A survival city-builder in broadly the same vein as stuff like Frostpunk and Ixion, Flotsam is a game set at the end of the world that, thanks to its vibrant art style and optimistic outlooks, actually feels more like the start of the world instead.
You play as a tug boat that poots around a flooded world, ala Waterworld, and as you go--on a kind of strategic overworld map--you need to scrounge for resources and pick up survivors. Zoom in, though, and the game becomes a city-builder, where you can attach buildings to your boat and use those resources to craft stuff, build more buildings and keep everyone happy by giving them nicer houses and places to hang out.
The cheery, hand-crafted visuals are a joy to be around. For an apocalyptic game, Flotsam's glass is very much half-full, its flooded wastes featuring crystal-blue oceans, storybook islands and fantastic character art, while the survivor's chatter is mostly interested in everyone working together to build something new and communal from the wreckage. To give you an idea of just how cheery things are, here's the game's website:
The world of Flotsam is a colorful and cheerful place. It’s about going on adventures, seeing the world and cleaning it up as you go. The sun is shining, the sky is clear and the ocean is calm… mostly at least.
Does this change the way the game plays? Not really. Does it dictate the way I feel while playing it? Absolutely. As I've explained in my impressions of Town To City, I like these games because they let me build stuff, and I hate the stresses so many of them bring along for the ride. Flotsam has those stresses--you need to keep everyone fed and supplied with fresh water--but meeting those needs is so straightforward, and everyone looks and works so happily while they're in danger, that it never feels like a crisis.
I should note that this isn't really a city-builder in the traditional sense. While you are definitely building a settlement around your boat, and it needs walkways and power and all that stuff, the overworld navigation is a place you spend a lot of time exploring, finding resources and picking up survivors. What's cool is that the two are linked; you cruise around a map screen where everything is abstract, but when you find something to explore, the view zooms into the boat-scaled view, and the objects that appeared as points on the map are now islands represented off the stern of your town, on which you can see your survivors clambering over and harvesting supplies.
Flotsam has a more involved supply chain and production management slant than many of its peers, which I really enjoyed; the loop of harvesting raw resources from the overworld, then using your city to refine them and turn them first into processed resources, then things, is always satisfying. There are a ton of different materials and items, some you can only get by scrounging, others that can be grown and others that you have to craft, and it's an interesting challenge having to prioritise your survivors and various buildings to churn out exactly the things you need at any given time.
I said earlier in the year that I'm tired of apocalyptic futures where humanity is resigned to living off scraps, where the overriding themes are those of defeat and despair. Flotsam's optimism and resolve to build something new from the ashes are exactly what I was talking about; the fact it's a game where you're directly responsible for the building only makes it better.
Luke Plunkett
