#TOWNSCAPER PROPELLER FREE#

Of course, inevitably, those original pen strokes are dwarfed by what follows. It’s when he’s just getting started, and laying down those first few, critical structures. One of my favorite things that Ben often shares over social media is the beginning of one of his pieces. 'It’s a spiral - a shape I embrace and imbed wholeheartedly in my own work.'Īs Ben Sack mentions, there’s a warmth inherent to the coiled fractals of both Townscaper and his own works. Instead, houses and buildings morph together to form more organic shapes, and the overall structure of the town is fundamentally bowed and crooked. 'The stroke of genius is the grid shape upon which the city arises.' In Townscaper it’s close to impossible to build to a straight or rigid grid plan. From that play, something fantastical arises.'Ben feels that, 'in a kindred sort of way,' Townscaper brings warmth and life to architecture. 'The vocabulary of classical architecture, and architecture in general, lends itself to being at times, cold, austere, and detached… In my drawings, I like to bring life to cityscapes by playing with perspective. 'When starting a drawing on a piece of paper, a white void stares back at you.' In Townscaper too, you begin with a void, although Ben notes that “instead of a potentially intimidating whiteness, you start where the sky and sea meet, in a calm, dreamlike, impressionistic space.' There’s something to the physicality and immediacy of getting going in Townscaper, how “with a simple click, civilization pops into existence.' It’s clear Ben sees a lot of his own awe-inspiring work in Townscaper. It’s only when you zoom in that you begin to be able to pick out elements of the human, with distinct structures and architectural styles grounding the whole. Ben’s work is similar in this regard, it’s infinite whorls can be almost frightening from a distance. Regardless of how large your town becomes, there are always those flecks of familiarity. The concern for proportion and the marvelous atmosphere also elicits a very comfortable, inviting feeling,' Ben tells me. 'The architectural style of the game, with its flourishes of the classical and hints of the industrial, was clearly designed with a deep love for the subject… that realism makes it sing. As Townscaper is so simple, pretty much anyone can pick it up and instantly set about creating their own imaginary town or city. It was like seeing a drawing of mine come to life.'īen points to things like the “perfectly tuned orchestra that lets your creativity soar,' and to how the game “effortlessly captures the same feelings of freedom, play and fun' inherent to doodling, as reasons for the game’s success. He remembers things like Age of Empires and SimCity (he’s always had a thing for construction!) being old favorites, but it was only after seeing Stålberg and others posting about Townscaper on Twitter that his interest was piqued. Delete a block from the bottom of a larger complex and it’ll create a little archway or tunnel, remove another bit from an upper level and it’ll create a balcony, and so on.īen tells me that he’s not much of a gamer. You can also remove blocks, creating even more complex configurations. Enclose an area with houses completely, and it’ll turn into a garden or set of allotments. Leave a gap for a lane or street, and clothing lines will be strung out across them by the game’s algorithm. Additional blocks turn the harbor into houses, which eventually combine with one another procedurally in interesting and novel ways. A small, neat harbor block will plunk itself down, settling itself comfortably amongst the water. World buildingĮverything is created with a single click. You start out with nothing but a gentle oceanic void and instantly set about constructing your town atop it.

#TOWNSCAPER PROPELLER FREE#

Instead, you're free to just let your imagination run. In some ways, Townscaper is a city-builder, although not one preoccupied with anything as logical or precise as resource management or plumbing infrastructure. Released to Steam’s Early Access in the summer, Townscaper, the creation of solo developer Oskar Stålberg, is an architectural toy that lets you construct everything from quaint, sea-side settlements to vast labyrinths and impossible towers.

Townscaper propeller