I looked at this game on the steam store and bought it after reading the stats. I did not read the forums (won't make this mistake again). There is NOTHING in the steam store listing this as an alpha version of the game. I have read the Developer post about this being a "playable version"; unfortunately I did not pay for an alpha I paid for a full game.

I understand that the developer is going to release new content over time but what is to stop them from ending all updates as of today because they made a little money?

For this reason I have voiced a complaint to steam asking for a refund (probably won't get it). I have also urged them to remove this title from the steam store. Greenlight has failed by passing this title as is. It has a lot of potential, but it is MY choice to invest in this games development not the developers. Shame on them for the misrepresentation and shame on steam for failing to check the quality of games they have greenlighted.… Expand

This game is pre-Beta quality, but has still seen a release on Steam via the Greenlight program. The fact that this is pre-release isn't mentioned anywhere on the store page, which looks to be on purpose. The whole thing reeks of a cash-grab by the developer. The Steam screenshots are disingenuous, and the in-game tutorials consist of single info screens written in broken English that don't explain anything about the game.

My worst gaming experience in the past 5 years was being fooled into buying this "game."… Collapse

This game is a bit of a tragedy. The concept is interesting, the art style is fitting and yet their decision to release the game on Steam in its current state is outrageous. The gameplay is severely lacking in both direction and polish. Towns is plagued by bugs and awful design choices, most significantly in the UI. Playing the game is a chore, and the lack of overarching context or flavour makes it a chore with little reward.

One of the most significant issues is the lack of direct control over your population, coupled with an AI that's about as good as you'd expect out of an indie game in mid-alpha state. Your little dudes will run all over the map, attacking far away enemies even if you have not equipped them for combat.

Another issue is the tutorial. The tutorial starts out by dumping you in the middle of the wilderness with a couple of villagers to do your bidding. You're told to press F1 for more instructions, at which point a large brown box fills the screen with text informing you of what to do. It's non-interactive and obtrusive, disallowing you to carry out the instructions with them still on screen. What's worse, they are written in barely coherent English and are misleading through severe omissions. For instance, you are instructed to build a wall and designate the area inside a Carpenter's zone. You're informed that this will increase efficiency. What it doesn't tell you, is that you need to build the wall in more than one level, and then add a roof onto the top. The game silently allows you to build your little square of shoulder-height walls (which do nothing) then inform you that you've completed that part of the tutorial. Which brings us to the next issue: Each part of the tutorial starts you over from scratch. When you've met the objectives, red text appears over the center of your screen saying "mission completed". You're not offered an option to "continue" or "go back to tutorial screen" or anything like that - you have to exit out to the menu as you would at any other time. And then you get to play the next tutorial, starting from scratch with the work you did on last tutorial level erased. This is especially annoying, since it forces you to play through the exact same sequence as last time, before getting to try the new stuff, with the sequence of unnecessary repeating getting longer for each tutorial.

It's worth noting that most of this critique is the kind you'd expect to be dealt with before a retail release. The game undoubtedly has potential. However, at the moment it plays like the kind of demo at E3 you won't let players play themselves for fear they'll stumble on one of the many shortcomings. This is compounded immensely by the fact that the game is currently selling on steam with the only portrayal of the game being a bunch of extremely misleading screenshots and a blurb of text which says next to nothing. At a quite severe (for an indie game) … Expand

I bought this game from Steam after it was Greenlit, only to find that the description of the product was misleading and was not the final version of the game. The version currently being sold on Steam is version 0.8a. The game is extremely counter-intuitive, frustrating, buggy and incomplete. On the official website for the game, you can only Pre-Order the game. Yet the people who buy it through Steam have been misled into thinking that they are purchasing the final copy of the game. I'll be avoiding all products made by this company in the future.… Expand

I have played this game since mid Alpha. This game was under an Alpha test right before the launch to Steam. There were bugs and Alpha quality features galore before the launch to steam. Just a few of these include: The AI taking the shortest route rather than the fastest route, the AI not prioritizing tasks from what is closest (so the AI will go from one end of the map to the other just for one task, then return to the other end for another task), and the non soldier citizens will fight to the death rather than try to run. There are many, many more alpha quality items in this game.

However, no patch was issued to fix any of these things before the game was launched to Steam. And, despite the game being still in an Alpha state, their very own developer posted on the forums that he considered this a playable game and feature ready. Their very own community moderator also stated that he considers this game release worthy and not in an Alpha state. And, the steam page reflects this.

But, that is not the truth. They are falsely advertising this game as a non Alpha quality game when the facts and history show that it is, in truth, an Alpha quality game. The list I provided is just a few of the many unpolished issues this game has.… Expand

I am a big fan of dwarfen fortress. This game has some elements of it, but not enough. It looks like pre-alpha. Very unbalanced gameplay. I feel cheated of my money. It needs MAJOR updates in order to be worth ANY money. I wanted a finished game. If i want to support devs i go to kickstarter, not to steam. I did not want to wait for updates.

I ll give 2 points because i like the concept and the idea.… Expand

Bought game on Steam after it being Greenlit. Initially, I was really excited about the game. Didn't realize the game was released while STILL IN ALPHA. Paid $12.00 for a game in alpha. Devs are extremely rude to the customers who have been misled about buying the game. Things to Consider: 1. No where on the Steam store is the game listed as being unfinished or in alpha. 2. Devs say "try the demo first idiots" and there IS NO DEMO on Steam. 3. Initial screenshots of the game on the store page are not from the game directly. They are cut-n-pastes done by the devs for an earlier contest regarding the game. Only one of them is ACTUALLY possible to create in-game.
3. Tutorial is a joke. Fonts aliased. UI clunky at best. Towns people AI is awful. 4. Crashes on many customers systems ... There are plenty of games on Steam that clearly state they are in an unfinished state and link clearly to a demo for users to try (example: http://store.steampowered.com/app/219740/). These Devs, however, insult customers who bought the game on Steam thinking it was a finished product (if you only use Steam, you'd have no way of knowing otherwise). Blatantly insulting them for "not searching the internet for a demo or to look-up game status". Customers shouldn't have to "search the internet" for a demo for a game released on Steam. Anything customers need should already be available on the platform you've chosen to release the game on, PERIOD.

I have no problems supporting indie developers - it's one of the things that makes Steam great but ... this kind of blatant misrepresentation and rudeness... No thanks. I'll never buy a game from these developers again.… Expand

Gameplay: If you ever tried Dwarf fortress you should know how this game is played, and how you build a successful town on top of a dungeon while sometimes besieged by monsters and ghosts, which is hard by the way.
Graphics: Looks unfinished, but well the art-style fits and it isn't entirely bad.
Bad things: The UI needs some work, the priorities of the townies seem kinda broken sometimes, and some sprites look like placeholders.
Great game, and despite its unfinished state, a really fun experience.… Expand

Scam. Stay away from this title. The game is in a pre-alpha, yet the developers are trying to push it as "done" in order to grab as much cash as possible from you.

This game is full of bugs and crashes frequently. The UI is terrible and there is no tutorial (there's still a placeholder for a tutorial, but no actual tutorial implemented, wtf!) It's obvious that this was released mid alpha testing and that they just skipped beta entirely.

Asking for money via Kickstarter or other venues to finish a game = ok. Posting your game for sale on Steam while being clear that it is still in development = ok Posting your alpha on Steam for sale at full price while not breathing a word of it's wildly unfinished state and posting total **** screenshots = fraud. The game is being thrashed because of the utterly misleading Steam store listing. No links to it's demo, no mention of it being an *alpha*, no mention that the screen shots shown are in no way indicative of the glitch fest you are about to actually buy, nothing. The devs have read these threads and still have not corrected their store page.

This is a naked cash grab from folks too timid to use a real crowd funding source. Game is well nigh unplayable right now. Avoid until finished. That is if the devs don't simply move on with their pile of ill-gotten cash.… Expand

This game could be so much fun! but everything is downright BROKEN! Seriously, It crashes every 5 minutes, the tutorials barely help you out, the mining is (to me) very confusing and clunky, and the same music playing throughout the game is so repetitive it gives you an instant headache. Don't buy this now, buy it later when (hopefully) all of this is fixed.

I really like the concept of this game. I like the fact that you start with only a bunch of villagers in the wild, and you do not control their every action.
This is a game about building a living village/town on top of a dungeon. You do not control the heroes, or anyone for that matter, Your job is to get the town working for the people.
Nice idea, I like it. Really :)

However.. This should never have been released on Steam as a complete game.
Current version is 0.8a.

On their website you cannot buy it. Only Pre-Order.
It should be labeled in Steam that game is still in Alpha phase.

There are some MAJOR flaws in the game...
First off. You don't really need to build a town. Things go slower without enclosed houses, but that's about it.
The villagers are straight up suicidal. Right of the bat they go of running through half the map, with no armor or weapons, and goes into fighingt with monsters carrying spears. GLHF. There you just lost half your tribe within the first 5 minutes.
That is, if you even noice... the notification system on what's going on is terrible.
You cannot rotate the map/build area, which results in items being blocked from vision. You cannot rotate items either. You cannot refill holes with dirt gain. Or stone. You will have to fill holes with the wall blocks.
There are no animations. Sleeping, fighting, building, working... the villagers all look the same. Like board game figurines that you move around.
The soundtrack is about 3 minutes long I think. One song. Then it repeats.

The tutorial is a joke.
You click on the section "spiders", because you want to learn about spiders.
What you see is: "Objective - Kill 10 spiders. They are on level -3".
...say what?

It also fails completely to tech you some of the fundamentals of the game, like enclosing your buildings, or that you need 2 blocks (height) of wall for them to be effective.

Laying roofs is a *******. Especially since you cannot change your view.
The list goes on. For a long time.

Sure, the game can be fun. When you learn how to avoid the broken parts. I really enjoy building things from the scratch. Seeing how the village grows into a town. Attracting heroes and caravans. It's nice.
But there's too much missing for it to be a good game.

I do hope this game will get more polish though. I can see myself sinking days into this... IF they go past alpha phase.
The devs said: "We consider the current game build fully playable and enjoyable. We plan to add A LOT of new features. Those features can take years to be finished."

Playable? Barely.
Enjoyable? Yeah... might be. When you try and error through the broken mechanics and finally understand how to play it anyway.

Years? That... ticks me off.
You sell a game, and then say it might take YEARS for it to be complete? Not OK.


TL:DR
Great potential but should NOT have been released yet.
I give it 3 because I like these kind of games, and it has a good thing going.
But it's nowhere near complete yet.… Expand

This game is absolutely unplayable and should not have been put up for sale on Steam. There are numerous problems, but perhaps the most offensive of them is the terrible tutorial. It is a tutorial in name only. Here is what you can expect:

You click on the tutorial, and you get immediately dumped into the wilderness with your townsfolk. This isn't so bad. The game tells you to press F1 for instructions, and you do so. You get a massive box that covers the entire screen (and prevents you from taking any other actions while it's up) and it tells you to harvest three apples and ten pieces of wood. It tells you that you can order your NPCs to chop the wood, but at no time does the tutorial show you where these commands are. In a TUTORIAL stage I spent over fifteen minutes looking through the bad UI to find the "Chop" command before I noticed the tiny half-button at the very bottom of the screen (the button is unclickable unless you're playing the game in full-screen mode). Once I harvested my wood and apples, the game just said "Mission completed!" and I had to actually exit the game to go choose the next stage of the tutorial. That is absolutely ridiculous.

This game has a lot of promise, but I feel completely misled by the developers because at no time did they ever indicate on Steam that this game was in Alpha and still needed a lot of development. I've got no prejudice about knowingly buying games still in Alpha or Beta (I bought Minecraft years before its retail release, back when it was in InDev) but Mojang at least made sure that everyone knew that they were buying an alpha product and that their purchases were funding the completion of the game. SMP Squared has shot themselves in the foot with this release and ought to refund the money of people who bought the game on Steam.

It's also rather easy to notice that the developers have made their own reviews, as they are the only ones that are above an 8 on MetaCritic. Listen to the reviews that players make, not the ones put up by the dev team because they're delusional if they think this game is in anything resembling a playable state at this point in time.… Expand

I am highly disappointed in the games devs and mods. In my opinion the behavior of the devs and mod is unacceptable. It was put on steam as a finished product despite being in alpha and the devs and mod are dismissive of complaints that it is in alpha and being sold falsely. The AI is garbage, the tutorial is a joke of spelling mistakes and vague guiding, and you can only place water and lava by spawning it there.

On their greenlight page they say it is in alpha, on their games site they say it is alpha, on their steam store page they dont say it is in alpha and on the steam discussion for the game they say it is NOT in alpha. This is a blatant cash grab and I would not purchase this game had I seen the steams discussion on it prior to purchasing. I can no longer trust the steam store pages and will from now on be checking out the discussion section and outside sources.… Expand

I love the idea of this game, but an idea is not the same as a full game. The developers brought this to Steam as a finished product when there is NO game objective, NO storyline, NO "RPG" element. It's billed as an "economics/city planning sim" and "RPG-themed", and it's not. It's a sandbox. I probably would have supported it if they had been honest, but what they're selling and what they're delivering are different.… Expand

This game has great potential, but it still feels very much in Alpha state, and many parts of it feel broken and un-finished. I feel robbed and I'm not sure if it is right for games like this to be greenlit unless they are listed under Alpha/Beta's category to warn buyers.

The negative reviews are all down to the lack of indication on Steam that this game is a work in progress, hence people have purchased unknowingly something that they consider to be incomplete and/or unplayable. It's a shame this has happened because the game is itself enjoyable and has a lot of potential.

I've played many hours worth of the game and have never had a crash. The UI needs work and some of the behaviours of the towns folk can be a bit bizarre at times but the game is still playable. You can create a sizeable town, farm, mine, manufacture weapons, delve the dungeon etc. As long as you accept that it's a work in progress and that new features are coming all the time.

The game itself is fun. Set the tasks up for your townsfolk and watch them run around busily doing what you asked them to. Build a massive above/below ground settlement, or just have something simple, make loads of decoration or keep it plain, Swear as your idiot towns folk run into a mob of monsters in the dungeon and get slaughtered. Great stuff!

Hopefully once the game has developed further then people will begin to realise it's actual potential.… Expand

I am forced to agree with the negative scores this game has received so far. I saw this on Steam, saw that there was no demo for it, so I decided to go to the website and look for any further information I could find. What I found was a demo, version 0.8a which I then downloaded and tried out. This is apparently the same version as what is available on Steam. Great. it's a little rough, but sort of fun, except for one small problem. I can run the demo I downloaded from their website and play it just fine (until the demo time limit is up). The version which I bought from Steam today doesn't run. It doesn't even bring up a window; it simply changes my status from 'online' to 'playing towns' and then back to 'online' in about 3 seconds.
I understand that it is currently in Alpha phase, but there are two things which I cannot overlook.
1: Steam is listing it NOT as an alpha, UNDER DEVELOPMENT title, but rather as a finished product.
2. I have a demo from their website which runs, and a "finished product" from Steam which doesn't.
So in short, as this game currently stands (Nov 10 2012), I have to rate it as a 0. When the demo works but the actual game doesn't, there is a huge problem. I am happy with neither parties at the moment; Steam needs to make sure information is CLEARLY stated on a product page, but the Devs need to make sure their products actually WORK before releasing them.
I'd recommend avoiding this title for the simple fact that right now, it is broken beyond belief, and the reaction of the community moderator for the game is downright hostile towards those who have problems with it.… Expand

I don't see the fuss with this game. The controls are great, sure its not the *best* graphics, but its not supposed to be, and is fine. This is EXTREMELY playable, and its stupid of reviewers to give it a bad rating for being in alpha - which is still extremely enjoyable. The second i started playing, I've played for 5 hours straight and plan to play more. I give it a great score!

This game is super fun! The game, sure is still in alpha, but there's tons to do and I've yet to run into a bug (aside from a misspelling of happiness :P)
Its everything its advertised to be, and more. I have no complaints!

The best thing you can say about Towns is that it has the potential to be a very good game. Basically, you manage the town on top of a dungeon. It's similar to Dwarf Fortress in that you gather resources, tell your townies what to do, make stuff and expand your little settlement...all while defending it from the baddies. The concept is sound.

The problem is that the game was released on Steam in an Alpha state. Essentially, the exact same build that was considered an Alpha prior to Towns being Greenlit, was then released as a finished product on Steam without disclosure that the product isn't finished. It has some pretty severe technical issues with crashes, the tutorials are hideous and the whole thing feels shoddy. That the developer seems to have resisted disclosing their product is unfinished in an effort to generate more sales is just extremely poor business. Presently, with the problems any alpha faces, the game isn't any better than a 3...with the potential for the game to be a 9 within 6 months to a year. The only question is do you reward someone for doing business that way? Well, I don't review for potential and I don't like being ripped off, so it gets what it deserves right now. And that's a 3.… Expand

Stay away from this, at least for now. This game is far from complete, it lacks in the most basic features like animations, tutorials, AI, townies walk through mountains, get stuck in the terrain, etc

But the major problem is that the devs are trying to hide the status of the game, they're trying to sell this as a complete piece of software when it's obvious that it's in a beta stage...

There's a demo on the official site try ot first and decide for yourself!… Expand

Do not buy this game, avoid this game like the plague it is. The game lacks any form of working tutorial, the UI is worthless and the developers are complete jerks to the community. I regret buying this game and will never support any game worked on by anyone affiliated with this game.

If you are looking for a similar style game get Minecraft, Gnomoria or Terraria. If you already have those games then pick up A Game of Dwarves of SimCity 4. Buy any other game over this amateur basement programming experiment.… Expand

A really good game. More complex version of majesty with a little touch of dwarf fortress. It is very fun to play, and I cannot believe how this game will look after all the updates when it is already this good. Love to watch my people run all around and doing their daily jobs, it is so relaxing and somehow addictive.

This is just a alpha quality game, if you are looking to buy an alpha and hope it might turn into something great. Go ahead and waste your money, but after trying to play the "demo". It was just a waste of time.

Being sold as completed game yet still in alpha state. Has fake screenshots and numerous bugs. The developer has responded to the complaints by calling it "playable"

Why are people complaining? There are games that are sold as finished games that aren't of this quality (mostly indie). This game is being sold as playable, and is fun. The devs commented as to why did they not mention the dev phase, they said they are selling it because it is playable and fun. It is too. I've played it for a good 6 hours, and it's fun. The tutorials work, though aren't very polished. They teach you the basics, you have to go learn the rest. The graphics look fine. I havent run into any bugs (other than random crashes) every hour or so.
There is even a demo, go to the games steam forum and it is stickied at the top of the page by the dev for where to download it.… Expand