Laysara: Summit Kingdom

Laysara: Summit Kingdom has proven to be a city-builder with a vibrant personality. The Himalayan-inspired setting brings with it enjoyable gameplay elements tied to the challenge of building an efficient human settlement amidst mountain slopes, harsh weather, and unpredictable avalanches. The gameplay formula combines the genre’s hallmarks with a touch of puzzle-solving, which serves as both its distinctive strength and structural limitation. On one hand, this originality rewards Quite OK Games with a refreshingly unique title. On the other hand, the repetitiveness tends to set in more quickly than fans of the genre might expect. One thing is certain: building on the side of mountain slopes has never been this fun and rewarding.

Building a settlement in the mountainous environment of the Himalayas is more original and fun than in the last instalment of The Settlers. This unusual title focuses on building a settlement and even without combat it presents a challenging experience when faced with difficult conditions.

Laysara turns steep mountains into a playground for clever problem-solving and quiet satisfaction.

Laysara: Summit Kingdom is incredibly engaging and visually stunning. It feels like a refreshing change from the usual city builders, focusing more on production chains and careful planning. There’s a great balance of challenge and a chilled-out experience that seems rare for the genre. I’d highly recommend giving this a try; even console players that may struggle with these types of games on a controller may be pleasantly surprised! Therefore, Laysara: Summit Kingdom receives the Thumb Culture Gold Award!

In short, Laysara: Summit Kingdom is a city-building game that requires patience, careful thought, and the willingness to embrace its unique challenge.

To summit up, Laysara: Summit Kingdom is a great little town builder. Set in a pretty unique location and providing plenty of satisfying management without the constant threat of invasion by a horde of enemies, it's incredibly relaxing and enjoyable. At least, until you underestimate the power of an avalanche and bury half your workers in snow. If you're at all interested in a builder like this set on a mountain, I'd be surprised if you didn't enjoy Laysara, even if you usually prefer something more challenging.

Laysara: Summit Kingdom is a city builder in which you build cities on mountains instead of flat land, which immediately makes the game different. In the campaign you free the city of Laysara from a deadly fog and build infrastructure between different heights. Obstacles such as avalanches, steep slopes and limited construction space make planning food supplies and transportation challenging. Sandbox mode gives complete freedom to develop multiple mountains and trading networks, but creative freedom remains limited. With an atmospheric Tibetan art style and voiceovers, it is an accessible, cozy city builder for players who enjoy a quiet, strategic building experience.

Challenging but fun city builder experience on Nintendo Switch

This intriguing title is a blend of many extremes in the end. It's an interesting concept supported by solid controller handling, but also plagued by several poor design decisions, and ultimately brought down by completely chaotic and nonsensical scenarios and campaign. It's a pity, because the idea was really good.

Changing things up and taking a city-building sim into the mountains does change up some dynamics, but your very constrained ability to do things your own way makes it disappointing