The sky’s the limit in this free indie game
Townseek is a free simulation video game wherein you can explore a limited but colorful world full of silly and cute areas to earn money. Developed by Whales And Games, this is an exploration indie game with an adorable art style and a semi-open-world environment.
Townseek is similar in concept to No Man’s Sky and Wing Commander: Privateer wherein you sail across locations and do some trading. However, there’s no need to worry about battles here since it just features relaxing gameplay. It could use some more story context and tutorials, though.
Be the top explorer
Created for the Global Game Jam 2021, Townseek tells the adventures of an intrepid explorer from the underwater city of Sharkdwell. As the faceless protagonist, your goal is to see the world and discover all interesting locations — 34 all in all, including your city. There are 8 cities you can trade with, 22 silly landmarks, and 4 fishing spots that pop up once you buy your fishing rod.
Aside from exploring, your end goal is to collect every item, fish, and skyship balloon missing from your inventory. You do this by either picking them up from the map—there are crates that spawn with random items—or buying them from the cities with the right currency. However, the trading system can be a bit hard to grasp at first due to the lack of a proper tutorial.
This is because as soon as you start, you’re only given some brief instructions on the controls and nothing else. There’s no story to guide you either. The gameplay is easy enough to pick up and the cute art style is easy on the eyes but there’s no clear direction and it’s mostly just a collection game. It doesn’t help that loading screens and menus tend to freeze here.
A storyline would be nice
Overall, Townseek is a nice exploration for players who love visiting locations and doing some trading. While there’s neither any story nor any proper tutorial, the gameplay is easy enough and the challenge of collecting everything is tempting enough for most people. It could still use some optimizations, however—especially with its unstable performance. Nevertheless, this is a highly recommended indie game for all.
