Floating or flying cities have been around in fiction for hundreds of years, and one of the most famous cities in gaming is Columbia in BioShock Infinite. What if you could build your own flying city instead? That's the hook for Dream Engines: Nomad Cities by indie studio Suncrash, which also developed Judgment, a base building survival game set in a post-apocalyptic universe. Dream Engines: Nomad Cities is advertised as a survival city-builder where cities can fly. You will build and defend a flying city in order to survive in a nightmare-infested post-apocalyptic world full of strange science and dreams.
In a world with scarce resources, you must use them wisely in order to be able to fend off weird nightmare creatures with old-world tech while unveiling the old empires that designed that tech. You are the last hope of your people, and you must manage production lines when resources are scarce. You can choose when to stand your ground and when to relocate away from danger, searching for new sources of raw materials. As you build your city, you must learn how to balance between expansion and managing disposable infrastructure that will be abandoned when you are forced to flee. Your city's weight and fuel supply are permanent concerns, otherwise prepare for a rough fall where you'll stay grounded at the wrong time.
You can wishlist Dream Engines: Nomad Cities on Steam and follow it for future updates on when it will release in Early Access.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sivqXLYexOc
Quick Take
I like the premise here, and I hope it takes a page or two from Frostpunk (Our Review), which was genre-defining in terms of "society survival," and easily one of the best games of 2018. Dream Engines is a unique idea, but it could be spoiled by a generic approach to city building. I look forward to learning more about it.What do you think of Dream Engines: Nomad Cities? Do you like this kind of city-building survival gameplay? Let us know in the comments below!
