from alyaza@beehaw.org to gaming@beehaw.org on 02 Jan 19:18
https://beehaw.org/post/17870509
It’s frightfully early in the year to be bustling, but I can’t get enough of the crowded streets of ancient “Chinese-style” RPG The Bustling World. The latest trailer is a series of sweeping yet intimate, colourful urban cross-sections, showing dozens of NPCs selling fish, shaking hands on balconies, shouldering barrels, dancing with fans, honing their feng shui, and various other pursuits that allegedly form part of full NPC life simulations. It’s like scrutinising a Hitman level from above, except that all of these people have evolving relationships and sleeping patterns and they might hunt you down if you murder any of their relatives. Me, I just want to play Where’s Wally.
That’s a slice from the game’s minutiae. At its most expansive, The Bustling World threatens to become a 4X strategy game: you can take charge of factions, lead armies, design houses, build cities of your own, and organise production chains into - my goodness, it sounds like they’re trying to make it a factory sim as well? “Bustling” is certainly the word. “Bursting” might be more appropriate. “Breaking” seems like a possibility. This is a cross-genre pudding of fearful, perhaps ill-advised scale. The trailer proudly advertises itself as real-time and in-engine, but I can’t quite believe they’re going to pull it all off.
threaded - newest
Scope creep: The game. Trailers do look marvelous, but one has to question how realistic it is that all of these complex systems not only work well on their own, but also manage to form a coherent whole. This could become a trendsetting Indie darling - or more realistically end up as a highly flawed niche title that only manages to find a few dedicated fans that are willing to overlook its issues (if it ever releases).
The developers are entirely unknown - possibly unproven - and the publisher’s only successful games on Steam are an RPG (Tale of Immortal) with just over 50% positive reviews that doesn’t even work if you don’t have your system set to Chinese, an action tower defense game (Outpost: Infinity Siege) with a OpenCritic average of 58 and a 2.5D Cyberpunk RPG (ANNO: Mutationem) that is probably their highest-rated title with an OpenCritic average of 74 and 80% positive reviews.
Before I sound too negative, I hope this title succeeds. I would definitely play it a lot if it manages to deliver on even half of its promises. Art style, perspective and setting remind me of the last classic city builder Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom, building mechanics are reminiscent of various Minecraft-adjacent titles and the multi-genre concept isn’t too dissimilar to The Guild series. All of this is very exciting, but this is exactly the kind of ambition, possibly overambition, that tends to kill studios.
I’ve played it (in English, on a US-English Windows install) and I don’t remember having to do anything like that.
Thanks for the correction. I was going by Steam reviews.
What are your thoughts on the game?
I had fun with it. Can be a bit slow and grindy, as forming a build involves finding the right (randomly generated, periodically refreshed) techniques and studying them. And there’s a big power jump in each area so this process has to be repeated regularly.
I initially got into it when looking for something like Wandering Sword, but as a M&B- or Kenshi-style open world, which it’s not exactly that.
Alright, thanks. Did you find any other game that manged to scratch this particular itch?
I haven’t.
The Matchless Kungfu certainly looks like Wuxia Kenshi, but I haven’t actually gotten around to trying it.
Interesting title. It kind of reminds me a little of Overgrowth, but I’m sure you’ve heard of that one already.
It got me when there was gta with a horse and cart, and an assassins creed section
I hung around their Discord for ages and the pace of development seemed glacial. It's not that I don't think it will ever come out but it's definitely going to be a while. Gave up following after a few months. Love the aesthetic though and I really hope this one doesn't fizzle out like other titles in my wish list (Road Diner Simulator, B-17 Squadron, Solarpunk, Kerbal Space Program 2 etc.)
Apart from being slow, what are your impressions of the devs in terms of professionalism and communication?