The spot I hold for city management-style sim games is about as soft as the one on a new-born baby’s head, so with that bias now declared it’ll come as no surprise that I thoroughly enjoyed the beta of SomaSim’s 1849. I’m going to avoid saying that they’ve ‘struck gold’, except I just did it.
1849 is at first sight a dinky little indie game with complexity waiting tantalisingly close to the surface, much like – and stay with me here – the gold deposits early settlers found Out West in California, a path you get the chance to re-tread. In 1849’s story you begin by building smaller settlements, learning the ropes and producing different resources, before heading out and building more complex towns as you strike it rich. Eventually you have a web of places to trade with across the whole West Coast, though the beta is still only limited.
Your settlers’ needs are at first simple – food and logs are enough to get you a modest set up, but by golly your pan handlers need booze to build nicer houses after that. Pleasingly, there are several different types of booze you can make, from brandy to beer to wine, all requiring different raw goods and industry.
Once they start putting on airs your townspeople need even fancier things, like olive oil and a school for their kids (these are presumably related). This stage is where more of the hidden complexity emerges. You can build a lumber mill to turn your logs into wooden boards, but then you need to turn those boards into nice furniture – and so on and so forth. Just how many different resources there are is still a bit of a mystery. New ones were revealed in each level I played, that’s for sure.
Getting your town running efficiently is a happy challenge, a plate-spinning act with a whole bunch of plates. Occasionally a curve ball comes in out of nowhere. I was minding my own business when an earthquake destroyed one of my precious gold mines, and you have to contend with fire hazards as well. There’s a lot going on for a game that seemed simple to start with.
Then there’s your fluctuating fortune. Settlers pay rent, but if there are too many mooching around then they start stealing from your businesses. So you could build more businesses to employ them, but they cost money to run, and where do we get money? Why, from settlers paying rent of course!
You can also trade with your neighbours for quick cash, but that becomes a little tedious. At present trading has to be done manually every so often, but it would be much easier and more streamlined if you could automate your trade routes for a steady export of surplus and import of necessaries. Whether this will be added in future updates remains to be seen, but for now I’m stuck panic buying when my middle class settlers run out of that olive oil that they probably desperately need to go with their hummus, or whatever.
SomaSim founders Robert Zubek and Matthew Viglione have cited sim classics like Civilization, SimCity and Caesar as inspiration. You can definitely tell where they’re coming from, and feel the same sort of wry humour from the City Building Series present in 1849. Anyone who ever played the Bullfrog business simulators will also get a kick out of 1849 and the simple but detailed graphics. Prospectors might be dirty and smelly up close, but my little towns look so authentically Wild West-y and cute at the same time that I just want to move into one. I don’t pretend to know much about the 1800s, but I will assume this game is historically accurate.
1849 is still not as polished as the games that came before it. As mentioned, the beta is still very limited and there are a few little bugs. The main drag is that there are currently no sounds. At all. No music, no sound effects, no Saloon piano playing in a minor key. Nothing. Watching a bustling population stay as silent as the grave definitely gave me the heebie-jeebies. Luckily this is just because they don’t have the sound turned on yet; the full game will feature noise, as ear-having people have come to expect. It also promises an endless sandbox mode and 20 unique scenarios to play through that aren’t yet available to take a peek at.
Despite it’s currently unfinished state, 1849 is a good get for anyone who loves city building or old school management games (especially ones that aren’t released with a myriad of network connection problems like some I could mention). It feels authentic, challenges without demanding too much, and it has the potential to get even better before its release in May.
Also it gets extra points for at least one use of the phrase “there’s gold in them thar hills!”