Stario: Haven Tower isn't the first vertical city-builder I've seen, or even the first one I've seen this year. But it is the first I've encountered that also features floating space whales, which immediately makes it the one I'm most interested in playing. Does this demonstrate how badly the Internet has affected my attention span? Well, I'll have you know that—ooh, a squirrel!
Developed by Chinese outfit Stargate Games, Stario: Haven Tower tasks you with constructing a literal towering civilization. Through "six atmospheric layers", your metropolitan column will rise from a sandy, lifeless wilderness all the way up to a painterly cosmos.
While the verticality is what initially intrigued me about Stario (that and the space whales), what really makes it interesting is how it folds logistics into city-planning. Each layer of the tower must store its own supplies, so you'll need to figure out how to move goods between them. At the outset, this may involved good old fashioned elbow grease, ordering your "Towertizens" (a portmanteau unlikely to catch on, I fear).
As you research new tech, however, you'll be able to produce hot air balloons, pipelines, and a technology called "Stronghands" that basically catapult packages between layers. Judging from the trailer (viewable below), Stario also lets you domesticate giant flying turtles to aid in deliveries, though whether these are used for general logistics or more specific, larger-scale transportation is unclear.
Of course, your construction efforts don't occur in a bubble. In classic city-building style, your tower is vulnerable to various disasters that can damage its structure and your people's morale. Yet as your civilization ascends, you'll be able to harness the elements through magical rituals, summoning wind to power your turbines and rain to replenish your crops.
While is only just entering early access, it appears fairly fleshed out. The alpha version lets you build the full tower, construct 70 buildings, produce 50 different recipes, and research technologies from a completed tech tree. There are also four types of disasters to contend with, as well as a newly implemented trading system.
Stario: Haven Tower is available now. Stargate Games anticipates a swift early access period of between six and 12 months, with planned features including a sandbox mode, more logistics buildings, a statistics tracking panel, and more decorative objectives to place around your city. The developer's also running a 10% launch sale, temporarily bringing the price down to $12.59 (£10). The discount runs until October 9.
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