What is Town Star?

There's a lot to be said about Town Star. This is going to take a few episodes, but I'm going to try my best to get my thoughts out there first so I get the hang of writing about this game...

Town Star is a game created by Gala Games. <---- This is a drawing I made of the $GALA token.

Town Star

I am still in the process of learning more about Town Star, but so far I'm pleasantly surprised. As I mentioned in my previous episode, my understanding of Town Star was that it's basically the crypto version of something like Farmville. One of those pay to win mobile games that have sucked all of the life out of gaming.

After giving Town Star a couple of plays, I'm actually kind of intrigued by the game's core gameplay mechanics and the cryptic nature by which it introduces the concepts. First of all, this game operates on lengthy timescales, that reset every certain number of days. When I started playing in free play, I noticed the timer that indicated "3 days left". I began playing on Sunday night at around 9 pm and after about an hour or so of testing out the mechanics, I went to bed.

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The next morning, I woke up somewhat early to check out the game, because I had a general idea that my game continued playing throughout the night. What's interesting about this game is that parts of the game keep playing, but other parts do not. The multiplayer aspect of the game continues, and there is a leader board for all players in the game world.

When I played for a bit in the morning, I realized that I was running out of a key resource, gasoline. This resource is necessary, because Town Star is a town simulation/economy simulation game, and basically the way the town continues to grow is through trade. Without gasoline, you cannot sell the resources that your town's economy generates, and your options quite literally dry up. Once you are out of gasoline... it's my current understanding that any meaningful attempts at progress have hit a hard stop.

I had to delete my town and start over. A learning exercise.

In my second town, I made some progress, but again I've hit a hard stop with 14 hours left on the timer. I haven't been playing long enough to know what happens when the timer runs out, but my understanding is that if the timer runs out the whole game starts over with new leaderboards.

The Leaderboard

Oh yeah, the leaderboard indicates all of the players in free play. There were about 10,000 players when I checked. A significant number of those players had zero points. About half. So lets say there were about 5,000 active players. I think I was somewhere in the middle at the time I checked. When I scrolled through the leaderboard I found something funny so I used the MS snipping tool to capture my discovery.

• First, you can see in the top right corner how much is right during play. At this point, there were 2 days and 20 hours left.
• You can see on the top left the previous winner, with 6,245,950 points.
• You can see I'm currently ranked #1081 place. Believe me when I say there were about 10,000 players, so I was technically in the top 10% without even knowing anything about the game!
• You can see the person in 253rd place, was really crushing it with 12,850 points. I only had a measly 250 points at the time.
• Finally, the person in 253rd place named their town: "THIS is a fking game that I cant seem to win also the devs doenst care aboyt this verrrrrrryyyy looooooooooooooooooooong name so yeah wtf is that AYYY LMAO"

Of all of the things I've noticed while playing the game, this person's town name was certainly the most amusing.

I could continue on and on about the game mechanics, but that could be for another day, a deeper dive into this game. I've played twice. Both times I ran out of gasoline, but both times I learned more of the core game mechanics in order to potentially have a self-sustaining town in the future. The interesting thing about this game is that it definitely requires more problem-solving skills and strategy than I expected from a game of this nature.

This game is so cryptic, it doesn't even tell you when you get a game over, you basically just have to admit defeat. I appreciate that mechanic quite a bit. I've put some screen shots of the game below:

Gameplay Footage - A lumberjack with his haul

This game is surprisingly more charming and has more depth than i expected

The Game World

The gameworld is a map of the planet. You should pick a spot near a city, because shipping your goods to the city is how your town makes money. All of the good spots were taken, so i picked a spot about 5 squares away from a Khartoum, which is the capital of Sudan. I actually learned a bit of geography and looked up the location of the city I was selling goods to. This game provides the opportunity to learn some geography, as well as economics and strategy.

chicagohotdogs - My Town Location

Because I'm still not super familiar with the game mechanics, as I keep running out of gasoline, I figure I will continue to place my town "chicagohotdogs" in the same location or in a more favorable position near Khartoum as I continue to learn more about Town Star. You can see my town location designated by the red icon on the map. I wonder how people have been ample to affix an avatar to their town location. I look forward to the day when I figure this out. I have deliberately avoided any youtube videos or any other sort of explanation on how to play the game. I prefer learning the game and discovering it on my own, as it has given me a similar sense of discovery that I got when I first played Runescape. Not quite, because this game is a strategy game, but the whole "stumbling through and figure out on your own" aspect has been a pleasant surprise.

My Town - "chicagohotdogs"

I made some progress but still ran out of gas. I was in the process of the first step to creating gasoline, drilling for oil. I also made some decent money converting wheat into flour, and I made a mistake by converting raw sugar cane into sugar too early on. Sugar production requires like... 10x more water than wheat production, and with my single well and only 1 farmer, I was doomed. That said, I made progress, built up my town, and am ready to try again.

Final Score - chicagohotdogs (attempt 2)

In my second attempt I achieved 450 points.

I hope to improve upon that next time before I run out of gasoline.

Thank you for joining me in episode 2 - town star. The next episode will likely also be about Town Star. I hope to post episodes at least once a week, but potentially twice a week. I also hope to improve my gaming journalism skills over time. Hope you enjoyed learning a bit more about my Town Star experience. Don't forget to check out Gala Games at: Gala Games Website