Flooded

Advertised as a ‘reverse city builder’, it was hard to resist the pull of Flooded. Sure, the low quality visuals made it seem like a mobile game at first glance, but the concept alone gave the game a charm that could make the experience worthwhile.

And I’m glad I did decide to give it a shot, as there’s a lot here to like.

Many thanks to Forever Entertainment for the review code.

FIGHTING THE FLOOD
Set during a world that has been plagued by constant flooding, a group of survivors set out to find a save haven where they can create a new habitable world. With island after island suffering from the same issues, this small group have no choice but to extract all the resources they can in order to build an Ark that will help them travel further afield to find a potential home.

As the story implies, there’s a focus on climate change and environmental problems that seem to be biblically extreme. This overall story arc sets the scene for the smaller story set within of a small handful of survivors that are just trying to keep on going against all odds. The dialogue is surprisingly light hearted, even if it’s not overly compelling; however, considering it’s minimal and skippable, it does its job of moving the story along.

You may be wondering what exactly a ‘reverse city builder’ means, and you’d be right to do so. Whilst many of the core elements, such as building, acquiring resources, and obtaining more advanced structures are all as you’d expect from the genre, the core difference lies within the titular concept. Set against an ever increasing flood, your land is constantly reducing in size, with the flood wiping out anything around the current perimeter once the very brief timer hits zero. With such a constant time and land pressure, focus becomes on working efficiently and upgrading lower numbers of buildings to make the best use of the land around the central area. Sure, you can replace mines with water-based variants to keep a steady supply of resources, but everything else runs the risk of being completely destroyed.

It’s a fantastic concept that flips the genre on its head. No longer do you have time to build these carefully planned cities, instead opting to cram stuff in and demolishing outer buildings for emergency supplies. With a set series of objectives to tick off in each chapter, your goal will simply be to get everything done before moving onto the next island. Usually this involves building certain structures, but you may be required to clear out trees, build a ship, or obtain a certain number of resources. With the time ever ticking away, this means you’ll likely end up doing so by any means necessary. Often I used the management menu to funnel all my workers into a certain type of resource simply to get that boxed ticked. Sometimes it would mean destroying less important buildings just to get what I need. It’s a cut-throat system, but this is survival.

The controls are relatively straightforward and work well for the most part, and the game thankfully includes an option to manage and build stuff whilst time is paused if you’re struggling. I never feel the need to do so, but it’s certainly a welcome option for those who are more used to mouse and keyboard controls for a game like this. I would have liked to have seen touchscreen options to help speed up the management process, but the game’s lack of complexity certainly works in its favour.

There are 12 missions in total, each lasting about 20 minutes or so; as well as a quickplay and endless mode, for those who want to keep on going outside of the campaign. For the affordable price, it’s certainly enough to justify a purchase – especially as the game’s brutal difficulty will probably result in you failing many of the missions on your first time (heck, even the ‘relaxed’ mode will have you sweating!). Yet, even with all the anxiety and failure that I encountered, I still found myself wanting to continue. Wanting to survive. And that really is the beauty of Flooded.

VERDICT
Despite the surprising difficulty, Flooded had me invested in trying to micromanage an ever-decreasing island as it headed towards disaster. It may not have the best art style in the world, but the cute gimmick will still prove fun to genre veterans – and will probably have them sweating too!