LakeSide
- March 25, 2024
- Massive Galaxy Studios
- 2h median play time
Get on Steam"LakeSide is a single-player Fantasy Strategy game with sensational visuals and a good soundtrack. Build and manage your own unique city by the lake, choosing from over 60 building variations and 5 wonders, with different building combinations available in each game run. Manage resources and keep your citizens alive for a sprawling, rewarding city state."
Reviews
- The game features beautiful pixel art and a charming atmosphere, making it visually appealing.
- It offers a relaxing gameplay experience, ideal for casual players looking to unwind.
- The developers are responsive and regularly update the game, showing potential for future improvements.
- The gameplay is slow and repetitive, often requiring long waits for building unlocks and resource generation.
- The user interface is clunky and unresponsive, leading to frustration when navigating menus and managing buildings.
- There is a lack of content and replayability, with many players finishing the game in under two hours and feeling little incentive to continue.
- graphics32 mentions
- 56 % positive mentions
- 34 % neutral mentions
- 9 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game have received widespread praise for their beautiful pixel art style and charming visuals, creating a nostalgic and relaxing atmosphere. Many players appreciate the artistic design and seasonal map changes, although some have noted that the pixel clarity can be lacking on larger screens. However, there are mixed feelings regarding the user interface and gameplay mechanics, with some finding them clunky and unresponsive, which detracts from the overall experience.
“I absolutely love the concept of the game, the art, the graphic style.”
“The visual art style is beautiful, and the map changes with seasons.”
“A relaxing building game, with a gorgeous art style.”
“On a large monitor, the pixel art style doesn't work well.”
“Even though it is pixel graphics, the pixels really aren't very clear.”
“Not a fan of how you place buildings and the pixel graphics.”
- gameplay27 mentions
- 22 % positive mentions
- 56 % neutral mentions
- 22 % negative mentions
The gameplay of the game has received mixed reviews, with many players noting a lack of clarity and poor design, particularly due to insufficient tutorials and buggy mechanics. While some appreciate the artistic elements and find the gameplay enjoyable in short bursts, others criticize it for being repetitive, lacking depth, and offering limited replay value. Overall, the game shows potential but requires significant refinement and testing to enhance the gameplay experience.
“Lakeside has nice pixel art, good music, and easy but pleasing gameplay.”
“Overall, the game seems fun, and with continued development and refining, this seems like a great, lightweight city building and management game with interesting mechanics and issues to plan around.”
“There is a little challenge as well as some interesting mechanics.”
“Gameplay is unclear and poorly designed.”
“There are several random mechanics that are not explained at all: what is an architect? I built a library, where are they?”
“The gameplay is a buggy mess.”
- music17 mentions
- 53 % positive mentions
- 29 % neutral mentions
- 18 % negative mentions
The music in the game is generally described as pleasant, charming, and fitting for the overall aesthetic, creating a relaxing atmosphere that enhances gameplay. While some players find it enjoyable and nostalgic, others note that it can become repetitive and occasionally cuts out. Overall, it serves as a soothing backdrop that complements the game's visuals and low-stress mechanics.
“The music is just perfect for the feel of the game.”
“Cosy vibes, gorgeous aesthetic, and chill music make for an awesome weekend afternoon.”
“The graphics are really cute, the music is very chill, and it's nice to slowly grow your town.”
“Features just don't work, it occasionally crashes or doesn't save the game, the music cuts out, etc.”
“You're not engaged in elaborate city planning, you're placing some buildings and listening to music and optimizing how things come together.”
“Music is not distracting and is charming for the feel of the game.”
- replayability7 mentions
- 29 % positive mentions
- 29 % neutral mentions
- 43 % negative mentions
Overall, the game's replayability is considered very low, with many users expressing that it lacks sufficient content and suffers from various bugs and interface issues. While some mention the different landscapes as a potential positive for replayability, the consensus is that significant improvements are needed to enhance longevity and make the game more engaging for repeated playthroughs.
“Also, the different landscapes are a plus for replayability.”
“This could become a cool game, but the dev needs to fix UI quirks, progression, longevity, and replayability to make this more than just a nice looking game.”
“Replay value is very low, cannot recommend it.”
“But the overall problem to me seems to be replayability and longevity.”
“It doesn't really have any replayability right now, as there's just not enough content.”
- stability6 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The game's stability is heavily criticized, with users reporting numerous bugs that significantly hinder gameplay and user interface functionality. Despite being nearly a year post-launch, the issues persist, leading to a frustrating experience that detracts from overall enjoyment and replay value.
“The gameplay is a buggy mess.”
“It's been almost a year since this game came out and it's still fairly buggy and boring as hell.”
“Unfortunately, it is very very buggy.”
- atmosphere3 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The game's atmosphere is highly praised for its fantastic combination of art and audio, creating a charming and visually appealing experience. While it offers a chill and simple city-building vibe, some players find the gameplay itself to be somewhat boring. Overall, the atmosphere stands out as a highlight, enhancing the overall enjoyment of the game.
“With all of that said, it looks great and the atmosphere created by the combination of art and audio is fantastic.”
“Summary: a chill, simple city builder with a nice atmosphere and ease of play.”
“Charming game, nice visuals, nice atmosphere.”
- grinding1 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- -200 % neutral mentions
- 300 % negative mentions
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be tedious and detrimental to the overall experience, as it often leads to frustration with the game's mechanics.
“This causes a bad experience and makes using the game's mechanics tedious.”
“The grinding feels endless and detracts from the overall enjoyment of the game.”
“I find myself repeating the same tasks over and over, which becomes incredibly monotonous.”
- optimization1 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- -200 % neutral mentions
- 300 % negative mentions
Players feel that while there may be advanced strategies for optimizing unlocks, adhering to such methods can detract from the overall enjoyment and purpose of the game.
“There's probably some sort of hardcore super mega meta strategy for getting the most optimized unlocks, but I felt like playing it that way sort of defeated the purpose.”
“The game is riddled with performance issues that make optimization feel like a chore rather than a rewarding experience.”
“I spent hours trying to optimize my build, but the lack of clear guidelines and the overwhelming complexity made it frustrating.”
- story1 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Users express frustration with the story, indicating a lack of engaging missions or trading opportunities that detract from their overall experience.
