If you've read my articles before, you know at times I can be inordinately fond of certain types of games. While I've gone over my affection for Bravely Default and its sequel before, as well as that stupid horse solitaire game, there is just one genre that seems to just draw me.

STUPID HORSE SOLITAIRE (This is an actual game, no lie, called Pocket Card Jockey. There was a free demo available on the 3DS eShop.)

I'm not sure what exactly these types of games are called, but they seem to fall under the label of construction and management games, city builder games to be more specific. It's hard to describe what exactly you do in these games, as you as the player don't really do anything, but tell the game to do everything. Let's use an example from one of the defining examples of this genre, Dwarf Fortress.

Those little smiling faces are a band of dwarves, out to build a colony. You, as the player, give the dwarves tasks to accomplish in order to build a thriving, well...dwarf fortress. for instance, the dwarves above have created a stockpile to store items, some tunnels to lower levels(dwarves like mining and all that), and now the dwarves are actively collecting...plants of some sort. There are also some...dogs, I think? And a horse, maybe? You know what, let's switch to a more...visually understandable example of this genre.

In Stonehearth, you have a similar premise to Dwarf Fortress(there's a band of dwarves Hearthlings, you set tasks for them to build a fortress village), with 3D, more user-friendly graphics, if not as complex. The following screenshots are from the village I've been working on the past couple weeks.

Welcome to the village of Rocking Charybdis; hey, sometimes name generators give you something you want to keep. From here you can see the main stockpile to store items, the farms, and most of the functional buildings built to date.

All of those buildings, at one point or another, were built by my band of Hearthlings. One of Stonehearth's selling points is the ability to build your own, custom buildings down to the individual block. You can customize the colors, size, doors and windows, and even furniture of most every building you create.

This one is going to be my stonemason's and eventual blacksmith's house/workshop, situated just in front of the mines. If you're wondering about the roof, sometimes this game can be a little buggy when it comes to custom buildings; you know that white house with no roof? Apparently it doesn't like indoor stairs very much. It's still early access, so I can't complain.

Hearthlings aren't just construction robots: they need food to eat, and places to sleep, and if there has been an attack by wolves or zombies, they may need medical treatment. A good half of the village is dedicated to those needs.

You can also build chests to increase/subdivide your storage away from the main stockpile for convenience and safety.

How do you manage all of these villagers and their tasks? It's rather simple really: through a series of menus and buttons.

This is a list of all the Hearthlings in your village. While starting with a small handful, over time your settlement will attract more settlers based on food, morale, and wealth.They all have various stats which make them better crafters or fighters or healers, which you need to keep in mind when you give them advanced jobs.

You can assign Hearthlings special jobs besides the standard worker: either crafters that can create items:

For instance, the Carpenter. You can either create some items right away, or always have some number of a specific item available. You never know when you'll need another chest.

Farmers and trappers who create food for your Hearthlings, or soldiers to fight off baddies.

Here is a soldier fighting off a band of armed goblins. Not mine, though they do pose a threat.

This is their camp by my village. They come in and steal the stuff in the stockpile. Occasionally the combined might of the mob can fend off one of them, but the others get away. One even came just to stab the villagers! They're jerks.

You can direct the Hearthlings to chop down trees or mine into the mountain for raw resources, or create zones for hunting, farming, or storage. The Hearthlings' AI will take care of the rest.

Red zone is trapping, green is farm plots, blue is the stockpile.

It's a little awkward that you can only mine 4x4 cubes, but I work with it.

You might be thinking, this game is super complex and looks really hard. And it is quite challenging at times(especially when the freaking goblins invade). And yet, I love this kind of game. It's what I secretly wish Minecraft was sometimes: I want to build a whole city or town, but never manage to expand beyond my initial safety hut. There's something about watching a whole town of people going about their business, building great buildings and moving things around, all at your bequest that is kinda...relaxing to me. It also feels good to plan more things to do without having to wait for the first thing to finish, and being able to trust it'll be completed.

I think I may have loved these sorts of sim games since I was a small child: SimCity and LEGO Rock Raiders were some of the games I obsessed over back then, and I enjoy having something similar to obsess over now.