Management sims are a kind of magic unto itself. While RPGs will tend to rely on flashy graphics to suck you into a world, a city builder does it purely with minutia and bureaucracy- lemme take a look at those spreadsheets and figure out how to optimize these routes. Yet if you're uninitiated, it can look like a mess. What do you mean I just have to keep going until I hit a financial spiral? 

Craftlings seems to walk the road that leads people into the walled garden of management sims. It's deviations from the formula are two-fold: one to make it more approachable with more bite-sized goals, and the other to add a layer of difficulty these games don't usually have. 

Simple And Clean Goals

One really cool thing that Craftlings does is breaking itself up into singular level goals. In this stage? Build up your city to build a Siege Engine and kill an Octopus. On the other? Teach your Craftlings violence and Strife to take down the soldiers around you. 

It does a lot to fix the problem with most city builders- not knowing what your actual goal is. For a generation used to algorithm dopamine and instant gratification, their eyes may not be able to see the beauty in a supply chain done right. In that essence, Craftlings mission-based goals feel like a sort of New Testament, meant to wean them into the glory of city building. 

This also leads to some cool levels. Since the stages are built around their objective, you can always sort of see the outline that drives certain challenges. Take the Octopus stage- in no part of the game's notes does it mention needing to learn to build a bridge, but goodness will you learn it by the end of the stage anyways. It's a kind of limitation that you rarely get outside of secret-tutorial campaigns- but it helps you feel like you can come up with a "correct" solution. It sets the foundation for the city builder's high in a good and accessible goals. 

Becoming A Deist

It's that second twist where the game really gets interesting, though. While your typical city builder gives you direct of control of your buildings, Craftlings instead turns me into Abrahamic God, trying to unify a messy desert of unfocused creatures into acting in their best interests. 

Everything has to be done via the little guys named after the game- you can command a Town Center be built here, but it is ultimately up to the Craftling itself to build it. You can even put a hammer next to the build site, but if the creature has decided he is already holding something, he will betray the will of the collective. It does not matter that we have too many carrots, the Craftling thinks. I have a carrot, and I am now blind to my praxis. 

Managing the creatures themself is honestly a fascinating way to spice up the city builder formula. The rules are simple: They will walk forward until they hit a wall or meet their death. They will pick up the first thing they see, and will interact with the first object they can when they get to it. 

Placement matters, but not in the way it does in games like Anno- you are essentially navigating a commune of children, who need to be guided into collective self-interest instead of aimlessly navigating individualist nihility. Their interactions with things like Ladders matter too: they can't climb if they're carrying resources, so without a cargo elevator to help transport goods you'll suddenly find yourself with 10 lumberjacks all carrying logs stuck on the bottom level. 

It creates a game that's much more active than your city builder: you have to view resource buildings as your personal commandments, and actively turn them on or off as the situation sees fit. There's no benefit to a surpluis- instead, you want to only have these buildings on as they're needed. These Craftlings are so wholly incompetent when left to their own devices that the fact there aren't magical bags of hammers spawning outside areas we should develop to our own benefit only tells me of real civilizations relationship with God. 

Craftlings Verdict

Whether you're a management sim veteran or just looking to get into their world, you really should check out Craftlings. In a genre who's indie space is usually dominated by tribute games, it's a fresh blast of originality- one that adds fun new challenge to a well-shaped genre. 

Admittedly those same changes may make or break your enjoyment of the game. But once I accepted that it is the role of a deity to actually shepherd my flock instead of just chucking some tablets at them and flooding them when they're not followed, it's a game you can absolutely get lost in. .

Final Score: 8/10