New city builder DarkSwitch sees you build an elf treetop town to dodge death

I don't know about you, but all my cities end up going outwards. No matter how many skyscrapers I build, nor turrets on my castles, the sprawl of agriculture and increasing demands for housing force my capitals to spread wider and wider, engulfing suburbs and nearby villages as they do so. Like a malignant melanoma, they quickly spiral out of control and before too long the traffic situation becomes a migraine of unfathomable proportions. However, new city builder DarkSwitch flips that whole problem on its head. Or, more specifically, its axis.

I've never heard of a city building game that plays vertically, but that's exactly what DarkSwitch intends to do. You manage a city built among the branches of an enormous tree, which provides its inhabitants with safety and security above a deadly fog that surrounds it. So you really can't build outwards.

There's exploration, narrative quests, and cutscenes, but the meat of this fog-based mystery is the city building. As with all good city builders, you'll need to balance industrial construction with social and defensive areas. Research new technologies and manage your scarce resources in order to best serve your citizens - this is a treetop post-apocalypse, after all.

While the fog will randomly coalesce and advance, impacting your people's health and morale, you can also build defenses against it. By venturing into its deadly whorls, you can gather resources, uncover ancient artifacts, and rescue survivors. Uncovering the fog's origins is key to protecting your citizens.

Difficult choices will punctuate your playthrough. Do you want to take in refugees, or move them on? Do you send a group of rangers to a nearby outpost that has signalled for help, or will you need them protecting the Seed? With more than a hint of solarpunk about it, DarkSwitch should be an interesting addition to the city building genre when it releases.

The DarkSwitch demo is live on Steam now. You can find it here.

If you're already done with that intro to vertical city building, why not check out some of the best strategy games to test that brain out? Alternatively, prepare for the perils of the fog by testing your mettle in one of the best survival games which we've handpicked for you.

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