Give me a fixer-upper project any day of the week – House Flipper, Bear and Breakfast, Go-Go Town – and I’m happy as Larry. There’s something so satisfying about starting from scratch and building up a successful location. I had the pleasure of experiencing the Go-Go Town demo and creating my own flourishing tourist town under the education of TownCo representatives dotted around the barren beginner settlement.
Similar to the Animal Crossing series, you appear in the world and are now, for some reason, in charge of revamping the entire area. Immediately you’re tasked with fitting out a new shop and collecting a load of materials for future projects. Good, throw me right in and give me the tools of the trade!
To begin, you head to the forest and the mine areas, grab a tool and get to work breaking down trees and mineral deposits to get raw materials, which you then put in helpful machines that turn them into bricks and planks. When they’re done, grab the items and take them over to the reserved plot for a building. Once you’ve got all the bits, a tent pops up, and the building automatically… builds. You then cut the ribbon, choose the function, and you’re off.
Don’t worry about having too much on your plate – automation by way of the townfolk is here to help. Hire different people to work in each store and amenity (like the all-important garbage disposal area), and even in the mines and forest to automatically collect materials for you.
Every so often a little pop-up appears notifying you that a train is arriving – this is where more residents and tourists come from. Each batch of eager visitors has one or two candidates that you can ask to move into your new town. In the demo, they immediately accept, but in the full version, this is likely to change. While these visitors are in your town, they purchase food and drinks to generate cash for you. Woohoo!
It’s not just slightly-cuboid humanoid villagers that turn up either, oh no. At night, ghosts and werewolves appear, and mummies crop up in and around the mines. I also stumbled across a UFO receiver and got some aliens to move in.
As you explore your new plot, you find a farm area complete with a fairly round cow and a cute chicken. There are plots to grow fruit and vegetables and room for two hired helpers to do the dirty work for you. I’m not sure what’s going on with the soil quality of my town, but nothing seems to grow. Hopefully, at release, there are some more options and assistance to keep my seedlings alive and well…
Transport isn’t an issue in your new town either, thankfully. There are trucks, skateboards, unicorn-shaped tricycles, and more dotted around to ensure you can get quickly from A to B. While the trucks have storage options, the unicorn tricycle is clearly the best option.
Looking at the performance and technical side of Go-Go Town, it all seems to run quite well so far. I recommend playing the PC version with a controller as the keyboard and mouse controls didn’t seem too intuitive, but on the Switch, this won’t be an issue.
In terms of gameplay, inventory space runs out ridiculously quickly, and there’s only a limited number of storage plots you can place in your town. I expect restrictions in a demo, and hopefully, the full release has inventory expansion and better storage options like bigger chests.
Overall, Go-Go Town offers a simple and addictive cycle of collecting, making, putting things to use, and spending the generated money on new projects. For anyone wanting a buildy game to jump into now and again without the harsh structure of the likes of Cities Skylines, I recommend Go-Go Town. I’m excited for it to release fully, especially on Switch!
While we await news on Go-Go Town’s Switch release, check out our picks for the best farm games and wildlife games to pass the time.