Pile Up! Preview

I remember reading an article about Sim City 4 in PCGamer Magazine as a kid, and one of the screenshots that really spoke to me was one of a plateaued mountain with a neat little city piled on top of it. I wasn’t much of an ace at the game, so I never managed to replicate my dream city there, but I finally got a chance to in Pile Up! — the latest release from Turkish developer Remoob Games.

Pile Up! is a strategic turn-based city-builder — or as I like to put it, a “stack-em-up” — where your ultimate objective is to increase the population of your tiny settlement by piling up houses, resources, and other, riskier buildings. You’re given a relatively small patch of space to build on — a floating platform atop a hazy sea — and you’re dealt a somewhat random set of buildings each turn to place. There are several different types of homes you’re given to put down, from tiny single-tiled dwellings to large apartment blocks that stack several storeys high. Each of these buildings provides a different population amount, and each requires various resources to keep the citizens inside happy.

No man is an isla- EDITORS NOTE: YOU ALREADY USED THAT CAPTION 4 TIMES, GET NEW CONTENT

Your ultimate goal is to build as large a population as you can whilst maintaining a decent overall happiness rating for the people inside your homes. Explosions that kill your population or lack of requested resources within proximity of the homes that need them will sap the mood of your town. Falling too low will cause your citizens to fall into unrest, which leads to you losing your game if you can’t rectify it quickly enough. Every few turns, you’ll receive various factory buildings that help produce resource-providing buildings, create more homes, or give you supports that expand your construction surface. The resources you’ll need to provide are the standard that is expected from any home: water, electricity, and gas, as well as some greenery. Your placement of these has to be precise and careful, however. Water Towers leak, destroying buildings underneath them, meaning they have to be placed on the ground level of your town or atop a support platform. Electricity resources trigger gas buildings, meaning that if they’re placed too close to each other, they’ll cause a huge explosion, taking a large chunk of your citizens along with it.

As your town continues to grow, you’ll be granted new unique buildings, like the dump, which allows you to end your turn even if you haven’t placed everything you were given to place during the turn. This is particularly handy if your population’s mood is teetering on unrest and you don’t want to risk placing a highly populated apartment tower or you’ve been dealt a rather nasty and damaging building. With each round you play, you always accrue points that you can use on the Blueprints menu to unlock even further unique structures, each with its own bonuses and disadvantages to mix up your next game, giving Pile Up! a certain rogue-lite vibe.

I had to hustle for this view for real for real no cap

The title does a great job with its visual presentation, and although it might not be as visually unique or stylised as similar titles, like The Block or Townscaper, you’ll find yourself scrolling out to appreciate the developing view of your slowly expanding settlement often. The first few homes you place that sit lonely on your desolate platform sell the atmosphere well, and it’s so rewarding seeing it grow further, with small little ladders, walkways, and platforms sprouting from the buildings as they connect and sit snuggly next to each other. The lighting also reflects the time of day as you progress through the turns, from misty mornings that give off a sense of early-day chilliness to warm twilights that bathe your town in a soft red glow. Backed up with a whimsically calm ambient soundtrack full of synths and gentle pianos, Pile Up! really crafts a serene toybox mood that’ll keep you wanting to take another turn to maintain the calmness. Placing buildings makes a variety of satisfying *plop* sounds as well; just make sure you’re careful not to trigger any explosions to slap you right back to reality.

Pile Up! is another title that feels like it’s built not only to challenge and entertain but also to genuinely relax you. As someone that plays videogames as a break from the stress of daily life, it’s always rewarding to have an experience that doesn’t add further frustration or irritation to an already delicate mental state. With a Sandbox mode to come in the full release and a slew of extra support-style buildings that are currently a work-in-progress, Pile Up! just might be the right game to maintain some long-term tranquillity in you.