Aquatico: An Underwater City-Builder and Colony Sim
Aquatico is an underwater city-builder game developed by Overseer Games. In this game, players are tasked with building and managing a thriving colony underwater. Unlike other city-builder games, Aquatico does not feature any underwater threats or monsters. Instead, the focus is on the survival of your inhabitants, who have limited resources due to their underwater environment.
The gameplay of Aquatico bears some similarities to Subnautica in terms of building in an underwater environment. However, as players delve deeper into the game, they will find that it shares more similarities with city-builder games like Cities Skylines and earlier Tropico games.
One of the unique features of Aquatico is the ability to build within underwater domes. As with most colony sim games, players start with basic technology and gradually progress towards advanced buildings and technology. However, in the early stages of the game, balancing colony growth and inhabitant survival can be challenging. Most of the inhabitants are initially useless, similar to the mechanics found in the Tropico games.
While Aquatico provides a challenging experience for strategy game enthusiasts, its lack of focus may frustrate some players. The game starts with Frostpunk-like levels of colony survival, but as players progress, it transitions into more of a Tropico game and eventually evens out into a City Skylines-like experience. Unfortunately, the game fails to fully exploit its underwater theme, missing an opportunity to provide awe-inspiring visuals and unique gameplay mechanics.
Overall, Aquatico offers enjoyable mild survival-sim elements and is a suitable choice for players seeking a strategy game. However, it falls short in making good use of its underwater theme and lacks a clear direction in its gameplay.
