Settlement: Colossus Game Review

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In Settlement: Colossus, you are an exiled emperor who has to build a new empire from scratch out of its grass hut roots. Research through the ages as you create new technologies and upgrade existing ones in your quest to create the ultimate city in this city-building resource management and puzzle game hybrid.

The story in Settlement: Colossus begins with an aged king leading his hungry and sick band of followers across mountains in search of a new place to call home. They manage to find some nice open plains and decide to settle there. As you progress through the game though, you learn that the king used to be the emperor of a great and powerful nation... 300 years ago! Apparently he had been cursed by the gods and had lost his empire, and his story will unfold as you make your way through the game.

Settlement: Colossus is a curious game that mixes different genres such as resource management, empire-building, puzzle and hidden objects; and it does it quite well indeed. Overall, it has that empire-building feel as you research technologies and advance through the ages... from learning to gather and farm in the ancient age to constructing more sophisticated buildings such as potters and forges in the classical era.

There is also resource management in Settlement: Colossus, as you need to find food to feed your people every turn, and raw materials such as wood, clay and bricks to construct tools and buildings. You will have to decide whether you want to spend a turn stocking up on food, or getting bricks for a new building, or gathering new materials to research new technology.

The technology research makes the game more interesting as well. At the start of the game, the only way to find food is to gather berries from the forest. Once you research forges and are able to create farming tools, you can then research and build a farm to provide another more efficient source of food. Further research as you progress through the ages will provide farming upgrades that will allow you to become more efficient and collect more food each turn.

In normal resource management games, when you decide to gather food or wood, you will usually have your minions do it for you. In Settlement: Colossus, you have to do it yourself! Every turn, you have the option of choosing what resource you want to gather, be it clay and brick from the caves, or berries and wood from the forest for example. Once you make your choice, you are then taken to the scene in question, and you have to find the raw materials that are blended into the background in a hidden object game. You will also have a chance of finding special items in these hidden object scenes. Some will start side quests, while others can be combined to form artifacts that make your civilization more efficient.

There are also mini-puzzles in the game. When you are able to gain access to a new location or technology, you may be confronted with a puzzle to solve before being able to access the new stuff. For example, you will need to solve a logic puzzle in order to rebuild the bridge separating the settlement from a cavern area which contains clay and ore.

The graphics in Settlement: Colossus are bright, sharp and attractive. The art in the hidden object scenes are the stand-outs in the game. They include various weather features and little critters such as frogs and dragonflies moving around the place. There is limited animation in the game, but what it does have is good enough to make the game feel immersive and engaging. The pleasant and uplifting soundtrack doesn't hurt either.

Overall, this game is pretty unique in that it tries to combine the resource management and hidden object game genres, and I think it has succeeded pretty well. If you like empire-building and resource management games, but get too stressed with the real-time gameplay and the clock counting down, then Settlement: Colossus is great with its slower pace and its interesting puzzles.

Rating: 4.0/5.0  

Watch a demo video of the game!

 Download Settlement: Colossus for the PC

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