Developer: Leikir Studio
Publisher: Goblinz Publishing, H2 Interactive Co.
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Synergy – Review
What does it take to colonize a planet? In a lot of city builder games, simply plopping down a series of buildings and managing some resources will be enough to build a settlement, but Synergy by Leikir Studio takes it a step further into realism. In this game, you’ll have to analyze your environments properly if you want to build a thriving community. Combined with the simple graphics and straightforward gameplay, this makes for an easy enough game if you don’t mind long periods of stagnation.
Story
In Synergy, the colony you are building is one for humans who have just arrived on a new planet that they want to make their home. While it might seem habitable on a surface level, everything from water to food to climate control still has to be figured out, and you’re obviously the one in charge of that. While the game does not have a very strict storyline, the campaign mode guides you through scenarios that detail the colony’s expansion and struggles. Pretty basic stuff for this genre, but a good setup to get you invested in a way that allows the game to immediately skip to all the good stuff.
Graphics
Its unique art style is one of the main ways Synergy sets itself apart from other city builder games. The flat colors and intricate details lend themselves well to the alien planet setting, and give a certain charm to the game without making the UI too crowded. You can easily zoom in or out, depending on how closely you want to observe your settlement, and either angle looks good. As you’d expect, you can find several distinct biomes with their own color palettes to set them apart. All the tiny emblems that represent your resources can be hard to figure out at first, but if you follow the tutorials, everything will make sense eventually.
Sound
We enjoyed the calming soundtrack of Synergy a lot. The game strikes a good balance between the music and the sound effects, with the ambient noise of the alien planet consisting of such things as wind, water, and the general hustle and bustle of your citizens going around doing their business. The game has no voice acting to speak of, though we didn’t specifically miss it. Overall, it’s the kind of sound design that blends into the background as you play the game for hours on end.
Gameplay
Synergy is a typical city builder with an incredibly slow pace and more focus on research than even most other games of this nature. Since you’re settling on an alien planet, every plant and rock in your surroundings will have to be carefully examined first so you can determine its uses. Doing that will unlock new crafting recipes, but also give you information about the life cycle of the fauna around you, which in turn will be needed to survive harsher seasons. New recipes and expanding your settlement come with new building types, which you must place strategically around your area and connect through paths. Buildings do affect their surroundings, having negative or positive effects on their neighbors, so you can make different districts in your city. Nobody wants a noisy factory next to their house, after all.
In terms of management, the most important things to keep track of are water, food, and housing. Water is easy enough, allowing you to collect either drinkable water or toxic water, depending on the source. Toxic water will need to be purified before your settlers can drink it, though you can use it for other things. Food can come in the form of livestock or plants, which is what ties into temperature and soil longevity, making you research ways to keep food stocked even when the heat makes natural harvesting harder. Housing simply means you’ll have to expand your city in accordance with how many other buildings you have, making it so your citizens always have a place to sleep. Overall, keeping your settlers happy and alive is a pretty easy endeavor in Synergy. The game has a slow but straightforward progression, where you gradually unlock things. Though it does require a measure of patience from its players. Another facet is expeditions, where you can assemble a team of settlers and send them out beyond the perimeter of the city to explore new places. These trips can be immensely rewarding in terms of new information and resources, but also carry great risks.
The game has two difficulty modes, Balanced or Harmony, with the former being the expected standard and the second a more chill mode with fewer consequences for bad decisions. Either can be used to play the tutorial and campaign, the second of which consists of six scenarios total. There is also a sandbox mode for people who just want to build a settlement freely with no limitations.
Conclusion
While Synergy doesn’t blow us away, it’s a very serviceable city builder for fans of the genre, especially those who don’t mind slow progression and a more relaxed atmosphere. The visuals don’t bore even after hours of gameplay, and if you combine the campaign and sandbox mode, we feel the game has enough to offer to be worth the price.
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