Developer: Overseer Games
Publisher: Overseer Games
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Patron – Review
The city-building genre is already saturated with plenty of games, but that doesn’t stop developers from treading the waters anyway. Overseer Games is ready to throw its hat in the ring with its recent release, Patron, a survival city-building game that boasts having a few elements that will make it stand out among its many peers. While that might not be entirely enough to sway hardcore fans, it does make for a rather enjoyable experience.
Story
Like most city-builders, Patron doesn’t have any particular plot. The game puts you in the shoes of the ruler – or patron, hence the title – of a newly settled colony. Over the course of the gameplay, it will be up to you to build what starts out as a few tents with aimless peasants into a thriving settlement capable of international trade. While you’ll mostly be focussing on resource management and making sure your people survive the harsh seasons, you’ll soon discover there are actually some plot elements in the form of prompts that will give you a small snippet of text followed by a decision. These decisions will alter your colony’s relationship with the church or the king back in the homeland, which in turn can have repercussions.
Graphics
Patron is a game you predominantly play while zoomed out so you can keep an eye on the entire map. All your buildings look nice from a distance and there’s actually a lot of details put into them. The game also helps the players by making the different production sources look different from one another, making it clearer what building does what. Once you start zooming in you might notice small imperfections such as the way all your inhabitants look like they come from a cloning facility or the extremely repetitive animations. That being said, this is hardly something to complain about since it’s not the focus of the game. Patron has a specific beautification category that also allows you to fancy up the outward appearance of your settlement in a lot of fun ways.
Sound
The sound design in Patron is rather underwhelming. The music is mostly background noise to what you’re doing and has little variety, making it quite unremarkable. As opposed to a lot of the other elements the game has to offer, it feels a lot more cliché. There aren’t many sound effects and these are only audible when zoomed in. There also is no voice acting.
Gameplay
Patron is a peaceful survival city-builder that focuses mostly on resource management. As the game starts you pick a map, and the map of your choice represents the difficulty level. These maps have a difference in resources when it comes to gathering and farming. The game starts you off with a townhouse, which serves as your hub, and is in a fixed position. This means that you’re basically stuck building around that part of the map during the first few years. You also get a starting supply of coins, lumber, and other resources, as well as a handful of settlers who are general workers you employ to start building.
The gameplay is rather simple to figure out, with you building houses for your settlers, sawmills to start processing wood, and gathering huts to make sure there’s food. Patron has a comprehensive research mechanic, meaning you will need to research better buildings and technologies as you go progress. This will allow you to convert your raw materials into more sophisticated supplies such as clothes and pottery. On top of that, buildings can be upgraded as well. Before long, you will have a dock that allows you to trade with other settlements, while also being able to specialize your workers. You’ll have to map out your town, as certain buildings give other buildings bonuses when in the proximity of each other. You’ll also have to take into account the soil your place them, as this may also have an influence.
Where Patron attempts to set itself apart from other games is with its intricate social dynamics. People in your settlement won’t be simply happy or unhappy, they have specific needs. This means you will need to make the areas they live in more appealing, making sure they have access to education, while also taking care of social issues. Immigration, injustice, religion, and more, all play a role in how your settlement functions. This is further influences by the choices you make and the laws you enact. Not every person who lives in your town wants the same either, since there is a difference between a mere farmer and a member of the upper class. Combine all of this with the tricky aspects of unforeseen harsh winters or natural disasters and you’ll notice running your colony smoothly might be a little harder than you thought.
Conclusion
Patron is a good example of what makes the city-builder genre fun, offering an extremely relaxing form of gameplay with enough strategy to keep players engaged. The game will never become stressful or throw you into combat scenarios either. The game is very fun for newcomers and veterans of the genre, as you can easily scale your difficulty. We were quite entertained by this simple city-builder and loved to see our city flourish as we progressed.
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