There’s something wonderfully delightful about town-building games that I find draws me to them. I’m fascinated when I see my initially small construction, only to see it become a thriving metropolis after investing hours of playtime.

Wall Town Wonders seemed to promise this experience, but in VR; however, it’s not just a normal town builder – this uses your own environment as a setting. To say I was invested in the concept would be an understatement. I literally could not wait to get my hands on it.

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WALL-TO-WALL FUN
Wall Town Wonders takes the basic idea of a town-builder and turns it into something magical. There are no cities, forests, or deserts to build in; instead, your infrastructure is your own house. Think of the inhabitants like The Borrowers, who are setting up their life in your walls as you give them an occasional hand.

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It’s a fantastic set-up that really shows how well mixed reality can work in the right hands. It doesn’t matter if your gaming space is tiny or huge, as you’re free to mostly set buildings to wherever you feel is best. They could be high or low – simply choose the location you want it to be and place it! Regardless of positioning, it looks extremely pleasing as this steampunk world has an impressive level of detail when viewed from up close. It’s great to stick your head inside just to have a nosy around and see what’s going on inside.

Unlike other town-builders, Wall Town Wonders opts for a more passive approach to gameplay as the city tends to take care of itself a lot of the time. Sure, they’ll need you to help set up new structures and often need a hand with certain activities, but you don’t need to worry about keeping everyone happy or ensuring that transport lines and resources are appropriate. On the one hand, it’s a little disappointing for genre aficionados who delight in managing all those little systems, but this cozy approach certainly makes the game far more appealing to a wider audience.

So, if you’re not managing things, what exactly are you doing? Well, for the most part, you’ll be giving a helping hand to the residents. Perhaps they need someone to guide a hot air balloon full of visitors to the landing site, or maybe you’ll need to set up a mine and help them locate new resources. There’s a variety of different activities to help out with, so you’ll be managing construction and playing minigames on a frequent basis. There’s never anything too hard, but it’s relaxing and surprisingly addictive – especially when you have enough resources to upgrade your buildings and make them even bigger and more impressive.

Even though I wish the game had more depth and challenge to it in order to make it a real city builder (perhaps a more challenging mode with resource management could be added in a future update?), it still works well and I was quite surprised by how well it controls even when using the hand-tracking. Whilst I personally preferred the controllers because of my aversion to ‘pinching’, it can’t be denied that there’s a lot of charm to opening up your palm to give residents a lift to another location.

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Really, my biggest gripe with the game lies in the often poor tutorialisation, especially during the opening hours. I found myself on a number of occasions wondering how to perform a task that I was given to do, just because it wasn’t overly clear. For example, I had to grow mushrooms after building a farm. Naturally I sprayed the farm in the hope that some grew, when actually the game wanted me to spray the floor so that I could pick a mushroom to then place into the farm. I figured it out eventually, but only after essentially spraying everything until I accidentally stumbled on what I had to do. I would have appreciated a little bit more hand holding in the early game, especially as this is a game unlike any other, but at least the game’s simplicity means that you’ll probably figure it out eventually.

But that’s a small issue in what is otherwise a very charming game that I found difficult to put down despite its lack of difficulty – and with the game’s rather substantial length, it certainly makes it one of the best mixed reality games I’ve ever played.

VERDICT
Wall Town Wonders is a magical town-building experience that floors you with just how well it manages to implement its concept in a mixed reality setting. Sure, it does have some issues, and I wish it had more management elements for an additional challenge, but otherwise this is a wonderous little title to add to your collection.