the lower regions of the fictional game world and is searching for a new home. The new home: the mountains. There, the kingdom of Laysara is to emerge and shine in new splendor. The players dedicate themselves to this task by first creating rudimentary production chains.

The game's setting brings a breath of fresh air to the city-building genre. The harsh landscape of the high mountains presents players with special challenges. In the mountains, different weather conditions prevail in different zones where raw materials have to be extracted and transported. Difficult conditions are also created by the regular storms and Possible disasters like overrunning avalanches.

Players must therefore think of ways to transport goods despite the numerous cliffs, deep ravines and rivers. Players must create roads, build bridges and develop equipment to overcome these obstacles.

Avalanche mechanics require planning and skill

According to the developers, the avalanches are a special mechanic because they don't come out of nowhere. Instead, players can observe how snow accumulates on mountain slopes over the course of the game. Over time, players should therefore learn where which buildings, Trading post and transportation points should not be built and when is the best time to transport goods along these slopes.

However, it is not only the transportation routes that are in danger. As players in the mountains have no choice but to build settlements on mountain slopes, these must also be protected from possible avalanches by building barriers and ramparts. Players can therefore lose settlements and towns once they have built them if they are not careful.

The better the players manage to do this, the greater the Kingdom in the mountains until it consists of several cities with a complex three-box system that provides further challenges. Each city is responsible for the production of different goods, so players must also build up a flourishing trade network.

No battles in Laysara: Summit Kingdom, but a free sandbox mode instead

During the development of Laysara: Summit Kingdom, the developers deliberately avoided the integration of combat, weapons and war aspects. The focus is entirely on city building, resource management, trade and survival in a strange, harsh environment.

Laysara: Summit Kingdom will be a Campaign with story elements but city building can also be done directly in a sandbox mode. So genre fans don't have to wait to start building their kingdom and can do so at any time in the Sandbox mode tinker with their cities. This user-friendly design allows you to play in many short sections as well as over longer sessions.

The aim is to master nature

Once the players have a functioning kingdom with cities trading with each other, the developers challenge them to one last challenge: Build a summit temple on the highest mountain!

To do this, the players have to apply everything they have learned in city building to a particularly high level of difficulty. Because the path to the mountain peak is the most dangerous route in the entire game. The players must find a way to transport all the resources needed for the temple there in order to create the ultimate symbol of their triumph over the Mountain world to be able to build. All fans of pure Urban planning simulations can look forward to this challenge.