Islanders is a minimal, chilled city builder out next month

If, like me, you like your city builders simple and relaxing then you should keep an eye on Islanders, which is coming to Steam on April 4.

This week's reveal trailer, above, is very charming indeed. Each building bounces as you plop it down, sending little gold hexagons flooding into your score wheel. The music is chilled and the pretty islands are compact, which should take all the stress out of planning the expansion of your city.

As for how it actually works, you start with a set of buildings in your inventory, and placing them yields a certain score that depends on what other buildings are nearby. Once you've amassed enough points you'll unlock a new set of buildings, and when your city is large enough you can move to the next island.

When you run out of buildings it's game over, and you start again. The islands are procedurally-generated, so if you can keep your score up you could technically go on forever.

We don't yet know the price, but developer GrizzlyGames promise it'll be cheap. "This is not a blockbuster experience with hours and hours of content. What we’d like to offer you is a simple game that lets anybody create and explore their own little worlds, while providing enough depth for players who want to challenge themselves," it says.

"And you can get it at the price of a medium-sized pumpkin spice matcha caramel latte." The Steam page is here.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.