Times of Progress is a structured, focused urban planner set during the Industrial Revolution.

Times of Progress is a special game for me, because it’s the first tip I got from Sin Vega. Strategy game Prime Minister. Sin once explained to our former news editor Alice0 (RPS in peace) that writing news articles is like practicing in front of a kung fu master. Writing about a new city Builder At Sean’s suggestion, it’s almost like inviting the development of Londinium on Julius Caesar’s budget.

The terror of screwing it up – along with other simple distractions like the International Games Industry Conference – kept me from writing about Times of Progress for months. Today I bite the bullet and leave my lodgings to make an unhesitating speech to the masses, hoping like hell that Caesar is too busy with the latest Gallic revolt to notice my mistakes.

For starters, that introductory analogy comes from the wrong millennium. The timeline is set during the Industrial Revolution – steam engines, labor unions, and massive urban housing. The first thing you will notice about it is its presentation and beauty. We are on a systematically created isometric terrain where roads and railways connect diamond-shaped urban layouts. The buildings, the terrain types and the overall color scheme are pleasingly clean – pale earth, red brick, green hills – but not barren. There are some amazing animated flourishes like Smoke Plus, and houses that slowly turn into complex mansions.

However, you might be tempted to call the Times of Progress “small”. Sure, it seems more crowded than most city builders, but there are plenty of systems, including a few that have been approved directly from current elections.

Take scientific inventions and new technologies like the typewriter, water frames or electrolysis. You don’t simply assign scientists to investigate it yourself. Instead, you’ll unlock your city and other AI-ruled cities across the map as part of a wider Industrial Revolution timeline. You spend the points you earn by achieving certain goals (for example, achieving a certain amount of food production) to import new technologies and get them faster. In general, business appears to be a major issue in the Times of Progress. There’s no military component, and there doesn’t seem to be any distinct “culture” cover, so your interactions with other metropolises will be largely commercial.

There is also the question of Labor politics. If a certain percentage of a certain workplace is not paid (in the form of food) for several weeks, they may go on strike. You can meet their demands or apply police action. Once workers pass the corresponding laws, they can unionize, making it more expensive but more efficient. People with a university education may be more likely to be unemployed.

I love the balance between the build time of a model train set and the carefully considered historical fidelity that seems amazing. I suspect/hope to write something more elaborate on the game sometime in the new year. Please kindly review my previous efforts, sin! For now, You can read more about Times of Progress on Steam. Developer Press Thumb Games is a Berlin-based sole proprietorship using the Rust programming language and the Bevy engine. The studio’s name seems to come from the German equivalent of crossing your fingers to ensure good luck. Aw