Townscaper (2020) is a creative town-building game where you pick colours from the range available and click to put down a house in the sea. As you continue to add houses of different colours the game automatically orientates the architecture for you.

Like a toy, there’s a fascination in experimenting to see how Townscaper's underlying algorithm will automatically turn blocks into cute little houses, arches, stairways, bridges and lush backyards, depending on their configuration. Access to all the building tools is given right away and Townscaper’s algorithm ensures that every block snaps together in a cohesive way to allow anyone to create the town of their dreams with houses, gardens, and bridges, regardless of architectural skill.

As enquiring minds push the game to build ever more complex structures and layouts you can discover more of where the building will take you. Build quaint island towns with curvy streets. Build small hamlets, soaring cathedrals, canal networks, or sky cities on stilts. Block by block.

As you build you create a strange otherworldly building-site soundtrack. Hear waves break against the building, masonry plop into the sea, and new dwellings pop into existence. The sounds and lovely seaside visuals make this a game as calming as a fidget spinner. “No goal. No real gameplay. Just plenty of building and plenty of beauty. That's it.”

Our examiner, Jonah Monaghan, first checked Townscaper 3 years ago. It was re-examined by Andy Robertson and updated 10 weeks ago.