Review: Buildings Have Feelings Too! – PS5, PS4

Buildings Have Feelings Too! is a city management game with a puzzle twist, and rather than being a top-down god-view game, it’s more akin to a side-scroller in how your interact with the game and its world of emotionally deprived buildings. Yes, the buildings have feelings, too, didn’t you know?

They do and they don’t. The game’s opening introduces us to a few of the different building types (many more are unlocked as you progress), and rather than throw endless tutorial messages at the player, the game feeds these “do this and do that” instructions to the buildings, and they’ll tell you what you need to do. That’s about as much personality as the buildings actually have. You can get a few lines out of key “characters” during the game, but the feelings thing is more in how the mechanics work and the requirements for each building, as well as the general neighbourhood of the given map.

Getting started with the game I was a little put-off. I didn’t pay much attention and I started in the middle of the day while Charlie was running riot in the living room. I tried to figure out what to do, but in the end, I started afresh once the noisy blighter had gone to bed. Trust me – and I swear I say this for every review about sim/management games – but pay attention to what you’re being told to do. Once you’ve got an eye for the UI (user interface) the rest follows easily. Learn the UI, you’ll learn the game, and have more fun as a result.

Once I had a grip on what the game wanted me to do, I had a lot more fun tinkering with the buildings. See, Buildings Have Feelings Too! isn’t your traditional city builder game. Instead, it’s split up across nine districts which serve as the game’s levels. Make progress in one to unlock the other. Easy peasy. Or is it?
No, it’s not. Well, to begin with (providing you’ve learned the UI…) it is, but it does get harder. Because at its core, Buildings Have Feelings Too! is more a puzzle game than anything else, and I can see it being a card game if it isn’t already.

Imagine each level is the playing board and the buildings are your cards. Each building has needs and requirements, and they can all be upgraded by meeting these requirements. This is where it gets tricky because each level only has a set number of spaces for buildings to occupy, meaning you’ll have to juggle things around to get the desired results. This could mean taking a bakery and walking it on over to the other side of the map, or closing down the family home and turning it into a grocer’s – it all depends on what is needed. And if you’re not careful with how you juggle the needs of each building, you can find yourself with a building that is in a disastrous location, meaning a giant cross appears over it and the countdown begins for you to solve the problem before the building is vacated.

It sounds complicated but it’s a really simple concept and once you know what each building does to the other, things do fall into place.
Progress, however, can come to a grinding halt if you get stuck, as I did a few times. Each level has its challenges that you’ll have to achieve, as well as obstacles you’ll have to work around. It means you’ll have to use your noggin, but if that’s not a problem for you, Buildings Have Feelings Too! is a funny little game to get stuck into, just be aware that it’s more puzzle than proper city builder. Now I’m off to kick the shit out of the local bank, just on the off chance it really does have feelings. Be a fool not to, really.