Synergy Seamlessly Blends Cosy Creativity With Relentless, Real Survival Challenges

There are two main schools of thought with city builders. Your cosy, rewarding romps that fulfil the fantasy of establishing and decorating a bustling utopia. Then the other side; the stressful, hopeless, comedy of errors that ends in everyone starving to death.

I prefer option 2 - whatever that says about my character - but most games on offer will fit those criteria. Synergy attempts to do both, and changes depending on how you look at it. 

From one angle, you’re attempting to prosper in a desolate land. You’re trying to understand the local flora, how it connects with the ecosystem at large. You’re exploring, finding others to trade with - and piecing together a semblance of hope in a hopeless world.

It’s blanketed in an appealing drawn artstyle, every bit of UI and information is stylised and visually pleasing, and the sound design is delicate and atmospheric. There are all the things you need to have a lovely, uplifting settlement builder. 

But that wasn’t my experience. 

Mine was the constant threat of mass dehydration. Overcrowding in districts. Heatstroke. Illness. Starvation. A disaster of poorly planned out resource allocation that spelled doom for the poor sods who thought I’d lead them to a brighter tomorrow. 

But that isn’t a knock on the game, that’s exactly the sort of experience I like in a city builder. 

Synergy has two modes; it’s standard difficulty, which follows the Banished playbook and keeps throwing a constant barrage of crises your way. But if that’s not your cup of tea, you go for harmony mode - which eases off the difficulty, and puts creativity and cosiness first.

A NATURAL WORLD 

Whichever experience you want from the game, it’s not the approach to difficulty alone that makes Synergy feel different. Its gameplay loop puts a twist on the standard formula. Success hinges on being able to understand the game’s flora.

Some plants provide shade - which your residents will love living beneath. Some will wither and die if you take the wrong approach to harvest them. They might flourish in one season and retreat in the next, or be an invasive species spreading rampant in a biome and choking out other life.

You’re tasked with sending out teams of analysts to study plants, with subsequent studies revealing more about them. What resources they provide, advanced ways to tend to them, their effect on their environment - and the damage or benefit they can present to the ecosystem. 

It’s an interconnected system; one that goes beyond anything I’ve seen in the genre. It’s what holds everything together. The flora around you will be what keeps your people alive. The balance in how you deal with them dictates whether you sink or swim. You might set off gungho, ripping plants up and getting a quick boost of resources, but the price for this will be paid a few seasons later as their numbers dwindle. Too delicate a hand, however, and you won’t have the materials and means to advance your city; nor safeguard your people from the other threats of the world.

A THIRSTY LIFE

A post-apocalyptic herbologist isn’t the only hat you’ll wear. The land around you is harsh in the best of times. Water is scarce, and usually polluted; which isn’t the best given scenario when you’re living in the desert. While food does technically grow on trees, overfarming your environment could lead to an adverse effect on its ecosystem; so a soft touch is needed. Which might not be what your populace wants to hear when they’ve had to skip their last serving of seed porridge. 

The fine-line between sustaining your population and growing to meet future threats is very real here. What makes it most difficult, is that there is no clear cut path to an easy, sustainable food or water source. Even when you think you’ve got the game sussed out, it’s something you’re always thinking about, season to season. Everything may be going swimmingly in the best of times, but right around the corner could be a hot spell. 

Lakes will dry up, plants will wither, and if you haven’t been stockpiling and preparing for the harder months; you’re stuffed.

SCARY

Given my fondness of games like Banished and Farthest Frontier, the ‘scary’ side to city builders was not something I expected to be such a predominant feature in Synergy. In a lot of ways, I found this to be the more challenging game. Not because of complexity - but because you aren’t using the same cookie cutter approach you would do in other games; and that in itself is refreshing. 

Anywhere else, you see resources, and they're yours to exploit. Having to get out of that frame of mind and treat the world more delicately meant that the balance between success or failure lasted longer. Even when I thought I’d worked it all out, and had paved the way to grow and prosper, something as small as having no source of mushrooms can grind everything to a halt. All you can do is sit and watch as dozens of villagers perish; all because of a brief fungal famine.

COSY

But then again, that’s the experience I got, because that’s the experience I wanted. Changing to the game’s harmony mode changes a lot of this. There isn’t such a mad dash to secure a reliable food source. Less punishing dry seasons means you aren’t constantly building up stocks in preparation. You can focus more on the cosy side of things. 

The building, the decorating, sprucing up your settlement’s various districts. That’s a neat trick built into the game that I really appreciate. You have hubs to build around, ones that can be specialised; providing and receiving bonuses to nearby buildings. By playing around these, you’ll find yourself developing districts for your workshops, research buildings, and cultural landmarks. Things you might already find yourself doing, but here it gives a bit more reason to plan out your city in blocks.

Your townsfolk like to have amenities. They like it when you throw down decorations, or provide them a nice meeting spot, or a canteen to dine in. They have an array of needs both big and small, and there’s another side of the game there in trying to make this peaceful, picturesque utopia; a part of the game you might miss if you’re in that constant cycle of trying to keep everyone keeling over and dying.

WHAT IT DOES WELL 

And that is something I am very impressed with. It takes two styles that appeal to crowds on opposing ends of the city builder spectrum, and fits it into one package. It’s clean, it’s got character, it has some great ideas. 

While it fits the overarching purpose of a survival city builder, it brings enough to the mix that means I’m not just going on autopilot. Its focus on flora and the natural environment is really novel, and had me coming back several times trying to nail down an approach that worked.

Being able to present a more comfortable, cosy game mode which utilises all the game’s systems is something I commend. This can appeal to both crowds, but could be a means to broaden horizons. If you’re someone who likes the idea of survival city builders, but want a more gradual lowering into the deep end; you can learn the mechanics in peace; before using the game’s more difficult mode as a gauntlet.

What’s most important, however, is that it stands out. Bits of it remind me of this, parts remind me of that - but as a package, Synergy really stands out in a crowded genre. It forced me to rewire my thinking and approach it differently, and that in itself makes it stick out for me. 

Given it ticks so many boxes in so many places, and has appeal to both a casual and more seasoned audience; it’s an easy recommendation from me. If you feel like you’ve seen it all in the genre, Synergy is something fresh and novel.