City-Builders are constantly looking for new ways to set themselves apart, and for good reason. The sub-genre itself will always struggle to innovate. You have the resources needed to build things, but you build them, and you need to ensure that you're building things that either make or extract resources or provide other benefits to make people happy. A reductive way to look at it, but it is what it is, and I would argue that innovation for the sake of it isn't the best thing. You can stand out in a few ways: Story, complexity, or setting. Stario: Haven Tower goes for the latter.
Stario: Haven Tower is set in a world where everything has gone a bit apocalyptic. People have been living underground to save themselves, and now it's time to come out and play. Only this isn't a wasteland apocalypse, this is more of a "Oh bugger, I'm in Saudi Arabia... but with a bit of magic. Also, is that a flying turtle?"
Yes, it was a flying turtle, but that comes later. It comes after the sand. Lots of sand. Additionally, there were more than a few mistakes and restarts thanks to my forgetting something as simple as gravity. Not in the sense that the tower came falling, Stario: Haven Tower is a pretty forgiving game on that front. It does factor in stability; the further out a building is from the core of your tower, the less stable it is - but the impact of this is when a disaster occurs, which are timed (you can see when they're going to happen), a few people may be taken for a bit of a ride off the side.
This isn't to say that some things don't come crashing down. If one of the buildings you have placed is too far away from the centre, it's going to take damage, and if you don't repair it, then it will eventually be destroyed. No, the complexity comes from the positioning of buildings. As I mentioned, gravity exists. While I wouldn't recommend throwing something from a higher layer down to a lower one, I would recommend sliding it down in pipes.
The later you get, the more structures you will unlock. As you move above a certain layer, you'll encounter different challenges. The lower layer, as mentioned, is sandy. This means that the dew collectors, which supply your water, are less efficient. Sand collectors are very efficient. This added layer of complexity is also enhanced by the core tower structure having different types; you can have an industrial core in one layer or an agricultural core, giving your factories or plantations an added boost.
The thing to remember is that once you go up, you can't start replacing cores. Planning is key. You can destroy the structures on the sides, which does help if you want to make some changes, but another key element is logistics. I was foolish enough, at one point, to place all of my houses a few layers above my water collection point; this meant I was struggling to meet demands due to the liquid refusing to flow upward, which impacted the happiness of my people.
Logistics do improve through the use of hot air balloons, the later you go. You'll also be able to use a bit of magic to your advantage, and it's always nice to create some of the fancier layers; the first, in the sandy layer, looks very much like it's out of ancient Egypt.
I would also argue that Stario: Haven Tower is a genuinely good-looking game. Looking good is easy now in terms of visual fidelity; what is harder is having a good unified design, and that's what this has. The buildings are highly detailed, with the people also visible, working up and down your tower, adding to the sense that it's inhabited. As you go higher, it still feels like everything is linked - even if your design goes a bit haywire.
All in all, I've enjoyed my time so far with Stario: Haven Tower. It offers a decent level of complexity, particularly in resource and layer management, which works well with the logistics. What it doesn't do is punish you too hard. At least on the regular map, it doesn't. I haven't tried the other two currently available in this early access yet; maybe once I improve my tower design abilities.
Stario: Haven Tower is out now on early access, and it comes in at quite a reasonable price. With the game already quite fleshed out and with more features promised, it's one that I'll be playing more and looking forward to what comes next. You can grab it now, on Steam, and I'd argue it's worth it.
About the author: Chris Wray has been writing at Wccftech gaming section since 2015 and is an opinionated bloke from the north of the UK (think Ned Stark). He enjoys video games, films, books, beer, whisky and other alcohol. He also supports Manchester Utd and for some reason he writes profile pages in the third person. His expertise is in gaming and the games industry, primarily on the PC. In addition to this, he works with and contributes to the finance and tech sections.
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