Terraria
Terraria
Game
Game2021
Townscaper
Developer Oskar Stålberg
Townscaper is a city builder game by Oskar Stålberg. It was released for Windows and Mac in August 2021. A port to the Nintendo Switch was released in August 2021 when the Steam version left early access. The mobile version was released in October 2021. From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
334 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon, Lemmy) · newest Nov 4, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
88
LovedLoved
198 positive · 26 negative
95% range 84–92%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 198 | 26 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 31 | 0 | 54 |
| Mastodon * | 4 | 0 | 12 |
| Lemmy * | 1 | 1 | 7 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Overwhelmingly Positive
10,853 of 11,344 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
87% recommend · 185 yes, 27 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 212 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Overwhelmingly Positive (20,638 of 21,659 positive).
Players describe it as a relaxing, zen-like toy rather than a traditional game. [1][2][3] Many wish for more content, such as people, decorations, or gameplay depth. [4][5][6] Some find it too simple or limited, with little to do beyond placing blocks. [7][8][9]
Liked
Representative posts
- [7]
I am sorry to be the one ruining the atmosphere, since this game seems to be loved by almost everyone, but for me its own simplicity ends up being its main limitation. Visually, it is beautiful: the atmosphere works, the visual impact is strong, and it takes very little to create genuinely nice looking scenery. The problem is that, beyond that, the game offers very little real freedom. You can barely modify …
- [1]
To enjoy this game, you shouldn't think of it as a game. There's no plot, it doesn't require skills, there's no end goal. Think of it more like an interactive screen-saver. This could've probably been a web-page you stumble upon while scrolling the feed, spent 20 minutes there, and that's it.
- [5]
This game is sneakily good. Click click and before I know it, an hour flew by and I've got half a town and some cool unexpected structures with cool ambience. To be honest, this game actually calms my mind and that is a great thing. I would love to see little humanoids walking around and living in my newly created town besides just evidence of them being there, but for now the little effects like clotheslines and …
- [2]
Super simple and zen city builder. No budgets. No disasters. No worries.
- [3]
Like the store page says, more of a toy than a game. it is quite literally just placing blocks. don't come in expecting "content" like a few other reviewers seem to have done. I think the biggest potential dealbreaker that someone who does indeed "get it" would be the lack of tools. You literally just have the housing blocks in different colors. Any further detail such as rooftops, archways etc. are just …
Summarised from 34 of the 308 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 9, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
87% of the 212 Steam reviewers we collected recommend Townscaper. The complaint that keeps coming up: lacks content and depth beyond basic building. Deal-breaker or nitpick?
Critics, per Wikipedia
The PC edition of Townscaper received a critic score of 86% according to review aggregator Metacritic, indicating generally favorable reviews. The Nintendo Switch edition received a score of 63%, indicating a mixed or average reception. Natalie Clayton of PC Gamer wrote: "Townscaper may not have the complexity of a Cities: Skylines, but its quaint towns littered with cobbled streets and old churches, dockyards and lighthouses feel more instantly homely than the sterile American-styled metropolises of "real" city-builders." Christian Donlan of Eurogamer wrote: "[...] but met on its own terms, diving in when you've a few spare minutes to lay down a new neighbourhood, Townscaper is an…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 334 · most liked firstFeel like retreating to your own island away from the chaos and heartbreak of these days? I have the game for you: Eilands. It’s along the lines of Tiny Glade and Townscaper, but the focus is on nature. Still in early development. Stay in touch for more info! #indiegame #cozygame
neutral · AI labelView post →---{ Graphics }--- ☑ You forget what reality is ☐ Beautiful ☐ Good ☐ Decent ☐ Bad ☐ Don‘t look too long at it ☐ MS-DOS ---{ Gameplay }--- ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ It's just gameplay ☐ Mehh ☐ Watch paint dry instead ☐ Just don't ---{ Audio }--- ☐ Eargasm ☐ Very good ☑ Good ☐ Not too bad ☐ Bad ☐ I'm now deaf ---{ Audience }--- ☑ Kids ☑ Teens ☑ Adults ☑ Grandma ---{ PC Requirements }--- ☐ Check if you can run paint ☑ Potato ☐ Decent ☐ Fast ☐ Rich boi ☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer ---{…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Lo-Fi town-building game Tranquil Isle is OUT NOW! 🏝️ Think Townscaper x Islanders Developed by @atomdaly.bsky.social & published by @futurefriendsgames.com (us!!) 💖 - Build up little settlements - Two modes; Classic & Sandbox - Daily Challenges - No Combat - No Trading - Just vibes - Please share
neutral · AI labelView post →Game list, forgot something probably. Katamari Damacy No Man’s Sky Wingspan Magic: The Gathering Minecraft Townscaper Overwatch Rainbow 6 Siege Final Fantasy / Chrono Cross / jrpgs Disco Elysium Balatro Pyre / Transistor Ni No Kuni Satisfactory Marvel Snap
neutral · AI labelView post →Islands & Trains just arrived at Steam Central station If you liked Townscaper or Tiny Glade, you’ll rail-y love this This train-mendous little indie game comes from the engine-ous indie duo Akos Makovics and @justgamedev.bsky.social (I would make more train puns, but I’m running out of steam)
neutral · AI labelView post →Townscaper ✅ 10/10 🏆 Cute little cozy game that’s easy to waste a whole night with. Well worth the $1 I paid for it. Only thing I wish they had included was some kind of background music while you build your little block city in the ocean.
positive · AI labelView post →To enjoy this game, you shouldn't think of it as a game. There's no plot, it doesn't require skills, there's no end goal. Think of it more like an interactive screen-saver. This could've probably been a web-page you stumble upon while scrolling the feed, spent 20 minutes there, and that's it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →You should add farms, if a plot it big enough a farm of wheat, vegetables, cows, sheep, extra spawns. Another, thing you need to add is more colours, it would add more variation to the game. Also, boats, like fishing boats would give a nice feel to a peaceful harbour. That's about it, 10/10 I'm enjoying it. Well done developers.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Townscaper was another favourite in this genre. It was the first game I saw that cleverly generated variety through unique combinations of basic elements. You can still play the Townscaper demo online. I think it has most of the same features, just a smaller world canvas. townscaper.org
positive · AI labelView post →Games with roguelike metaprogression: * Vampire Survivors: Practically an idle game. All you do in this is control your hero's movement around a sea of monsters and your hero automatically attacks them. Surprisingly fun and strategically deep. *Battery killer* * Slay the Spire: card collecting strategy game * Bloons TD 6 (requires Netflix): Pop Bloons with monkeys. *Battery killer* * Into the Breach (requires Netflix): isometric strategy game from the same devs as FTL: Faster Than Light. Big…
neutral · AI labelView post →Happy #ScreenshotSaturday folks. Here's about a minute of me playing my game Eilands, creating an island and placing some trees and rivers. It's along the lines of Tiny Glade or Townscaper, with more focus on nature. Later you'll be able to explore your creations in 1st or 3rd person.
neutral · AI labelView post →I love this game. It is in the same vein as Townscaper or Tiny Glade, where the object is to build a town without being limited by any statistics like money or happiness - just build something that you like. The recent update for adding little flying cars to travel through between the skyscrapers has reinvigorated my city building enjoyment.
positive · AI labelView post →i just wish it had more content, i love the potential it has but i know by now this game is pretty much dead
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I’ve been loving this cute town builder called Townscaper- it’s so relaxing to play! Here’s my first finished build!
positive · AI labelView post →This game is sneakily good. Click click and before I know it, an hour flew by and I've got half a town and some cool unexpected structures with cool ambience. To be honest, this game actually calms my mind and that is a great thing. I would love to see little humanoids walking around and living in my newly created town besides just evidence of them being there, but for now the little effects like clotheslines and animated things do bring the town to life enough. It would be cool to go in…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I am sorry to be the one ruining the atmosphere, since this game seems to be loved by almost everyone, but for me its own simplicity ends up being its main limitation. Visually, it is beautiful: the atmosphere works, the visual impact is strong, and it takes very little to create genuinely nice looking scenery. The problem is that, beyond that, the game offers very little real freedom. You can barely modify anything, except for the color of the structures that automatically appear when you…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game is cool, however, just like the dev, I have not touched this game since 2023 It's pretty simple, nothing super crazy, but as all other reviews say, it is quite cozy and chill. You can make very cool builds
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →1. Watched #Paralympics2024 📺 2. Played #Townscaper 🏡 3. Felt healthier today 💜 #ThreeGoodThings
neutral · AI labelView post →There's really nothing to do much here, I don't hate it. I got it in a discounted price, cute and cozy. I just wished they added some tiny people walking around. Not a big issue and I just play it in short time, don't nag me.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fun for 30 seconds and then you wonder why they didn't just build an actual game on top.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If you have some time to waste. Try this little browser game. oskarstalberg.com/Townscaper/
neutral · AI labelView post →Peaceful, lovely, fun, intuitive. Good for a 10 minute jaunt about once a year.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Same thing with Townscaper. There was a brief window when Oskar was unsure of the concept and I told him the same thing: you're not making a game, you're making a toy and you need to lean into that for this to work
neutral · AI labelView post →Messed around in Townscaper as a winding down before bed. The sound design alone makes the brain happy. I am a chaotic god. #indiegames #citybuilder
positive · AI labelView post →Townscaper has a beautiful art-style and it is a chill sandbox for what it is but what you see in the promotional material is what you get, there's nothing more to the experience than placing the same building and seeing it transform into another. Repeat You can change the colors of the buildings, move, rotate and zoom with the camera, screenshot in high quality outside of steam, change shader/lighting settings, adjust day/night and the option to export your construction as an .obj file;…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →smol and cute 🕊️ might be addicted to this game #townscaper #indiegames #sandbox #building
positive · AI labelView post →Nour: Play With Your Food | New Gameplay Today. In this episode of New Gameplay Today, Blake Hester and I show you a glimpse of a different kind of cooking game, Nour: Play With Your Food. Rather than tasking players with cooking a proper dish, developer Terrifying Jellyfish presents a playspace of ingredients, tools like blowtorches and meat tenderizers, and a suite of odd abilities that change gravity, freeze food, and make your culinary ingredients dance — all in the name of playfulness.…
neutral · AI labelView post →I would recommend this game however I am SO disappointed that this game doesn't get updates anymore for it has so much potential for being a truly amazing game and I'm even more disappointed that this game doesn't a steam workshop page which for a game like this feels like a no-brainer so for those reasons I'm going to have to not recommend
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great game! very cozy and fun to make stuff, I especially like the floating islands, but I wish the lighthouses lit up at night. thats a bit of a nitpick but the camera is also kinda finnicky, especially to get screenshots
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Super simple and zen city builder. No budgets. No disasters. No worries.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →There really aren't enough options for me to recommend. Always water, never a square grid, exactly one style of building. I like the idea of this type of thing, but this one really lacks some basic features for even a mindless city painter toy.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Townscaper is on sale on XBox for like two dollars and it will eat hours of your day if you let it All you do is pick a color, push a button, watch what happens. Town goes boop. It is utterly mindless. It is also veeeerrrryyy soooooothing
positive · AI labelView post →Townscaper is on iOS. My favorite stress relief game is on my phone!
positive · AI labelView post →Like the store page says, more of a toy than a game. it is quite literally just placing blocks. don't come in expecting "content" like a few other reviewers seem to have done. I think the biggest potential dealbreaker that someone who does indeed "get it" would be the lack of tools. You literally just have the housing blocks in different colors. Any further detail such as rooftops, archways etc. are just automatically, contextually generated by a block's placement relative to other blocks.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I think this game is really good! is it worth six dollars? probably not i was lucky enough to get this game free so i cant really complain all too much the game is good for what it wants to be, but the main thing i wanna touch on is that if your thinking about buying this game, just know it isnt fully customizable, there are many factors that you dont get to decide that is the main reason it isnt worth 6 dollars in my opinion, but it is still a good game, just one that suffers from lack…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Is this a diorama builder like Townscaper and Tiny Glades or a game with gameplay and objectives? How water fits into the game seems like it would depend a lot on that.
neutral · AI labelView post →Fun and calming game that I enjoyed. Im not much into sandbox games but this is cute and fun to take your mind off things. Wish it had a bit more. It's just too simple.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a simple little game that allows you to create little island communities. It held my attention for 5 minutes. It is too calm and simple for me. But I like it for what it is. 60/100
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Appleseed's Indie Game Of The Day! Day 25) Townscaper by Oskar Stålberg You just make towns. That's it. You just create towns. I've used it before to build D&D towns and city concepts and just get an idea of what things would look like. It's super cozy.
positive · AI labelView post →Once you've exhausted everything your brain can really squeeze out from a few simple buildings and their mediocre placement pattern, there's nothing else you can do. If you're into spending a bit of money for a few hours of pleasure, then go for it, but if you're expecting more options to express your creativity, spend your money elsewhere.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →#hamburg #chi2023 is #townscaper game IRL…
neutral · AI labelView post →This is what I think of as a mood game. Play it when you're in a good mood. Or a bad mood. Just bored? This game is for you. I love this game. Ten minutes each morning, or before I go to bed. Picks me up and puts me in a better place. Oh, and this makes a great party game: just put a sticky note on your screen that says "click here" and your guests will love it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So big it made me slap my belly in joy and free my Spongebob plush from his eternal chokehold torment being held up by my laptop, forced to dangle his arms in front of my screen for my sick and twisted and dark and gritty and (HALF LIFE 2 BETA) mind.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →peanut would love some pets and treats :) 🌸＞ フ | _ _ l ／` ミ＿xノ / | / ヽ ﾉ │ | | | ／￣| | | | | (￣ヽ＿_ヽ_)__) ＼二つ
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Townscaper is a beautiful, clever, and very tastefully made game. It has a wonderful atmosphere, pleasant colors, charming architecture, and I completely understand why so many people experience it as relaxing. Unfortunately, for me it is almost unplayable because of the grid itself. It is neither regular enough for me to build with a sense of order, nor organic enough for me to accept it as a natural shape. It is always “almost” aligned, “almost” symmetrical, “almost” harmonious — and that…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →pretty basic. its a simple building game, it doesnt have any real customization options, all you really do is do the same exact building in different colors and they can stack, there isnt any fences, or decor options, or laying paths or stuff like that. i got the game on sale for 2 dollars so im not upset at it but i wouldnt pay for it full price, i was looking for games similar to Tiny Glade, smth small for my laptop thats not gonna run slow and this does it but it doesnt fulfill that town…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a pleasant and relaxing game with easy to understand gameplay however it is not very in depth in the sense that there is nothing beyond building. I got this game to help me relax when everything becomes too overstimulating and I have found this to be the perfect game for this purpose as I can allow my mind to wander while I play. So if you want a cosy simple game in which you build a town then this is perfect for you.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I discovered this game through the Web demo, thanks to a Facebook short. So in the end, I decided to buy both the Steam and the Android versions. It's a nice game, a nice way to have some random fun and to keep the mind busy for some time. As some people said before, it would be nice to see the game grow up and having some various improvements from the Team to make it more alive, and to avoid being bored in the enc.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fun and cosy but a bit boring. 7/10
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →"I'm not sure I'll like it but It will pass time I said... " I love it, helped a lot for my autistic burnout Pros Relaxing, the little "plop" sound is everything (Music also really calm) Simple no brain required you click and enjoy Duplicating and sharing the town Big ctrl+Z/Y range (like you can undo and redo 999 times) Cons Grid is sometimes anoying Simple, it's also a con because you can only build houses and not any decors (I honestly don't mind it but it's good to know) Can't…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →What you see in the trailer is what you get. A fun sandbox zen style town builder for 6 dollars. No goals other than what you want to create.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I personally wasn't a fan. I got bored pretty easily. However, if you want a relaxing game with nice visuals/sounds that you can just kinda vibe to, I'd say you'll like it. For its price I'll say it's not too shabby. It's simple. I think if they added more to it, or made a similar game with more stuff, it would be a lot more fun. For me, I give this a 6/10. But I can see the appeal.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →this is my favorite trope :D just like @oskarstalberg.bsky.social's Townscaper, or @adamgryu.bsky.social's pivot to a smaller project with A Short Hike, or @lente.me's boat game while living on a boat!
neutral · AI labelView post →Tiny Glade on Steam: I highly recommend this game!!! It is gamedev genius comparable to Townscaper and Fugl. store.steampowered.com/app/2198150/... #gamedev #tinyglade #ftw #steam #sale
neutral · AI labelView post →I just tried Manor Lords, very promising, will keep an eye on it, but in the meantime, does anyone have recommendations for more gridless city builders ? I don't know how common this type of game is, but I'm itching for something chill (sandbox-y?) and creative, Townscaper was super sweet, I think I'll try Foundation next, maybe Laysara too
neutral · AI labelView post →This is the definition of a relaxing game. I pop in my ear buds and put on some lofi, and start building. Surprisingly lots to do with quite a bit of nuance in regards to the shape and structure of your town and buildings. Super fun for those times you need to just tune out and turn off maybe after a stressful day or intense gaming session and you are just looking to wind down. Didn't think I'd have this much fun just clicking and building but it definitely caters to that creative side of my…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →my 2 hours of playing this is spanning across 4 years bro game sucks
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I usually use "toy" (vs "game") to refer to something that lacks either narrative or challenge/failure element (eg Townscaper, Tiny Glade). A blurry line for sure.
neutral · AI labelView post →This game is so freaking boring. I know I have some time on there but i'm literally bored of it. It didnt help my emotions or anything. I hate to leave a negative review but I really thought this game was going to be somewhat interesting. But no just plain boring.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →There's literally nothing to do
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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