Floodland (2022)

I laud Floodland for being a shockingly niche game, aiming to please a very minute and specific subsection of gamers into survival, city builders, and strategy simulators all at once. It is flawed, being way too slow before it becomes really interesting, not to mention some performance issues, but it does indeed succeed at what it was developed for. It’s just a really hard sell for anyone besides this very specific niche of gamers, and not enough of a “city-builder” for those who are into the genre in particular.

The solarpunk genre is here and only is going to grow as our climate starts to transform. Plenty of people are going to find a way to express their existential dread at a problem that seems so big. There will be plenty of corny stories about rebuilding a world from the ashes of the people we were before. Where Floodland has a leg up is in its subtlety. You aren’t constantly talking about who you want to be and how you want to run your apocalypse town. You are showing who you are by how you build it.

There was a lot of replayability factors in Floodland I loved, and a strong political message. If you love micromanagement games, this had a treasure-trove worth of content.

Floodland has a lot of great ideas and an addicting gameplay loop, but its Clan mechanics quickly suck any fun out of a game as soon it rears its ugly head. With only one scenario to play and no customisation options for these clans, it's all too easy to suffer a slow decline for reasons that don't feel like your fault. With such a major mechanic feeling so flawed, it's hard not to feel like Floodland has taken a wrong turn at the last minute. For such a solid base, it's a real shame.

Floodland is a surprisingly complex survival sim with a unique aesthetic and setting, but is that enough to keep it afloat?