Memoriapolis by developer and publisher
5PM Studio—
PC (Steam) review written by
Susan N. with a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated reading time: 11 minutes
IntroductionMemoriapolis is an intriguing colony builder that feels similar to others in its genre like Civilization or Cities: Skylines, although it has its own uniqueness. You get to decide what type of civilization you want and then you must expand your city throughout the ages, beginning with antiquity. City builders of old required the construction of special structures, wonders, which marked the end of an era. This is true in this title as well.
Created by 5PM, Memoriapolis proves to be a decent contender in its genre, although it does have some minor pain points in its faction design and the slow time progression. Regardless, it has beautiful graphics and a fantastic collection of music to keep you engaged. It has random events to keep on your toes, too! I played through both the ages that were available in the early access version, and I'm impressed with several things that I've seen. Let me tell you more about why.
Gameplay
Upon beginning the game, you are presented with two styles of gameplay, the first is classic mode where you play through the campaign. The second option given is an endless mode which removes the cycle limitation so that you can build your city how you wish.
Once you've selected classic mode, you will choose between a number of different destinies that focus on specific aspects of civilization. These are military, production, religious, educators, traders, and political. No matter which destiny you choose, you will receive bonuses related to your specialized field. For example, I chose the trader destiny which gave me passive income when caravans travel on their routes. With this particular destiny, I was going for solid relationships with other leaders with different focusses.
Each age in Classic mode lasts for a finite amount of time. While considering your research tree, handling random events, and figuring out where precious materials are, you will need to place buildings to expand your city during the age. To do so, you will need to erect survey towers. When you start building in those areas, you can take down the towers to expand further as there is a maximum number you can have built at one time. This leads to the first issue that I have with the game, which is that you cannot simply move a building, you have to dismantle it and then remake it in a new location. Part of why this is frustrating is it wastes resources, even if you salvage some of the materials. And while you may have research that covers a large area or increases resource collection, it takes additional materials to build them back up. This is particularly true for a logging camp where you increase it to the maximum radius possible, but once there are no more trees, you have to move the building. Unfortunately, there is no building that allows the loggers to grow more trees, which would be a useful addition to the game.
What you will notice immediately about Memoriapolis is that unlike other city builders, you do not need to worry about traffic management or road placement. Instead, you have to concern yourself with the attractiveness level of your city. It's paramount to keep a close eye on the citizens' satisfaction levels. If those are not green and they remain that way for too long, a variety of consequences will occur. For example, your citizens can be hit with the plague more easily if their health satisfaction is too low. If your security level is low, you will have an increase in crime. While this feature is not bad, there is little you can do if you end up with any negative affects. At times, you simply have to wait out the cycles.
Once you've erected buildings that increase the satisfaction levels of your people, your city will grow on its own. There is no need to worry about when this will happen, only where you place the buildings which dictate the direction your city will expand in. Please note that your city will not grow towards a mining area because it is loud and unpleasant to be near. In this way, you have to manage the growth of your city with controlling the attractiveness levels and use of survey towers.
The above feature is one that I enjoy, but it also takes away from some of the fun. As you don't need to worry about manually expanding your civilization, you may find yourself waiting a long time without much to do. Though, random events certainly spice up the gameplay to a degree, but in the early access version, there aren't a lot of them. Adding more events to keep things interesting would be a great asset to the game.
Once I reached the end of the Middle Ages (where the early access version ends), I received a score screen that rates you on various buildings placed and actions taken. My assumption is that the scoreboard after each age will lend itself to victory conditions similar to Civilization. However, since the full game isn't yet out, I can't say for certain if that is true. Assuming that that is the direction 5PM takes, seeing your final score will aid in your possible victory for the final age.
Graphics
Memoriapolis has amazing graphics for a city builder as it has a top down view allowing you to see everything. Specific buildings have a distinct style, even through the ages. It is detailed when you zoom in to look at any of the buildings like the cutting camp in the age of antiquity. You can see some tents and stacks of wood piled up inside the camp. Another example of the attention to detail is in the farms. Unlike other games where you have one defined area for your cattle and crops, farms in Memoriapolis will have multiple plots of land. When you look closely at the different plots, you will see the farmers working hard. It's a nice visual representation of the buildings function.
Beyond the individual building visuals, the UI is quite clean and fairly simple to navigate. When you click on a building to upgrade it, you can press on an arrow that will extend the box outwards to do so. On the upgrade portion, you can see how much attraction you will generate, the cost of the upgrade, and the area of effect for the added attraction value. As I mentioned, there doesn't appear to be a move building button, or its hidden somewhere that I never discovered.
On the top of the screen, you will see all of the relevant supplies used to erect your crucial buildings like wood, stone, and sand. It also conveniently displays the food stores you have for your citizens. And underneath that bar is another one that shows how much money, research points, population total, employed people, and unhoused people. When you progress to the middle ages, you will also see the total influence value of the factions living in your city.
Something to note about the UI is that you will need to use the filter button on the top right of the screen to find where certain materials can be found. Just know that those materials can only be collected if they are in the area of effect of a building that has the people to gather them.
Obviously, there are more important buttons to look at on the left, right, and bottom of the screen like any political decrees you want to enact, the research tree to better expand your city, and the satisfaction level of your citizens segregated into five different categories. Overall, it is well laid out and fairly intuitive for a city builder.
Music and Audio
The music is something that I noticed quite quickly. It's not often that a game has such fantastic soothing music that I choose to sit on the main menu screen to listen. In fact, I have no idea how much time passed while I was on the initial screen, but I do know that I was enthralled with it. Written by H-Pi, the simple melody combines a light resonating sound with a bright piano melody overtop. With a steady and quiet backing of drums and bass that don't overtake the main theme song, I was hooked. That is just the beginning song! I won't ruin the auditory experience by trying to describe the music, instead just go listen to the music of Memoriapolis on
Spotify or
Bandcamp.
Henri-Pierre Pellegrin aka H-Pi is a french composer and producer known for his work in video games like
Werewolf the Apocalypse Earthblood, Streets of Rage 4, and Trackmania! What's neat about Mr. Pellegrin is that he used to be an in-house composer and sound designer at Gameloft. It wasn't until later in his career that he started freelancing. His musical compositions can be heard in about 100 different projects between video games and TV series. Another thing to note is that he won Best Soundtrack at the 2017 Ping Awards for his work on the game STYX Shards of Darkness. With all of his experience and acolades, the music is well crafted and fits beautifully within the world of Memoriapolis. It's no wonder I was drawn in by the music.
Pros and Cons
Unsurprisingly, there are good points about the game and some less desirable at this stage of early access. Among the features that are great in Memoriapolis are:
- No need to spend endless hours dealing with traffic woes or layout issues
- The music is stunning and subtle, leaving players with a calm disposition while playing
- The UI is clean and fairly easy to navigate
- Certain structures like farms visually expand when you upgrade them
- Ages last for a reasonable amount of time; also, you are rewarded if you complete a wonder before the age is done
- Gameplay is smooth and exciting especially when random events appear which breaks up some of the monotony after several hours of play
The issues I have with the game are few and far between but are quite noticeable, at least for me. For example, I mentioned the lack of moving buildings. It's a common element found city builders that I've become quite accustomed to, so naturally I notice when it isn't present. Now, this may be in the works, but requiring players to destroy a building only to waste precious resources and build cycles to construct a new one is not my most favorite aspect of the game.
Another aspect that needs some addressing is the faction system. If you start with one group of people, then I found it was easier to reject other groups because they almost always caused an upheaval. Should two groups get into a fight in one of the districts, then you would lose a ton of resources and your attraction values would dramatically drop. Sure, you could enact a policy to prevent the factions from fighting with each other, but I felt as though it was more hassle than it was worth. Ultimately, I invited other groups of people to join so that I could unlock specific buildings, and then I kicked them out the moment they caused trouble. True story.
Final Thoughts
Overall, Memoriapolis is a wonderful city builder that has a couple of unique features that I love. With some more work during early access in relation to the faction system and the ability to move buildings, it is sure to keep plenty of people engaged. The music is beautiful and enthralling and definitely worth listening to as it adds an ambience to the overall game. And seeing the building progression through the ages makes for a realistic representation of what cities would look like during that time period. Though we were only able to play through the Middle Ages, I'm excited to see how the game develops and what the other ages bring to the table. I highly recommend this game to anyone that enjoys a solid city builder!
Score: 8 out of 10
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