Triple Town PC Review

By – Omar Khan

The casual gaming industry has done nothing but grow since the dawn of the smartphone. And while the ‘hardcore’ gaming community scoff at their undemanding nature, there’s no denying millions of people are addicted to the simple satisfaction provided by games like Farmville, Angry Birds and Peggle.  While Triple Town is available as a ‘freemium’ game on phones and through Facebook, buying it on PC is the better option. This means that when you inevitably get addicted to it, you don’t end up paying thrice the price of the game for all the in-game items.

Triple Town is a strategy/puzzle game with city building mechanics at its core. The player is given a random tile to place on their grid and through combining tiles, create structures to form a city. Three adjoining grass tiles become a bush, three bushes become a tree, three trees become a hut, huts turn into houses, and so on. The level ends when all available spaces on the grid have been filled, and thus, your town is born.

 However, you don’t keep the town once its built, instead it disappears forever into the ether. What you do get though are coins which can be used to buy useful items, and special tiles to be placed in your capital city, which acts as a home-base within the game, earning increasing amounts of coins the more you build it up. It is from here where you select which settlement to visit next, each one providing a different map for you to begin building your town.

While there might not seem like a whole lot of strategy involved, the beauty is in the fact that it can either be played as a relaxing game just to pass the time, or, with a little effort, be as well-thought out as a game of chess. The fact that tiles build wherever you placed the last tile, not just wherever is more convenient for you; having the foresight when placing grass as to how it can be made into a house farther down the line. Furthermore, there are enemies in the game that, when surrounded by tiles, turn into gravestones. These gravestones can then be turned into churches, if they are lined up similarly to other tiles.

Despite the fact that there is no failing, no real danger or thrill provided by Triple Town, you get a similar sense of satisfaction playing it as you do from playing Minecraft on Peaceful. A game that rewards creating rather than destruction; one which doesn’t resort to conflict to keep you entertained, Triple Town is fun to play. I was surprised with how often I’d come home and turn my PC on, scrolling through my heaving Steam library just get to Triple Town. With all the unfinished titles, and games I have yet to start, it was this simple ‘casual’ game that had me hooked, and coming back for more.

Is It Worth Your Money?

Previously, I reviewed the game ‘Proteus’, which was praised by others for being a game you can boot up and “relax” while playing. I disagreed with this because although it was an unchallenging experience, the fact was you had to focus heavily on the game to navigate around, and pay attention to the visuals. With Triple Town, the inaneness of the gameplay means that the repetitive nature is both fun and soothing. The worst thing to come out of making a mistake is you get a slightly lower score at the end of the round.

It is for this reason that I would be inclined to say that yes, Triple Town is indeed worth your money. You can lose hours on this title, not from its awe inspiring story, its breathtaking graphics, or its totally original gameplay, but just from enjoying yourself. And is that not the most important job a game has?