Nova Roma is not a particularly complex city-builder, but it is very thematic, and most importantly, very fun. I’m hooked, and I’ve been out of the city-builder genre for a while.
It is hard to specify what exactly burned me out on city-builders, but I think it might be numbers fatigue. While there are a handful of classics I love to return to, much of the games I’ve experienced in the last little while felt like little more than spreadsheets disguised by a graphical element. I grew exhausted of doing math to determine the exact perfect way to construct my city. While that is the juice for many genre fans, number optimization alone doesn’t do it for me, and I found myself disaffected from the genre as a whole.
Little did I know a game from a small, three-person development studio would succeed where so many big-budget titles have failed, and pull me right back in.
The concept of Nova Roma, developed by Lion Shield Studios, is immediately appealing. You play as colonists fleeing from a failing Rome, looking to build your own Italian splendor on a nearby landmass. The crux of the game revolves around slowly improving your city while also appeasing the gods, who expect worship and platitudes. Keep them happy, and they’ll provide bonuses from their temple. Neglect them and risk their wrath, which can manifest in natural disasters that will befall your city. All with the knowledge that at some point, Old Rome will come for their pound of flesh, and you’d better hope you haven’t neglected your military.
The city-building fundamentals are sound, the tech tree is fun to expand, and Nova Roma masterfully handles that central city-builder gameplay loop of “I have three problems to fix, but I can only meaningfully work towards two.” It is a good city builder. But truthfully, it is everything around it that has pulled me in. The Roman setting is tremendously appealing to me, and from the visuals to the UI, and the soft music in the background, the theming is very strong. I love the god system, and the constant threat of divine punishment does a good job lighting a fire under my feet, and gives me something to work towards between major accomplishments. I adore the physics-based dam building, and it is easy to spend half an hour or more simply experimenting with different builds for a dam, well before committing to it. Above all, I love the reactivity. Having to scramble to control your dam controls during floods, being constantly alert for invasions from the mother country, I love how much Nova Roma keeps you on your feet.
I can’t wait to follow the journey of Nova Roma as it enters early access on March 26th, and please keep your eyes peeled for early access coverage around launch!
How about you? Are you interested in building your own Rome in Nova Roma? Are you also feeling city-builder fatigue? Let us know in the comments below!
Featured Image: Lion Shield Studios
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