MEMORIAPOLIS

I love everything about this game, except this one thing.. You're forced to play a certain way when it comes to making decisions. Very clear with it's biases, feels 1 dimensional in that aspect. Other than that the visuals are nice and the city building side is very relaxing. I would definitely change my mind if more options were available with BALANCED penalties, not arbitrary.

The saying that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover almost perfectly describes the indie game Memoriapolis. At first glance, the debut project from the French studio 5PM looks like something you would play while waiting in line or trying to kill a few boring minutes - the kind of title that justifiably earns the somewhat pejorative label of a “little casual game.” Even after checking out the screenshots and short description on Steam, it still gives off the impression of a pointless idle game, albeit one with charming visuals. The truth, however, is very different. Beneath its surface lies a surprisingly deep and addictive city-building system. Memoriapolis is a surprisingly complex and engaging game that hides an intricate city management simulation under the hood. The player’s task is to establish a Mediterranean city-state in ancient times, develop it, and guide it through the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, and eventually into the Industrial Era. The first step is constructing a family estate, which serves as a gathering place and a kind of magnet for attracting new citizens to the city. The player only has direct control over industrial and public buildings, while residential districts grow organically as newcomers arrive. At first, these will consist of clusters of shabby huts connected by muddy alleyways, but over time, in line with the social rise of their owners, they will evolve into magnificent marble villas. The game features six natural resources, plus food as the only renewable resource, while two additional resources only become available once you reach the Middle Ages. In this regard, the gameplay is not too different from standard management simulations such as the Anno series. Since people are social and political creatures, they will soon begin organizing themselves into various factions and pushing their own agendas, demanding that you shape the city according to their preferences. This primarily revolves around issuing short-term decrees, often bitter pills to swallow when it comes to the city’s long-term progress, but necessary to maintain social stability. Craftsmen, politicians, officers, merchants, clergy, and intellectuals all compete for influence, and it is up to you to maintain balance between the social classes and ensure that no group feels neglected. If one of the factions becomes too dissatisfied, it will barricade itself inside its district and withdraw from the city’s social life - the first step toward a game over screen. Each era lasts for a certain number of cycles, although you can trigger an early transition to the next age by upgrading the family estate through five stages. Entering a new era is always turbulent, though thankfully not as destructive as in the latest Civilization VII, meaning not every structure will be wiped out during the transition period. How many buildings survive depends on your success in the previous era. The game periodically evaluates your progress based on stored resources, the number of buildings, and citizen satisfaction, rewarding you with memory coins. The more coins you collect, the smoother the transition into the next era becomes. Ultimately, all of these mechanics must work together as a cohesive whole. Juggling decrees, fitting new buildings together like pieces in a game of Tetris to encourage the growth of specific districts or factions, and positioning structures that generate feelings of safety, belonging, or prestige among the population are all part of a larger puzzle whose proper assembly allows the polis to function harmoniously and progress into the modern age. The first major issue with Memoriapolis is its extremely steep learning curve. The tutorial is short and vague, it explains how to do things, but not why or when you should do them, meaning that trial and error becomes the only way to truly understand how the systems work. The second problem only reveals itself to players persistent enough to survive the ordeal of the first: once you fully grasp all the mechanics, the game becomes painfully repetitive. There are only two maps, one standard and one snowy variant, each offering a few starting locations that barely affect the course of the game. This title desperately needs a random map generator. Memoriapolis demands a significant investment of time, along with watching YouTube tutorials, browsing subreddits, and generally hunting for information across the internet. Play at your own risk! Original from June 2025 in Serbian: https://www.sk.rs/arhiva/clanak/34557/memoriapolis

Мне не понравилась игра. Фишка с органично растущими районами, проложенными дорогами прикольная, но это единственное что есть в игре. Есть система политики и фракций, но на базовой сложности она не влияет не на что. Хочешь трогаешь, хочешь нет. Чет себе мельтешатся, иногда ивенты (одни и те же) проходят, да и фиг с ними. Гораздо большая проблема - город мертв. Даже дым из зданий статичен и просто нарисован, это муляж, с статичными модельками. Возможно, если кто-то хочет на дефицитах, высоком уровне сложности поиграть, то найдет себе что-то в это игре. Но если есть желание построить город, наблюдая за работой его систем между собой - проходите мимо.

Let's encompass the Memoria Polis gameplay experience in a nutshell.... Please wait for 5 minutes before continuing reading. Jokes aside, this barely can qualify as a game. There are many autobattlers or idle clickers that have more frequent player input than this. When you aren't waiting for resources, you're waiting for people to move in, or for buildings to be constructed, or for research to be completed. Now these things taking time isn't a bad thing...provided you have other actions for the player to take. This game does not. Other than placing buildings every once in a while or dealing with a faction/politics system that is unimpactful enough to basically ignore. there is very little for the player to do when needing to wait on progress. As an example, when building an end game wonder, I spent over half an hour of game time with fewer than 30 mouse clicks as I waited for construction to finish. Truly an engrossing and challenging experience. Everyone has heard of second screen content when it comes to streaming or Youtube, but I think this is the first "game" I've ever seen that qualifies as a second screen game where you have another activity on your primary monitor to help pass the interminable waiting. In summary, even on sale this game isn't worth your money, much less your time.

J'ai acheté le jeu dès sa sortie en accès anticipé, les graphismes étaient magnifiques, l'effet de cités réaliste était là! Mais il y avait encore des manques vu que le jeu était encore en développement, ce qui était normal donc de laisser le jeu se développer... Mais quand je reviens dessus bien plus tard, je vois que le jeu à été défiguré par une pâte graphique cartoon! Des gros traits noirs partout! Pixellisé! C'est affreux et ça tue l'immersion! Et impossible de le désactiver contrairement à ce qu'ils disent! C'est dommage! Si j'avais su qu'ils allaient passé à cette effet graphique j'aurais jamais acheté le jeu en l'état actuel! Comme quoi, on devrait plus acheté de jeux en accès anticipé et attendre qu'ils sortent définitivement leur jeu pour voir le résultat final! ça éviterait les mauvaises surprises de ce genre!

I posted this as a reply in the forum but decided it could serve well enough as my review too, and why I refunded this. It's not a bad game, its quite pretty and looks interesting but it is almost indecipherable in its current iteration. I'm no stranger to this type of game, or complex games in general, but I have to tell you I agree with the overall sentiment here and I bounced off of this game hard. I gather that this is a result of a recent change in the mechanics? Either way, it is not at all evident what you are supposed to do when you start. You're given goals you cannot achieve "research sand.. okay how? It says to do it in the build menu but that's locked by something else that I can't build yet..." You have to self-discover 2-3 mechanics before it even becomes clear what you need to do, and nowhere does it lead you to discover how to actually build a healthy city. Political factions begin popping up with no real reasoning. Okay some military guys want a district of my city. Why would I give them one? It says they'll just take taxes for themselves. The benefit is not evident. Yes it says they will unlock a new building but it's not obvious why I would care about that over the loss of tax revenue. And does the district I give them matter? Can I give them this outskirts district with 2 people? Is it better to give them one in the inner city with 50+? Does that matter at all? None of this is evident, nor is what these new buildings actually provide, without a copious amount of reading dry, bland pages of text in a codex. I'm not even opposed to reading, I play games where reading is the core mechanic, but it has to be INTERESTING. You need to hook the player before you slap them with a book. So this one got a pass and a refund from me because at no point was I hooked or interested, and this is from someone who has hundreds and hundreds of hours in city builders and esoteric games.

took an amazing concept and ran it so deep in the ground, they forced weird outlines on all buildings which makes everything look cartoony- took away so many features to customize your city. for a "city builder" it focuses more on diplomacy and resources than any actual design of cities- you cant even stay in a architectural era, i would understand if this came from a company like paradox- but an indie studio? embarassing