#HTE

A Videogame for Architects and City Planners

Videogame developer Merge Games has announced “Buildings Have Feelings Too!,” a sort of “Sims” variant where it’s not the people nor the overarching city you focus on, but the edifices themselves.

Imagine a city where buildings can walk and talk to one other. Each one has its own aspirations, hope and fears. Most of the time they are just trying to get along with each other and make it through the day. Buildings Have Feelings Too! is a city management game with character. Player must grow their city whilst making sure the individual buildings thrive, or risk them being demolished forever.

As time progresses, new industries can be researched and new architectural marvels built. In turn, world events might cause buildings to fail and businesses to go bankrupt! Players must discover new ways to attend to their city’s needs. This could involve refurbishing a building or simply grabbing it by the hand and moving it to a nicer part of the neighbourhood.

As players progress they are able to grow their city, allowing for multiple neighbourhoods. Specialist areas, such as busy finance hubs or bustling theatre districts, become available. Additional layered attributes such as electricity supply, noise pollution and transport add more complexity and challenges for players.

Here’s the rather odd-looking trailer:

From that short clip we can’t tell what the gameplay will be like, but we’re optimistic. The game is due to launch on PC, PlayStation4, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One–but though the announcement was made last month, the projected release date is “late Spring 2018,” which we assume was a typo. Between that and the “populaur” typo in the screen grabs, let’s hope the developers get the bugs worked out prior to launch.