Craftlings Review

Craftlings is a “strategy, resource management, settlement building, and automation” game developed and published by ARIANO Games GmbH. Inspired by a 90’s classic, you’ll be dealing with the titular Craftlings as they go around the world gathering resources, creating towns, and fending off whatever monster that’s in their way. Essentially, it’s a settlement-building version of Lemmings… which I didn’t know when deciding to review this game. To be honest, I was expecting a crafting game like all the others I’ve played. I really should stop skimming the Steam page…

The game definitely does look like it came straight from the 90’s, with smoothly animated pixel art and bright colours, and the music is quite pleasant to listen to. When I was just waiting for things to happen, I sat back and just relaxed to its soundtrack, and given how many times I was just waiting for the right materials to get anywhere, I did this a lot.

But enough about that, let’s get settled! The game revolves around the Craftlings; little beings that know their way around a hammer and nails… and not much else, to be frank. Craftlings act on their own and will only interact with buildings and enemies if they have the right equipment (axes for trees, pickaxes for stone, pitchforks for enemies, etc.). You can turn them around by clicking on them and placing down signs to guide them, but overall, Craftlings do as they please, even if it means they’ll jump off a cliff and die… or run into an enemy and die… or drown… or some other way they will meet an unfortunate end because their danger sense is comparable to a bookshelf.

Your job is to make sure they don’t die (too much) and complete the level objective. You do this by placing down buildings for them to create, guiding them to resources, and delivering materials to make everything you’ll need. If they need a little more support, you do have ways to directly help the Craftlings through magic. After you generate some mana by putting food into a cauldron, you get access to spells like summoning parachutes for falling settlers, creating bubbles to raise them back up, or giving warrior Craftlings a better chance to defeat an enemy. You might have an infinite amount of them that’ll replace the dead, but it still feels bad seeing them ascending to whatever Craftling heaven is!

Each of the 12 levels has a different objective and unique challenges, taking place on new lands, so you always need to start from square one at the start (the first four are basically long-form tutorials). Because of this, I realised Craftling’s levels are basically puzzles that need to be solved. You need to manage your resources, figure out how to effectively use the Craftlings and the area itself to complete the goal, and oftentimes it'll require a lot of thinking, careful positioning, grinding for money and materials, and hoping that everything works out somehow. Finishing a level can be pretty satisfying as you watch as your time and effort pay off. I mean, these little guys can take down dragons if you put in the effort.

I have to admit, I did get overwhelmed at the start. I’m not the greatest when it comes to automation, and it became pretty apparent here, too. It took me some time to get a handle on the game’s systems. The tutorial levels might need a little work teaching me how to play. They’re very detailed, and if you’re missing something, you can always check the in-game wiki for more info, but it can be a little overwhelming and might not tell you everything. For example, why was my mining hut set to only take half or close down completely? What am I doing wrong? I’m a complete noob, so a little more guidance would’ve been nice.

At the very least, I didn’t run into many technical or performance issues. It ran perfectly well at 60 FPS throughout the entire time I played, and whatever happened that killed more than a few innocent Craftlings was definitely my fault, as I wasn’t paying too much attention.

Craftlings… isn’t exactly my type of game, but I can see why there are so many positive reviews on the Steam page. It’s charming in many ways, and once you get the mechanics, it can be addicting to watch your dumb little settlers become a well-oiled machine. It’s novel for anyone who loves slower games with tons of micromanaging and automation, but for newbies, just be prepared to get either really angry and give up or laugh and have fun.