Townsmen 4 Review

Anannya Sen’s Review

It's back with the townies ... er ... monkies ... in the latest instalment of the popular God game.

Townsmen 4 is the sequel to the popular townsmen series and if you've never played or heard of the other 3, then check out our reviews here. For the uninitiated amongst you, it's basically a sim / God game where you have to grow your town and make as much money as possible.

The new game is set in the medieval period where you have monks who help you run your town. They do everything from chopping the wood and getting water to actually making weapons. So bascially these monks can kick ass! So they are just like the townies except they are monks. Would that make them monkies then?

Almost a year and a half on and the graphics have improved a hell of a lot on T4 (I beat James Cameron to it). There is lots of detail on the buildings and now you will even see some small animations when they are producing goods or not! The wells have little bits of water coming up and the buildings have smoke coming out of them. The basic animation is still the same with the little townsmen walking around carrying goods with a small icon over their heads. The construction of the buildings still has a lot of smoke and there are some new buildings as well like a church and library. The pics of the monks are a little freaky but they have a manga-esque quality about them.

The sound is extremely good for a mobile game. You can select music or effects and each one has had a lot of effort put in. There are about 5 different tunes if you select music, all well composed and fitting the mood of the game. Sound effects are comedy with the sound of farmyard creatures when you click on a farm or running water when you select a well.

The controls are exactly the same as the previous version, although now there is an alternative control method. Use the D or key pad to move around and the main button to select your buildings. Navigate the menus and then select your options. Fairly simple stuff, although it would have been nice to be able to get back to the main map once you have selected certain things instead of going back each screen.

The big difference in T4 is that you have monks instead of townsmen. These monks run everything and you need to make sure you have enough. This is even more key than the last game so you have to make the monks happy. This can be achieved in a number of ways but first and foremost you have to produce beer. Drunk monks, these guys at Handy Games have thought of everything. One really great aspect of the game is the control you have over certain things. For instance, the beer ingredients can be varied (you can change the quantities of water and corn) so different makeups of beer will have different effects on the production. You have to experiment to see which is the best one. And then there is the well being of the monks so to help saturate their spiritual and physical needs, you can build libaries and churches. Trading and upgrading buildings will also help you convert more people to your cause and soon enough you'll be having fights, building large complexes and bartering with local tradesman.

As usual you have the fast forward button which stops if there are any messages you should read. There are two modes like the previous versions. You can play the missions which basically get you used to the game, and you can play an open ended game to just do what you want. There are so many more things to build and do in this version that it's quite a lot bigger. This also means that getting the balance right is that much harder, and it wasn't long before I was stuck early on in the missions. When this happens, the production shuts down in the buildings automatically. You don't seem to be able to restart the missions so once you are stuck you have to try and figure a way out. Fortunately, I've played all the other versions, so a little downgrading of my buildings and tweaking of my resources and I was good to go. The bar at the top of the screen tells you the day you're on, how many monks are working, how many you have to use and how much money you have. Remember though, this game is about money AND monks, unlike the other versions.

We've played all the other versions, and as usual, we are hooked to this one. It's definitely a step up in every department, including the difficulty level!! Worth a look if you haven't played these sorts of games before or if you're a fan of the Townsmen series. We certainly are!