Splice up your life

Pixel People has so much more to offer than your average city-building game – partly because not only do you have to construct your own city, you also have to build the people to live there (known as splicing).

A city-building game with a difference

The main aim of Pixel People is to build up your utopian city by ‘splicing’ clones that come from the mothership (yep, it’s set in the future). To complete the splicing process, you must chose two sets of skills to create one super clone and fill a skills gap in your city. That could be a combination of a mechanic and an engineer; or a nurse and fishmonger; or a homemaker and a sheriff; and many more interesting combinations (after all, which city doesn’t need a ballet dancer?) Pixel People is all about having lots of fun and putting its own spin on the genre.

Then to house these spliced residents, construct some residential buildings, such as the Terra Terrace or the Solar Nexus. You also need some buildings for your clones to work in, which include a clinic, a farm, a fast food stand and a town hall. These buildings will help you earn more cash.

There’s a news ticker along the bottom that provides all the latest news from Utopia. Some of the news flashes included “Lifeguard seen running in slow motion along the beach”. It’s another cute little quirk that makes this game unique and stand out.

Playing the waiting game

Once you’ve gone through the tutorial, Pixel People is pretty simple to play. Tap on a space to construct a new building and click on the welcome center to splice your clones. There are lots of in-game hints and tips to help you along your way.

As city building games go, Pixel People doesn’t make you wait long to earn cash, while the splicing process and the construction only take around five minutes to start with. Although the longer you play the higher the price you must pay (in terms of money and your time).

Brightens up your day

You may not be surprised (given the name) to find out that the graphics are pixelated, with a multitude of bright pixels making up your clones and the city landscape. This gives it quite a unique feel and, given that you are splicing people, there is actually nothing dark or depressing about this game. Quite the opposite, Pixel People is cheerful, colorful and doesn’t take itself too seriously.

The background music is reminiscent of the kind of generic tunes you hear in an elevator, but even this has its own quirky charm to it.

Unique and quirky

Pixel People is really addictive, much more so than I thought it would be when I was going through the tutorial. It brings together so many unique and quirky elements: strong game theme, fun but not too challenging gameplay, gorgeous graphics that brighten up your day, and it tops it all off by having a sense of humor.