Little Cities Review

Dscruffles: 1:00

Ruff Talk VR. Welcome to another episode of Ruff Talk VR, a weekly podcast with in-depth game reviews, exclusive developer interviews. And the latest Oculus quest news, we join our hosts DScruffles and Stratus today as they spend another episode breaking down and discussing the Oculus quest virtual reality world. Hey everyone. Welcome to this episode of Ruff Talk VR today. We're talking about another city builder. Two weeks in a row

Stratus: 1:30

Coming off a city builder into a city builder,

Dscruffles: 1:32

And this one named appropriately. So it's Little Cities made by developer Purple Yonder, which is a cool name by the way. I love it. I even loved it on the load-in. And then it's published by nDreams, which, you know, they've had a couple of big games drop recently. They had a PC VR game called Fracked drop. They have Ghostbusters VR coming out, and they have this. So it's been busy, busy times for nDreams, it seems. And this game's coming out tomorrow May 12th. So I was excited. We got some early access on this one and it's slated, I'm getting this from a Reddit post I saw one month ago from the developers. I saw them post that it's going to be $19.99. So as of the time I saw that and today that's what I'm seeing.

Stratus: 2:16

It hasn't changed, I witnessed it with my own eyes.

Dscruffles: 2:20

Yup, if tomorrow the game drops and it's $25, I apologize. I was going off that Reddit post. So I see it as $19.99, which for $19.99, man, this one has a lot of bang for your buck. It's called Little Cities. Named appropriately. So a lot of the concept is very similar to the bigger city builders. Like you might see cities VR or Cities Skylines, even to the point that the zoning colors, if you listen to our Cities VR review, you know, residential zoning is green, industrial zoning's yellow and commercial zoning's blue, same exact colors in both games. It's feels initially when you go in like a junior version of cities VR,

Stratus: 3:04

which is exactly what I think the whole premise was.

Dscruffles: 3:09

And at first I felt like that's why it was called Little Cities, but then as I play, I learned that there's six different islands to build on. So I'm like, oh, that's probably why it's called Little Cities. Not because it a miniature version of city skyline.

Stratus: 3:25

Yeah. But it kind of is.

Dscruffles: 3:26

Yeah. And I'd say the similarities shows initially very strong and yes, there are a lot of similarities too, but by the end of playing through all the 6 islands. You know, it has its own unique feel to it especially in the atmosphere, the graphics of it, and the music are kind of cartoony, but it's very fun. There's something about the game that in the entire time I'm in it, I'm happy. It's got very good feel good vibes.

Stratus: 3:53

Yeah. And they've taken like all the best aspects of cities VR or Cities Skylines, and they brought it in to Little Cities. But they've taken away any difficult element that might exist. Like if you didn't play either of the other two, typically when you build, let's say electricity or water, you have to run a pipeline through the area you need to provide water to. And then how are you going to get rid of the water? And then it's a lot more detailed and complicated where this is more hey, you need electricity. Well you have a windmil. You can put it down and it'll show you wind patterns and you put it down on your little build space and now your whole island has electricity. It's not like you have to plan these electrical routes or sewage routes. And so it's the user interface and the playability of it is really easy to pick up.

Dscruffles: 4:53

Yeah. Whereas like we're big city builder, diehards. We love them. So it was very easy for us to hop in to Cities VR. For somebody newer to the genre. I think this would be a way easier. Whereas for somebody who is hardcore and wants to build real. True to life cities. They're going to want cities VR, because back to this being a little bit more of easier version of Cities VR, you don't have all these different sophisticated road types, everything like that. You have one road type in this. Yep. It's called road. It's really simple to build. There's not highway systems and no four lane roads. It's just a road. And then instead of it being kind of sandbox. There's a kind of a progression concept in this game, which for a lot of people, newer to city builders, I think that's easier to follow along. And the concept of the game is you load in, and initially you pop into this island, you don't know that there's going to be multiple cities yet. Like you just pop in and they start teaching you the game. Teach you how to build a road. They teach you exactly what you said about electricity and water. And even back to the it being easier versus. You look at your utility levels and how they're doing by looking at your left wrist. And this menu pops open and all it is is a bar of your electricity and a bar of your water. And then it'll show your population size and some industrial demand. There's no like sophisticated stat breakdown where it shows you what population is educated, their needs fully. it's very simple. You don't even know the exact input and output of your utilities, just that you see the bar full, .So it's real basic and that tutorial will walk you through that. And then from there, you're kind of on your own and you see that you have levels for your city. And when you first start, really all you can build is utilities being water and electricity, roads and zoning. But then as you level up, now you can build cell towers. Then you can build a police station, fire station, a school. And what's unique about those ones. I know you mentioned utilities, you place them anywhere, and then it powers your whole city. These are slightly more complicated in the littlest. If you could see my fingers, I'm squeezing them the littlest bit Being you place it. And there's like a blue radius that it fills in. And then that's the area of your city that's covered by that utility. So you place your fire department. It's like, all right. The fire departments covering here. Its really not sophisticated and just make sure your whole cities able to be covered in in cell tower.

Stratus: 7:39

And if you don't have enough residents, which is pretty easy to visually see, I mean, again, they make everything in this so user friendly. It's over the top. It's like, even when clicking to build something, you got two choices, you can use your hands. And physically move your hand and click it, like, you know, with your finger quick

Dscruffles: 8:04

Well, that's not your actual finger, like hand tracking, but I know what you mean by click it. Your in-game hand

Stratus: 8:11

Cause you have a visual hand. Yeah. Funny. You thought I was talking about hand tracking

Dscruffles: 8:15

They say it's coming.

Stratus: 8:17

I think that's like the perfect gear up, or you can just sit back and just do a quick method. And that is a feature that for city building that's fantastic that it exists

Dscruffles: 8:27

They hit the interface out of the park because it's yeah, I'd be stealing it. Definitely, that's a great user interface. There's something that's very aesthetically pleasing about clicking the buttons in this game. Cause they're all bubbles. So when you click it, it pops and it goes back to the playful cute environment. But, you almost want to go through the menu. It's very nice clicking through the menu. So they did a great job with it. It's easy to navigate.

Stratus: 8:56

I find very little... I have no grapes at all to warn anybody about anything with the user interface. It's real easy to use. It takes like a minute and you go, okay, I totally get this. This is cool. I need to go back? Well there's a red check. I go back. There's a little arrow that says to go back. I go back. I mean, that's some of the things that can turn off people with city builders. Sometimes they can be a little over the top. Like cities skyline. There's there's some crazy shit that, you can take it to levels

Dscruffles: 9:31

Which for people who are city builder fans, they're going to like that. Oh, absolutely. I mean,

Stratus: 9:37

I think I mentioned, I definitely enjoy it.

Dscruffles: 9:40

For somebody who's not into city builders and are kind of new to the genre. Yeah. This nailed it, man. So I did have one glitch. It was that, maybe I was doing something wrong, but The way I built my road. So on your island, you have, I guess a buildable zone. And as you move up in the levels, you get more buildable zone on that island, but you know, you have an outline of where you can build on and - that's just the way I play. When you start they give you like a little seaport entrance, I guess, is what it is. And that's where you start building off of. So I outlined my entire outside in roads. And then I create like block zonings from there. Then as I'm trying to build all of the block areas, sometimes I'll go to build off of the edge and there will be a a block I try to build on because everything in this game is block. Like that's important to know. All the areas that you zone in that you build on. It's all made in blocks. So sometimes there's a block I just can't build on yeah. On the edges.. Either on the edges or sometimes it's, it's always along the edge. It's not always like a corner or something like that, but there's sometimes some blocks that.

Stratus: 10:57

I think they, I know exactly what you're talking about and I think it's just because of the, since the islands, aren't like a square. You know, or

Dscruffles: 11:07

rectangular? No, they're all odd shaped

Stratus: 11:09

yes. They're jagged shaped because it's an island. Versus we'll say like cities VR is more landscape, so you don't have to contend with those jagged edges like that. So I think that's the only reason you can't. But I know exactly what you're talking about

Dscruffles: 11:29

The only reason it feels like a glitch to me. Is it never looks like that there's anything different about these unbuildable square

Stratus: 11:35

no, but you'll notice if you go to click on your industrial or commercial, and you look at the actual grid next to the road, you'll see that those areas aren't blocked out. Like they're, they're empty. They're not part of that blockchain.

Dscruffles: 11:54

Totally get you but then I feel like it shouldn't have a square that looks buildable on. Right.

Stratus: 12:01

But you can, here's the thing you can, if you put you'll be you, you won't be, cause I'll do the same thing. I'll do the jagged and run across the whole thing. And some areas it's almost looks like a stair

Dscruffles: 12:12

Oh, a hundred percent, especially on some of the later islands.

Stratus: 12:14

So if you're willing to cut all that. You could do a perfect square and then build outside of that. But I know exactly what you're talking. Yeah.

Dscruffles: 12:22

So it feels like a glitch. Maybe it's not, but I'll say it feels a little I don't know, like, oh my God. What's what's going on here, I guess, you know?

Stratus: 12:29

Cause that's cause you're trying to do a perfect outline.

Dscruffles: 12:32

This is important to know that. When you get to see your build area, like I said, everything's blocks. So once you build a road, it goes from kind of like clear blocks to like filled in a light, transparent white block, which means that you can build zoning there. Like as you build the road, you'll see the blocks fill in with a darker shade. So I mean, I try to get my whole area to either be roads or a buildable zone, because when you build a road, it'll either be two or three blocks to the left or right. Or wherever

Stratus: 13:08

Two blocks on each side of the road.

Dscruffles: 13:09

Yeah. Per section of road. If it's possible, unless you're building on the edge or you build your own, there's a lot of different situations that might not exactly occur like that. But theortetically that's what happens

Stratus: 13:20

Yes a perfect line down the middle of the island. So you get the two on each side

Dscruffles: 13:24

I tried to get most bang for my buck and I just feel like that the only way to do that is to build along the edges and then the zone from there. And then it also makes it easier for me to do my zoning. If this is my residential area, this is my commercial. Because there's items that you'll unlock as your city's progress, where this one boosts your residential happiness, or your commercial income or your industrial income. So it's like if your things are scattered... You place social items, there's a little radius of the bonus. So you want it to hit as many residential as you can. So if everything's scattered, you're not getting your maximum bonus. But if I have all of my residential people in an area, then I place one of those boost residential happiness things. Everybody's happy you give them a maximum bonus. So that's why I do it too. So like I was saying though, in the first island, they teach you until like level two or three. They don't teach you much. And then you will unlock a school and you keep going, and it's pretty easy that your island hits level 10 and you actually did it before me. This was one of those games that we were party chatting. We're not playing together, but we kind of are because we're party chatting. And we're at a pretty similar point at all times. So you hit level 10 before I do. And they made it clear on the island. It's like, Hey, try to hit level 10. And I was like, um, you already hit level 10 and you're like, yeah, they had me place a city hall. Everybody got happy. There were some balloons. And my heart sunk for a second. 'cause. I was like, if that's the game, I mean, we played it for fucking 30 minutes. I was like, oh my God. I was so scared that that was the whole game. And you're like, okay, it's taking me to a world map. You're like, all right, it looks like there's going to be another. So after you beat that first map, you get access to two other maps, which then if you beat one of them, then you get another map and you'll be in another one. Then you get another map until you have all six unlock. There's six total maps. Islands, islands. They're island cities, you know, islands to make cities on. And it's cool. Cause when you go on one, example you're on the middle one. You can see the island on the left and the right to you, way off in the distance. It's very low resolution, very low pixelated, but you can see it. So the horizon islands. You can unlock them. If you unlock them and then once you build on them, you can kind of see the outlines, and it's cool to be able to see your cities come to life. And on the world map, you can see the cities that you've built, all the islands are laid out in a straight line and you can see when they're fully complete.

Stratus: 16:00

They give you an adjustable desk that you'll see all your islands in your little island home screen. So you can adjust the height of the desk, which will make life easier for you

Dscruffles: 16:12

Yeah, definitely. And, I said on the first island, you try to get to level 10 on your own. The other ones are longer. They go until level 25. And there's much more. Every level that you level up, you will unlock either a new item, on level 10 on all the other islands you get a cash bonus. It's a nice. It sometimes saves my ass when you need it though. It's a little bit of a filler bonus, but I love that filler bonus. Give me another one, you know. That cash bonus is nice, especially at level 10, cause sometimes I expand too fast. So you either get items, cash bonus during one instance at level 10, or, you know, every island has four building zones and you start with only one unlocked. And then I believe it's level six, you unlock the second zone. Then 12, you unlock the third zone, then 17, the fourth zone. Ugh, man, I had a lot of fucking fun with this one. so once you get all four unlocked, that's the only time you're going to be able to hit level 25. You're not hitting level 25 with just two zones. I've come close with three zones on some cities that I've killed it on. I've tried. I've gotten to like level 22 with just three zones and I'm still outlining my fourth zone. THere's a good amount of playtime to get all six cities maxxed. It's easy.

Stratus: 17:35

If you're trying to blaze through it too.

Dscruffles: 17:37

Yeah. If you take your time with it. Like I say, it's easy in the sense that , once you've gotten three islands maxed out, you feel pretty confident you get the flow of how you're going to do it all. But every island is unique in geography. There's one that's one giant island. There's one other one, that's a giant island, but a volcano in the middle. And I say that one was probably the hardest for me.

Stratus: 18:02

It was hysterical.

Dscruffles: 18:03

Yeah. What sucks about that? One is there's a fat volcano in the middle of the island, taking up a bunch of your build size and that can be inconvenient for when you're doing radius items. Services like your school, your medical center, your police and everything. Cause like, oh my God, it's just inconvenient. Now I've got to build another medical zone. Um, so that's annoying. And then if a volcano erupts and it will shoot molten hot fireballs and burn your city. So make sure you have a lot of fire departments on it.

Stratus: 18:33

Yeah. That's, that's the only solution to that. You don't have fire departments,you're done. But they're pretty generous when your building catches fire

Dscruffles: 18:40

Yeah. So I never really had too much of an issue with the volcano destroying a bunch of my city. Cause you actually did that island before me. We did the islands out of order. So you gave me a heads up. You figured it out the hard way. I already knew, make sure I have ample fire departments. Where I struggled with that one is I just made money really slow on that one until pretty far into the level upgrades. That one was just like, oh my God, I'm just like, I'm poor. Whereas other ones I would have, like by level 12, 13, I'd have like... because you have weekly income and it'll show you as the day goes by on the little clock on it. It will show you that in a little circle bar in blue and then your week bar is right on the inside of that. So you can see as the week and day goes by, and thenyou'll see, all right, weekly, you make 600, not that much. You got to wait a long time to be able to build. Medical centers costs three grand, you know, zoning cost. In Cities VR zoning was free. Not in this one. You got to pay money to zone and every zoning has different costs.

Stratus: 19:48

Funny. I never even paid attention to that

Dscruffles: 19:50

I did when I went broke a couple of times and I'm like, well... cause what I always did is when I unlocked the next section

Stratus: 19:57

I actually never was in that position to even know that building houses and shit

Dscruffles: 20:01

Off the top of my head, residential is the cheapest. I think commercial's the second most expensive. And then it goes industrial the most expensive.

Stratus: 20:11

That's awesome. I don't know how long would have gone by before I figured that out. I mean, I've been broke before, but I usually just watch,

Dscruffles: 20:20

I think it's just the order in which I do things. Cause it's like, I'll unlock the next aspect of my island. Then I'll outline my whole road structure and then,

Stratus: 20:29

oh yeah, you're spending a shit ton of money on roads to do those

Dscruffles: 20:34

So then I don't really have much left and thenI try to make sure I get my cell tower and everything all good. And then usually by then I look and it's like, oh - because it's very friendly with the notifications. They will be like, It will tell you need to build more police stations, there's part of your cell towers. Cell towers are very important but cell towers are the most annoying for me because they're a utility, just like the water and cost money. They cost money. They cost weekly money, which is never an issue to me. I make, like you said, Buku dollars.I'm rolling in money on every city in this one by the end. But the other utilities don't have a radius. This one's a radius.

Stratus: 21:10

So you might have to build two

Dscruffles: 21:11

several

Stratus: 21:12

Just to go around one structure.

Dscruffles: 21:15

So besides there being that island that's a volcano. Another solid structure, like I said, there's one that's just a solid structure with no interfering things. These ones are my favorite, the little island ones that literally every zone is another mini island. So you build little connecting bridges. To get to the next zone. It's always, always cool.And then there's other ones that are like Sandy, and you literally have to build plants on certain blocks to to remove the dust in the area so people are happy. Cut down on the wind damage. It also shows you your resident happiness on your wrist Yeah. And it'll tell you to, like I said, they're very friendly with it. It'll show you the notification on your left indicator. But it'll also show you visually on the map. So if you need water, electricity cell, there's smog, the dust, whatever you need to clean it up. It'll show you like a little orange indicator above that building. So it's pretty easy to take care of everything.

Stratus: 22:17

Everything they've done. Putting it together. I would use the word. Generous . Everything is generous. Their interface is generous. Everything about it. It's like you don't have to do a lot of strategy... I mean, you can do strategy, but the basic rules apply here. Don't put noisy shit in residential areas. Don't put industrial

Dscruffles: 22:39

and well, I definitely have a strategy and it applies the same every island

Stratus: 22:44

But I liked their progression system of things that become available on different islands. I thought each island was going to be pretty representative of the last

Dscruffles: 22:54

that is actually important to note. Each island does have a couple unique objects, whether it's a concert or I don't want to,

Stratus: 23:03

You get earned some of them.

Dscruffles: 23:05

Yeah,

Stratus: 23:06

but I freaking, I absolutely love it, man.

Dscruffles: 23:08

I know that there was a couple of times while we were playing in party chat where I just hear you go I don't know what it is.But I just love playing this game. It makes me happy and i I feel it it's the environment. The music is really bright. It's colorful, which in console gaming, I wouldn't like, but something about VR it's so feel good.

Stratus: 23:29

Instantly you're like, there's something about VR that's just made for nice bright colors.

Dscruffles: 23:34

Yeah. It's good. It's really good. Feels good. And initially I won't lie. Just like I had that initial worry when I thought that the whole game was over, when you beat one island. There was a little bit of me, that's like, oh my God, is this going to be too little kiddy, too cartoon? Is this going to be too much? I was concerned with that, but as a fully grown man, it's nice. It works really good. They didn't go too far with it. They did just enough that it's like, wow, this is a feel good experience. It was works.

Stratus: 24:01

You know, the way they did it make sense. It works. And I had the same thing you did when I saw the bright colors You know, maybe this is going to be dumbed down to the point where it's not made for adults, but that's not the case at all. No. Absolutely the colors add to that. To me, the island feel like you're in a tropical island, so you kind of need some bright colors and stuff to stand out.

Dscruffles: 24:25

It's nice. And they do a really good job with the incentive of it. Hey, you want to progress to the next level? And then you want to do all six of the islands. So you have a really solid reason to turn it on and turn it back on.

Stratus: 24:36

Then you want to go back and make your island even better.

Dscruffles: 24:39

So back to the kind of strategy thing. What I kind of do too is besides just filling all on the outside, creating my blocks zones, getting maximum bang for my buck, whatever. The first time, the first save file I did. I pre laid out all of my stuff. And this is where I think I'm going to want my residential, my industrial zone. I did it all. And then they were like, Hey, you need more residential. And I was like, shit, I got nowhere else to build. So that's when instantly I learned. So what I do is, they show you in the bars, what you need for zoning, either residential, commercial, or industrial. And I just zone and build slowly as the need comes in. Because when you have everything taking care of your progression levels will shoot up sometimes two or three levels. In 45 seconds

Stratus: 25:29

just from building the upgrades, what they're asking.

Dscruffles: 25:32

But if at any point you need more utilities, more cell towers, more zoning, anything like that, your progression bar up is kind of stalled. So it's like, all right, if I can fill in their needs slowly as they come in, until my city is fully built, I usually hit level 25 with like halfway through the last to zone and build in. So then I go, okay, I'll just fucking fill in whatever I want now.

Stratus: 25:59

Yeah. Yup. No, I've done that. I've completed earlier than I kind of wanted to,

Dscruffles: 26:05

but I definitely think building in the needs that they want as it comes in is very important to maximum progress though versus preplanned, pre committing to it all.

Stratus: 26:17

No, no, you gotta be. You don't have to do massive pre-planning but I would do a little

Dscruffles: 26:24

Yeah like, okay, well theoretically, this is where I'll put my residential. Like I said, I do it in blocks, zonings, but always subject to change. If there's only a little bit of build space left and they need a lot of commercial and Hey, maybe I wasn't, that was in my mind going to be for residential, but shit, it's gotta be commercial now, you know?

Stratus: 26:45

My strategy right from he startt, it doesn't matter. It's always the same. Whether it's this, cities VR, or skylines. right at the main entrance of the road, I go far off to the side. That's my industrial area. And this one right at the start, because they're not like huge islands.You don't have a lot of,

Dscruffles: 27:05

so right off of your Seaport port that they give you to build. That's your industry?

Stratus: 27:10

That's my industrial. Always, my residential goes all the way to the ass end of it. And then I do two roads for residential and do one strip. And then I build instantly, we'll say maybe like 10 little blocks of commercial, and then I sit back and go, okay, let's see what happens. And then I'll watch all those bars come down.

Dscruffles: 27:32

We literally do industrial and residential backwards and commercial the exact same. And I always go industrial way at the end, usually by the sea and everything like that. And then I'll always do exactly what you did with the commercial. So our commercials exactly the same.

Stratus: 27:51

You can mix commercial and residential and you don't get any effects

Dscruffles: 27:55

Commercial zoning to me is my that's my buffer. You know?

Stratus: 27:58

Yeah. It'd be totally a blocker with commercial between the industrial and the residental.But the only reason I don't do commercial, errr sorry residential at the Seaport entrance is, cause I wouldn't want to live in a house right on the entrance to an island. I'd want to be like in the background

Dscruffles: 28:16

and I feel that 100%, I always feel like the areas I put my industrial, like that's like the nicer, the green real estate. The reason I do that is cause here's some Seaport upgrades like coastal airports and stuff like that, that upset citizens. So I always figure I'm going to do. For the same reason as the city's VR, it's like I'm going to do industrial dumping and out in the sea, like that's where I'll put my industrial area. So I will put my residential right where it starts and builds kind of the same thing. Like I said, that you can build a coastal airport on some of the islands. So you build an airport right on the edge, but there are several different items in this...

Stratus: 28:58

see that's the thing when, and it's funny, you brought that up because you're, you're right. When I do the airport.

Dscruffles: 29:06

Oh, you just put it next to the Seaport?

Stratus: 29:08

Nope. That goes on whatever island that I unlock that you now get the Seaport afterwards. I put that at the very end of the island and my residential is off the bridge into the islands. I'm like, it's a beautiful bridge. Okay. So my residents can deal with this

Dscruffles: 29:26

So then when you get to the second zone of your island, you invert it? Yeah. Okay. That's interesting though. Yup. Mine is whatever they need

Stratus: 29:36

that way when I put shit there too, if it's a big radius,I can maybe get a little piece of both items.

Dscruffles: 29:43

Yeah. That way you're ending with residential and starting with residential. I feel that. Oh yeah. No, that's actually, that's really, that's interesting. It's cool. How many different strategies there are andthey all work. But we didn't mention this before. There's several items like your utilities. so like youryour windmill and your water plant, cell towers, airports, industrial zoning they all upset the residential area. So if you go straight from industrial to residential and those two zones are touching, the residents that are living right along the industrial line are going to have an unhappiness boost. As well if the residents are touching any of the utilities or any of those airports or anything like that. So that's why we were saying we put the commercial zone. Because I think it's either one or two blocks that you need a space of for or that the unhappiness will affect. So you go industrial then buffer of commercial, then residential, you get no unhappiness boost

Stratus: 30:55

It won't give you an upset rating for that.

Dscruffles: 30:57

No. So that's just like maximizing your gains on that one. And also because of that, I always put my utilities and shit like that in the industrial zone. I build my cell towers in the commercial zone and have it bleed into the residential because you don't get any unhappiness for utilities or cell tower in the commercial zone either.

Stratus: 31:19

To have a water tower, you have to put it on spot groundwater markings on the actual island. So some cases that will really dictate where you're putting what

Dscruffles: 31:29

yeah. You know, it's funny because of that. So there's upgrades that you can get as the missions progress where it's like it upgrades your water treatment areas, but it does a small radius. So in my mind, I'm like, I kind of want to keep my water towers together. So it's dictated for you. Yeah, the way it usually goes for me, one of my islands, one of my zones ends up being like fucking utilities zone. Oh, like four windmills altogether, four water things. 100%.

Stratus: 31:59

If I see that they get the really strong wind direction. Yeah. Like coming in strong. I'm like your coastline I'll top, you know, three or four

Dscruffles: 32:07

It's serious industrial sector, dude. It looks wild. Wouldn't want to live there. And it's likeI build all my industrial zone. Then I build a windmill. There destroys some of the zoning. So it's like, all right, I know I'm going to have to build some more industrial somewhere else. So it's like, yup. This area, that's where it's all going. Like it's just, sometimes it looks pretty comical and conceptually it's funny. It's like I have four islands that are touching. Bridge all powered by one island, you know?

Stratus: 32:35

Oh yeah, well that would work.

Dscruffles: 32:37

Yeah. It's just cool. It's your nuclear island. Yup. If anything goes wrong, it's just that area.

Stratus: 32:42

I'll tell you this much. I want more islands.

Dscruffles: 32:44

Yeah. I want like a fleet of like hundreds of thousands. They have a lot of potential with this game with updates, DLC. You know, if I saw an update that... cause you know, six islands and it's a blast, like I said, you can speed run it You can speed run through it and it's still gonna take you a good amount of time and you're going to be excited to go on and run through

Stratus: 33:06

You're talking some major battery kills,

Dscruffles: 33:10

This one's another battery killer. Or, you can take your time. And it's going to take awhile, but either way, cause it's such a good game. You're going to leave it wanting more cities, more islands. It's the way it goes. So they have so much potential. If they want to do just new regular islands, mega islands. A go to 50 or a Christmas island. You know, you build in the north pole, dude, you name it. There's so much potential in this game. And whether they want to do free updates, free islands, DLC ones. I don't know. When I finished this experience, it's like, wow, that was a great experience, worth 20 bucks, no doubt. And there's so much room for more and not in a bad way. Not like, wow, it's unfinished. I don't know, great platform to grow on.

Stratus: 33:55

Oh my God. Yeah.

Dscruffles: 33:57

And you know, in just a bit, we can get into our final thoughts and rating, everything like that, but something I kind of want to say before that, that we've made the comparison a lot to cities VR, because it's the obvious comparison. It just came out the week before. We just reviewed it. It's also a city builder. So, know, there's a lot of similar elements, so it seems very obvious to make the comparison. But I almost feel bad doing that because the obvious thing that comes to mind when doing that is, oh, which one's better? And in the end, these games are hitting such different markets of city builders. That in my mind, there's not one that's better or worse. They're different enough. And there's enough differences that they have their own unique thing. I like them both for different reasons. You know, I want some feel-good quick progression system city. I'm going to go a little cities, but I want to go really sophisticated? I'm probably going to go cities VR in the same sense that somebody who loves city builders and they're a hardcore fan and they want to build something super sophisticated. Cities VR is probably going to be better for them,but for somebody new to city builders I might point them to little cities. It's not because one's better or worse. They're just doing different things. So I think that's important to say before, it sounds like, oh wow. You guys really liked Little Cities more. It's like, no, it's not bad. It's, they're different. And in my mind, one's not better than the other. They're just two great city builders.

Stratus: 35:22

Yeah. I totally agree. I mean, what's cool is there's more than enough room on the quest store for even more city builders. So we're definitely not over saturated. No, they both bring... listen, if anything. They all are paying homage to skylines at the end of the day.

Dscruffles: 35:43

You can feel that the influence there

Stratus: 35:45

and the different levels of how do you want your game style to be. Like you said, do you want to go very detailed? Well then yeah, you'll jump to Cities VR, and this is exactly how I know for a fact I'll be. I will do little cities when I just want to chill vibe and cause I was even like laughing on the party chat. Like I don't know fucking relaxed. I am playing this. I'm like, this is really cool. And then if I want to go deep, I'm just going to jump into the different land environment too. It's like it's all islands and

Dscruffles: 36:16

yeah, different art style

Stratus: 36:18

The background stuff going on in little cities though. Little hot air balloons. And when they fly behind you, you'll hear them.It's pretty cool. They have jets and they got, you know, when you advance or upgrade your fire department or police department, and they use helicopters instead of cars to put out fires and shit. And it's like, I don't know. It's just a different experience. You know, cities VR is more micromanaged.

Dscruffles: 36:46

There is a lot of spreadsheets, a lot of detailed reports.

Stratus: 36:51

This is more just, Hey, well, you know, here's the fricking needs of what your person wants. They want cell towers, you know, can you handle that bill yourself puff? We'll get

Dscruffles: 36:59

That energy bars going down to halfway. You might need something

Stratus: 37:03

Yeah. I mean, you could go in there and miss it and build a whole thing of residents go, whoops. You know, that's not going to work. Different experience, but still fun. They pay homage to that you know, the traditional. You're going to have an entrance into your city. You need a fricking road, you need water, you need electricity.

Dscruffles: 37:23

And what's, what's even cooler is if you really want to look at it as non-competitive, which one's better. And just that they're both two really good city builders. You could even say, look, you've never played a city builder before. Right. Go buy little cities, beat all six islands. Now you could probably handle cities VR a lot better than if you had never played a city's builder before and then hopped in cities VR straight away. It's almost like, you know, part one is Little Cities then part two is with Cities VR. You could really take both of those games. And, and honestly it takes somebody who's never played a city builder before. All right. Start in little cities. Progress all the way through, and then they're going to have a really good time with cities VR in my opinion. So I think if you look at it more cooperatively than competitively there, it's great that we have both of them

Stratus: 38:12

I can also see on the other side, you're going to have some diehards that are gonna say little cities is going to be too easy. I mean,it is easy. I'm not gonna lie lie. It's just not as complicated as

Dscruffles: 38:27

yeah. Especially for us with city builder experience, it was like, oh shit. I already know what I'm going to do. Yeah.

Stratus: 38:32

So, I mean, it's like just even the whole, you know, utility management system, they have gone... It's just a lot easier. So I could see somebody saying that, but where I think they're going to get people is, is the price, 20 bucks and they're going to give you more content down the road. It's like, come on. This is becomes a no brainer. It didn't cost me $30 or whatever the case.

Dscruffles: 38:58

Yeah. That's price to me is spot on, man. Yeah. Well, I don't want to give up my score. Thing is we have the value aspect, but I will say for 20 bucks, dude. Okay. There's even a point where we were playing in the party where you were like, what's the cost of this? What's the

Stratus: 39:15

actual costs going to be

Dscruffles: 39:16

20 bucks.

Stratus: 39:17

This

Dscruffles: 39:18

is. Wow.

Stratus: 39:20

This is one game they're doing they're doing here.

Dscruffles: 39:45

It goes back to a being a great city builder introduction for somebody who maybe doesn't want to spend $35 originally.

Stratus: 39:52

I think this was supposed to come out before Cities VR.

Dscruffles: 39:59

For reasons maybe it's because they had the Ghostbuster announcement, maybe it's because they didn't want to do two city builders dropping the same week, which I think is smart. They said, let's delay this a couple of weeks and then we're going to release it. So it has been nice to have this spaced out city builder release.

Stratus: 40:12

It would have been cool if this had come out like a month prior to the city's VR, but

Dscruffles: 40:18

oh, that way people could get their toes wet with city builders then go into the sophisticated.

Stratus: 40:22

Yeah. I actually think both parties would have probably benefited off each other better in that scenario. And it just, you know, Hey, that's life. That's the way shit works.

Dscruffles: 40:30

Lessons learned. That's why I think that these two games together are set up perfect to be marketed together, cooperatively versus competitively. I really hope it goes that direction. We see it in a bundle in the store, versus which one's better. It's like, nah, dude. Sell them together. This is great. They go together, you know? Yeah so we can get into our final thoughts and ratings, but like always before we do that, let's take a moment to get a message from our sponsors who help keep the show afloat besides the listeners. Support for Ruff Talk VR is brought to you by Manscaped - the champion in man's below the waist grooming. Manscaped offers precision engineered tools for your family jewels.

Stratus: 41:11

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Stratus: 42:10

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Dscruffles: 42:30

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Dscruffles: 42:56

So, as a reminder, for anybody in case, this is your first time you've listened to the podcast and in case it isn't, I apologize, you get to hear this again, but our, rating category is 1 to 100, we break it into five categories of 1 to 20 with the total making up the final score. The categories being gameplay, aesthetics, functionality, replayability, and value, you know, meaning how worth it is the game for the money. So starting with gameplay, I'm going to give them a 20. It's a city builder. It's simple.if they were going for a realistic feel in the graphics, in the music and the gameplay style, I might be more inclined to gig them on the lack of sophistication, but I mean the games name is Little Cities I mean everything about it is very obvious that it's going to be more simplistic. It works with the feel of the game. If it was more complex, I don't know if it would actually feel right in that environment and graphics and music, if that makes sense. So I think that it's the way it's so simple worked for what it is. And because of that, I feel comfortable still giving them a 20 all day. So 20 for game play. Aesthetics. I'm going to give them a 20 as well. Look its not the best graphics. It's not like real VR fishing. That's always the standard I set, but between the graphics, the music, the environment, it's a home run to me. I loved it. You know, you look at some of the bigger games on consoles. People are gonna laugh at me for calling this bigger games, but like, fall guys. Those cartoon graphics. So what? It's not realistic. That's not what they're going for. So, because they're going the cartoony aspect. Man they did great with it. I can't see what what they could have added. Even, like you said, they have little planes and hot air balloons, you level up the balloon shoots up, you know, they even added you can see your islands in the distance. Yeah. Aesthetics. I'm giving them a 20. Functionality, hey look, I'm overly critical. I'm so mean. Wow. I'm so easy to gig people that's life. Sorry. I've got to give them a 15 on functionality and somebody is going to say, dude, just as you pointed out, what's going on with the block or whatever, but that should be way more obvious in the user interface of why I can't build in the rows. It feels really weird and it can kind of mess with some ideas that you have in mind. All right. Well now I got to fucking go around it I guess, or whatever. So that's pretty annoying. And then this is probably also an on me thing. It's the way I play or whatever, but there's an undo button, which I love. I love the undo button. It's great. You can undo one last move. So I build my road wrong. Cool. I just hit undo .Because of where exactly the undo button is located in the hand on my right. Sometimes I've accidentally, not sometimes, after six islands, there's been a good amount of times that I accidentally click it and look, maybe I'm the only guy in the world, but it's like, oh, I just built a long road. Or I just placed my thing perfectly. Now I gotta redo it. I wish that the undo button was a little bit more off on the side versus just underneath where it is. I know it's minor, but when it happened so many times, So I gig them five. It is what it is. I'm giving them 15 on functionality, between those two. Replayability I'm going to give them 15 as well, because you go in, there's like 10 save slots. You can play all six islands a hundred times if you want, but there reaches a certain point where you're going to do all the islands and you're going to want more. Is that any fault to them? No. I mean, awesome. And I'll be the first one that if I see a new island I am on there day one, excited as shit. You could probably even sell me DLCs on this game. Like, I loved it. I want more islands, but there reaches a certain point that you probably aren't going to play it again yourself. Maybe show it to somebody to recommend it. Cool that they have other save slots. But I'm personally not going to go start again. I'm happy. Boom. I get to see all my islands maxed out. I'm ready for more to come, but it is what it is. So replayability, I'm going to give them 15. In value, just like the price tag, $19.99, $20. I'm going to give them a 20 on value. This one's a steal. If you have been tempted on city builders or if you like city builders, man 20 bucks, between the six islands, you're getting way more than $20 worth of play time on it. Yes. There's a wall you'll hit, you've done all the islands, but are those six islands worth $20? Yeah, I'd say the amount of enjoyment I had. Absolutely. So $20 on value. So 20, 20, 15, 15. I'm giving them a 90.

Stratus: 48:03

That's not bad at all. No, it's actually really good. All right. I freaking loved it, man. I mean, again, 20 bucks, it just resonates in my head. It's like steal city. Gameplay. I clean 20 loved every second of it. It's just, it's a clean 20. What can you say? You said pretty much a lot of the same things. We only differed in a few areas. Aesthetics. I actually give them a 15. I know they're not going for photo realism. I think I actually did a really great job with like some of the background shit that's going on. Like the balloons you mentioned. Something like you finished the island or you level up the jets that fly over, you can kind of zoom into them. You can use your left joystick and zoom up and down for 'em get real close or you can, you know, use the grip button and kind of a wrist movement to move around and you can get pretty close to the jet. The details. Cool. It's there. I guess if one were really beef, they'd be like, there's no people in the balloons that are empty balloons, like the hot air balloons, and then they got the, the hanggliders. You know, so the level of detail is phenomenal in that, but not as so tight in the buildings and shit, but not enough to really like harp about it. Cause I'm not expecting photo realism, but 15 and you're right. The music's good,so they do deserve credit for that. Functionality a 20, I don't mind the obscure around the island. Although I'm with you, I'd love to have the boxed in thing, but I kind of appreciate, like, I think that's why they did it was to give it more of that. You know, no island is going to be a perfect square, which traditionally with city builders, you can get away with doing the squares real easy, or even, I think in the old Sims you could do squares like on an island set up, but, yeah, man, They get a 20 or a 15 on aesthetics functionality. Oh, that's what I was sorry. I backtracked was the 20. Replayability. I agree with you. I'll be the first one to jump on a new map. I was really torn on this one too, cause I really want to give it a 20, but I already know the next thing I'm going to do is use one island for each. And be like, oh, I'm going to try to do an island and make it all residents than do an island and make it all commercial section, but after that, my novelty will start to like run a little dry. And that might be because of the simple, it's simple. It's not, you know, gonna like really suck you in to put a 15 and I feel bad about it cause I do, I really want it. But download comes or like you said some DLC. Yeah. I'll be on it as quick as you will. Value for money clean 20. Worth every penny. I liked how you said, is six islands for $20 worth it? Yup I did. We got hours. I mean, hours of gameplay in on this, that was not... I mean, granted we have full-time lives and shit, but playing everyday. To try to get all six islands is pretty crazy. It wasn't like you're going to breeze through this in a couple hours and be like, finish this game in three hours. I don't think it's possible. I just, I really don't. So they get a 20, I'd put it as a, for city builders... if you're open to a new experience, or you've played city builders, I would definitely buy it. And if you're new to city builders, it's a, like you said, a great intro. Get your feet wet. Kind of learn the basics and then go into the more complicated, oh, I have to run pipes and I have to run utility lines and shit. So yeah, definitely. So they get the same score as you 90. Sorry. I messed up. I backtracked still wanted to talk about that, but

Dscruffles: 52:14

yeah, you gave, you gave 15 on aesthetics and 20 on function. Now here's the thing, while I was saying my aesthetics score. I was, I was thinking to myself, I could see the argument, somebody being like, dude, you know what saved you? it's only because of the theme they're shooting to use. I can see the argument that it's a 15. I can, I can see it. I'm not willing to die on that hill. I think either is correct. That

Stratus: 52:40

is

Dscruffles: 52:40

how I was

Stratus: 52:40

with the replayability. I'm like, it really could

Dscruffles: 52:44

be a 20 and I feel bad. I want it. I really wish I could say like, dude, you're going to finish it and start over. I wish I could. I agree with you. I wish I could give 20 on replayability

Stratus: 52:53

and I will say, you know what, I'll disclaimer a whole bunch of shit too, because this holds to be so true. This is a brand new game. I'm telling you, the inks not even dry. And everyone's got this who is going to have this game...

Dscruffles: 53:08

some updates already announced.

Stratus: 53:10

Yeah. So you're going to listen to this and it's like, what everyone hears the day they hear this it could be different two weeks later

Dscruffles: 53:19

it's like they say that in I think June they're dropping hand tracking then in July, I think it is that they're going to drop more like objects and aesthetics and stuff. And then they say more coming soon. It's like, yeah. Who knows where this game is going to be in a year Put

Stratus: 53:36

out some shit for this on a continual basis. I don't see any reason why,that's when you'd have to change my score to a 20 for replayability,

Dscruffles: 53:45

100%. I hope, I hope we do have to change it one day. Cause I hope that's the case.

Stratus: 53:49

I'd love just one giant massive freaking island. Yeah.

Dscruffles: 53:54

Go to level 50 or sandbox or it goes to level 50, but it's kind of sandbox.

Stratus: 54:00

No, there's so much potential. And it's like

Dscruffles: 54:02

the price they really knocked it out of the park with user interface, with the bubbles, everything, the movement, the way you move, you can go real close down. It makes it cool. So far away. It's very, user-friendly honestly, they knocked it out of the park

Stratus: 54:19

Their user interface is so damn good for city building. If I were Cities VR. I'd be like knocking on their door and be like, can we use this?

Dscruffles: 54:31

It's so good. It's phenomenal. What I gotta do

Stratus: 54:33

for that code.

Dscruffles: 54:34

And like you said,it's outlined for hand tracking. It would be so easy to make. Nah, okay. Back up. Easy in terms of like changing the interface and everything. I'm sure it's a pain in the ass to develop. That's not what I mean, but it's already built. Yes. It's already designed with hand tracking. Definitely.

Stratus: 54:52

It felt like even though you're using controllers, it felt like hand tracking is dumb as that is. Cause you have your hand

Dscruffles: 55:00

Sometimes I forgot I had the controller. Yeah. As dumb as that sounds. Cause you see your little invisible virtual hand. And man, there was some people who were saying, you know, Cities VR, wasn't real VR. And they're probably gonna say the same thing. They're saying like 3D gaming. It's VR gaming to me. I'll die on this hill. I don't care.

Stratus: 55:19

Die-hards will say the same thing.

Dscruffles: 55:21

I don't need every experience to be first-person. I can do third person top-down strategy games all day. I want civilization in VR. I want board games in VR. I want every strategy. I want age of empires in VR. I want those types of military strategy. I don't think everything needs to be a first person. I

Stratus: 55:45

mean, it shouldn't have to be because then from a professional standpoint, you're limited. Yeah. I mean, let's be honest. I mean, if you're an accountant, maybe you could do taxes and VR, right. But one could go, well, that's not real VR. You're just doing spreadsheets

Dscruffles: 55:59

and shit. Can I tell you what? There's yet to be a third person VR experience that we played, even deism, which you know, is a God game. It's an app lab game that we have in God mode, I should say you just, you know, it's one of those. It will have an Episode. we've been playing that one for months, but that's a top-down one too. and there's yet to be a top-down in VR that I've disliked. Every single one I've liked. and don't get me wrong. There's probably plenty of bad ones I haven't played. I'm just saying

Stratus: 56:31

No, like VR, like in its true form is real new. So it's like who's anybody to be the expert and say, Nope, that is not virtual reality. It's like, it is

Dscruffles: 56:42

and look, the reality is, years ago, Oculus and other VR companies did do a lot of user surveys to find this is what got the best reception and everything like that. But a couple of things on that, a gaming markets change so much in years. So what may have been the case in 2016? 17 is not the case in 2022. I mean, it changes as well. So imagine you do something and it's like... nah, I'll save that. We'll do an episode dedicated to my rants in that field. I'll get real prepared for it, you know, I'm sorry. No, I was going to say, just because something applied five-yearsago. It might not be the case today. So culture changes. People get ready for different things, you know?

Stratus: 57:32

People also get certain ideas in their heads and then it's tough to get out of them. And it's like, knowing how many doesn't work, it's all on how many, I mean, even take VR in itself. Like how many times have we heard people who were likeI thought the Oculus was going to be shit. And then I put the headset on and yeah. Oh, my God. I had no idea. Yeah. But a week before you had no idea. So it's you running your mouth about how crappy you, when

Dscruffles: 57:57

you asked people if they were interested and they said, no it's because they didn't know that they were interested in. Yeah.

Stratus: 58:02

So it's like, there's just different levels to everybody, I guess. But no, I mean, I don't call it not virtual reality called 3d gaming. I don't really care. I can put a headset on and be inside a 3d game. How's that? I can't do that on my X-Box. I can look at my TV and go, Hmm.

Dscruffles: 58:19

It's VR to me. And I'm like, I'm loving top-down strategy game. So like I said, keep them coming the day civilization drops in VR. I'm not going to give it up,

Stratus: 58:29

dude, dude, I want red alert. I want board games. I want red alert too. I want an old school

Dscruffles: 58:33

look. We were bitching about city builders for awhile. We got two phenominal ones. Like I said, in my mind, it's not which one's better, which one's worse.It's Different markets. They're both fun. And we need civilization, baby, give me my military strategy. All right. Nonetheless, I think that,

Stratus: 58:49

you know what I think the problem with the undo button is what's that it looks like the back. But I can understand that's the reason why you get used to

Dscruffles: 58:57

no, that's not actually why, when I'm pressing it, I'm not intentionally pressing any button. It just my hand SWAT, me swinging my hand and then accidentally press it , Aw, you bastard.

Stratus: 59:07

I was like, cause I only hit him once and I'm like, oh shit.

Dscruffles: 59:10

It looks like a back button. It does look like a back button, but there is a cancel button. That's like a red X. Whereas the undo is like a blue circle going backwards. Yeah. I could see somebody having that issue as well.

Stratus: 59:21

Yeah, I did it once. I was like, oh, okay. There is nothing to go back to from.

Dscruffles: 59:27

Just watch the podcast on YouTube. I'm fucking swinging my arms around talking and you can only imagine me building on a city builder. So yeah, I would like it if the the undo button was a little bit farther off, I feel bad giving them five points on that. The button and somebody is going to be like being a baby about the road. Somebody is going to be like, yeah, no.

Stratus: 59:48

Yeah. At the end of the day, two 90s it is

Dscruffles: 59:50

killing it. They're crushing it. It's a great game. Great job to nDreams. Purple Yonder, awesome name, great game. Can't wait to see the growth. Yeah, no, I'm real excited on this one.

Stratus: 1:00:00

Ghostbusters VR baby. Yeah. You know, they're doing this.

Dscruffles: 1:00:08

It's going to be a co-op. Ah, man, I can't wait. I can't wait. All right. So yeah, I'm pretty stoked. Yeah. If you guys enjoyed this episode, like I always say, subscribe real cities,

Stratus: 1:00:18

big fun, little cities,

Dscruffles: 1:00:20

subscribe. Rate us five stars. Join the discord, you know, all that fun stuff and check us out next week.

Stratus: 1:00:27

Take care.