TheoTown

Building towns and cities are some of the best themes for a sandbox game. Put yourself in the shoes of a perpetually elected mayor. Granted you are a moral person, the only incentive would be the well being of the populace while having an eye on expansion. No missions and no goals except what you can imagine.

This is the premise of TheoTown. An ambitious little city simulator that lets you create and manage settlements complete with anything that city hall can have power over.

Growing a city requires money. Although you will have an initial budget, everything you build has a building cost and a maintenance cost. Where do you get your money from then? The main incentives for expansion are the three economic columns: Residence, Commerce and Industry. At any time there will be a demand for every one. Knowing this demand will allow you to make informed choices on which of the three sectors you will allocate land for. This is the only macro-economic aspect of the game. Once you allocate an industrial sector, small businesses will begin constructing their halls, manufacturing plants, depots and whatnot. These will begin generating revenue. Your only concern will be to supply them with road access, electricity and running water. Once industry is up and running, demand for residential space will begin to rise and so will the need for commercial venues.

From then on, you will be in a constant struggle to balance income and expenditures. There is leverage however. Depending on how well you feel certain groups are fairing, you can modify their taxation level. Of course this can influence the demand for that certain estate type, attracting more people or making current tenants demolish and leave. Alternatively you can take up loans, which can help a lot but strain your expenditure levels until they are paid off.

There are many other elements that can influence life your city such as pollution levels or noise from nearby industry. These must be taken into account when deciding how to develop your areas. Certain municipal buildings take care of specific needs such as schools, police departments, bus stations and stadiums. These act as a sort of objectives, simulating a natural development from a small town to a big city.

Like any other respectable city builder, you will have access to godly powers. Raising and flooding land is perfectly possible although it costs money. Still, building a bridge over a body of water looks way cooler than creating a land mass to accomplish the same thing. In the destruction department though things are totally free. You can ignite fires, order comet strikes, introduce tornadoes and even trigger earthquakes. Each of these can be called upon at any time and are really useful if you run out of ideas or simply want a challenge in dealing with fires and repair damaged infrastructure.

Conclusion

TheoTown is currently in late development, having the beta version available for download. So far, things look very good, making TheoTown a worthy candidate for a permanent app on my tablet.