ShantyTown (PC) Review: An Asian-Fantasy Building Simulator

ShantyTown is a low-stakes, relaxing, building simulator, without the decision fatigue you would normally get from games in the genre. You are submerged in a beautiful art style with an Asian-fantasy flair that promotes a comforting atmosphere for you to design. Unfortunately, the title does have a degree of limitation that prevents you from unlocking your full creative side, opting to keep things a bit more structured rather than giving full, unmatched freedom. Despite this, ShantyTown gives you a serene environment to zen out in for long periods of time.

Creating a Scene

You arrive on a boat, a humble surveyor, tasked with building up various locations around the map. At this dock, you are introduced to the core mechanics of the game: receive items, place them, and decorate. This is repeated through the various locations, with you receiving three items at a time from a long list. Each time you place an item, you receive a new one from the list until the list has been depleted.

This simplistic design promotes the game’s relaxing appeal, although you can run into some problems, as some of the larger items, such as buildings and windows, are unable to be moved once they have been placed and you have moved onto other objects. This can become frustrating, particularly if you change your mind about placement later in the level. Smaller objects can be moved at your leisure, but the current parameters promote a feeling of low stakes and low perfectionism, allowing you to flow through the game with less care.

ShantyTown’s simplistic mechanics and lack of forced decision-making make it the perfect game for those who experience decision fatigue. Often, games become overwhelming with the number of options at your fingertips, but this game makes those decisions much less tiresome, allowing you to sit back, relax, and enjoy your beautiful surroundings with little care.

Once you have finished your scene, you snap a photo and move on to the next location on the map, with each new area offering a different degree of challenges with varying degrees of landscaping, pre-existing structures, and different items to work with. Despite its repetitive nature, the familiarity of the mechanics and easy playstyle help the experience become even more calming.

Like a Ghibli Movie

Shantytown provides an experience in which you are viewing things that are normally deemed as ugly and flawed in an urban setting, and makes them something beautiful. A great example of this are pipes, graffiti, and antennas – things you would normally view as an eyesore – are added to the game in a distinct and interesting way. AC units and garbage cans are looked at as a more lively inclusion to the overall design rather than something you’d try to hide.

One of my favorite aspects of ShantyTown is the lighting. Throughout the game, it shifts from day to night, lighting up neon signs and bistro lights, creating a beautiful atmosphere for the local nightlife. The creator included tall fantasy creatures that you build on the backs of, like something out of a Studio Ghibli movie, and reminiscent of titles like Howl’s Moving Castle or Castle in the Sky. Near the end of the game, you build a bathhouse that towers into the sky, giving you the feeling of constructing the main set location of Spirited Away.

Throughout the game, you build in unique locations such as train stations, temples, and stilted platforms hanging over swamps, which promotes a pleasant experience with a beautiful Asian-fantasy twist. ShantyTown offers much to those who enjoy art and are looking for a unique creative outlet.

A Relaxing Goodbye

Placing and stacking buildings, adding signs, and styling graffiti will soothe your woes and stress. ShantyTown is great for those who want a relaxing title to sit back and zen out to, but it doesn’t fully capture the creative experience for those who want more customization in their city-builder. The art style is serene, offering a peaceful environment for you to escape your everyday worries. If you enjoy building games but get decision fatigue, ShantyTown is the perfect game to pick up and mellow out to.

ShantyTown was reviewed on PC with a code provided by Erik Rempen and Kinephantom Games.