Mini-review: Township - freemium by numbers

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This had been on my radar for a while as needing reviewing, but despite the cute graphics it's ultimately a freemium-by-numbers exercise cross-ported from iOS and Android. Hasn't the market for 'town/village/farm simulations' been saturated by now? There's nothing intrinsically wrong here, other than the potentially sky-high in-app purchases, but it's hard to get inspired to really, you know... care. 

From the Store description:

Township is a unique blend of city-building and farming experience for your tablet and phone! Share your vision of a perfect place to live in! Harvest crops on the farm, run processing facilities and sell goods to develop your town. Explore the mine to get resources and sail to distant islands for exotic products. Open cafes, cinemas and other community buildings to encourage social life.

Are you ready to build your dream? Township is completely free to download and play. Some in-game items can also be purchased for real money, however this is optional and not required for an EXCEPTIONAL GAMING EXPERIENCE.

I'd take issue with the 'Exceptional gaming experience' part, in that the mechanics aren't that different to a dozen other games in the same genre. Credit to the developers for putting some work into the status numbers at the top of the main playing screen, which (for a change in such a port) aren't too small to see properly. And the logistics of building and farming and eating and receiving orders and building and farming and harvesting (etc., you get the idea) do all hang together. It's just that there's nothing here that actually is.... exceptional.

Township screenshot

The cute opening illustrations impress... until you spot that these have been resampled from artwork on other platforms and are all slightly 'fuzzy'...

Township screenshot

In building the town and managing the farm side of things, everything has a timer and, to finish instantly, an associated cost. You can pay to save all the waiting, naturally, and guess what happens when you run out of money? Yep, see below.

Township screenshot

Despite the undoubted production values behind the in-game graphics, the insistence on freemium timers does get a little wearying. Games like this should be about strategy and planning, not trying to work around freemium delays. Just sayin'...

Township screenshot

A what? A helicopter pad? Ah yes, this is a cool but rather unnecessary device to bring in challenges/orders. Still, choppers in a town sim? I'm all for that! Note again the clarity of the top-of-screen stats - so clearly some effort has been put in here.

Township screenshot

And then you get to browse the in-app purchases. 'Best value' on the £77 purchase? Eh? I think not. Spending £3 on the game and putting £74 towards your household groceries and bus fare is rather better value, methinks....

Yet again I find myself calling for a cap on in-app-purchases, to avoid clumsy, unintentional expenses (or perhaps being messed over by your teenage kids who know your PIN). If you've played any freemium-heavy game in the last year or two then you'll know exactly how all this works. Mainly in favour of the developers.*

You can grab this in the Store here if you still want to give this a go, it's around a 90MB download.

* Yet again, in my opinion the perfect place for in-app purchases is for topping up a commercial game with a low purchase price. So a £2.29 cost with no impediments to play and then in-app-purchases of up to, say, £10 to buy extra 'stuff' in the game to customise the experience. 

Source / Credit: Store