In the year of 2020 where we are required to be socially (or physically) distant thanks to a pandemic, we now have games that simulates the place and atmosphere we can’t have right now: metro stations. Or subway stations.
Between Stationflow and Overcrowd, the metro management niche is being fulfilled. And Overcrowd: A Commute ’em-up, takes a different approach for the genre. It feels like a good-old tycoon game, with enough depth and charm to it.
Presentation
Overcrowd has you building and managing metro stations in an isometric view. The art evokes the style of Habbo Hotel- very cubical in shape. And it’s done well- the crowd are diverse in colour and the colours all pop yet not clashing against each other. It’s easy to look for hours, and it’s easy to discern what’s going on at a glance.
Though I wish there’s text size customisation. Because boy, the default sure is tiny. Pair that with the font choice I have to squint a few times to actually see the small texts in the UI. An adjustable font size is sorely needed.
The music is a bit all over the place, and sometimes not present. The soundtrack is good, but doesn’t feel cohesive, like they don’t feel belong in one game. That’s a nitpick on my end, but one proper issue is that the music can sometime take too long to trigger. Is it a deliberate design choice to let the silence linger? Because it does get too quiet in the early game where you’re dealing with only a handful of commuters.
Gameplay
Overcrowd may be a metro/subway builder and management sim, but it’s not out to replicate a specific kind seen in the real world. In Lubdon Town, these metros start off with oil-powered generators and readied trains must be summoned manually early on. Staffs need specific tools that you need to purchase to run tasks like refuelling the generator, killing pests and mopping vomit and/or blood from the floor.
But once you wrap your head around the specific quirks of this town’s metro system, the game clicks well. There’s the tension of balancing your balance sheet with accommodating to your commuters’ feedback. If they aren’t satisfied and drops your reputation to 0, that’s game over.
However, there’s also weird quirks that really irks me. The UI can be unintuitive. There’s way too many times where I can’t tell which item is in which tab. And it makes it worse that items that are locked behind the procurement system (the game’s tech tree) won’t appear in any of them. I wish it was just there but greyed out so it’s easier to remember.
Also, these item tabs can be cumbersome. For example, I need to go the infrastructure tab to build a tool room. Then to add the tools you need to go to the dedicated tool tab. Won’t it be easier to just lump the tool room tool to the tool tab? So I can just open the tab, make the room I wanted then put all the items in without tabbing to-and-from other tabs? There were many times I accidentally made the wrong room for the wrong item.
There’s also one weird thing about the procurement system- staircases are not unlocked by default. This can be infuriating when mixed in the procedurally-generated terrain where you might begin in a location where the entry point and train line isn’t on the same floor. And you can’t unlock the staircase yet. So you’ve essentially screwed- you can’t play the map.
Despite all the little quirks I’m detailing here, the main gameplay loop in Overcrowd is actually solid. Balancing the budget and commuter needs are just the right toughness from the get-go, and will test your management ability to think ahead and adapt to changes.
The great thing about Overcrowd is how it ramps up the challenges. Just when you feel like you’ve started to get the hang of things, you’ll likely reach the threshold to unlock new levels of item in the tech tree. And you better be getting those quick, or thing will go awry.
Things will go awry, like not expecting the flu to spread while you haven’t unlocked the mop yet, making the whole station reek in vomit. Or overworking your staff and forgetting to build a staff room which caused them to go on strike. And then having a rat infestation happening during that strike causing the commuters to flee off. Or sudden heart attacks. Or heat strokes due to the station being hot on account of it being so densely packed.
Overcrowd will overwhelm you in stages, but it’s so rewarding when you finally quell the challenges it throws at you. A word of advice: just turn the game over off- by default you’ll get game over when your reputation falls to 0. Having it off lets you still recover from disasters and keep pushing on.
Content
Overcrowd has three different modes. The first is Network sandbox. It will procedurally generate a campaign map of Lubdon Town. You can choose where to start, but there’s a hard cap on how much tech you can and will unlock based on which zone the map is. Starting with zone 5, and all the way to zone 1. There’s a five-star objective system but you won’t be able to get them all in your first playthrough since you can get all the tech unlocks. So you’ll need to play the map in the next zone tier and later on revisit your past stations and get it to perfection.
There’s also Station sandbox. Here, you’ll be stuck in this one map the whole game. Like your usual crop of sandbox sim/tycoon games.
There’s also the Commute of the day, where you can play a daily challenges, a daily map rotation.
It’s just enough modes, but the sheer amount of systems Overcrowd comes packed with means there’s plenty of ways to spend your time tinkering. From managing heat to ensuring the good flow so that folks don’t feel overcrowded.
Personal Enjoyment
At first, Overcrowd is just frustrating for me. I was fighting against the UI too much. I feel like the things I expect to do in other games of its genre didn’t work as I wanted. There was a big hump to get pass its quirks.
Once I figured out how I should approach the game, Overcrowd clicks really well. The art style is easy to look at for hours, and the horrors that is managing your money while still expanding the station is the right amount of challenge. The very peculiar systems that’s designed to keep you from cramming humans too close together like spreadable flu, rat outbreaks and even civil unrest is not what I expected to see. But it adds an interesting wrinkle to this metro station builder.
At the end of the day, it does tick all the boxes of what a sim of its kind should do, and offer something fresh on top. It’s bloody good fun.
Verdict
Overcrowd: A Commute ‘Em Up is a valiant debut effort for Squareplay Games. It does what a builder/management game should do, and brings its own brand of charm and ideas to the table.
It has rough edges, but once you’ve adapted to its shortcomings you’re in for hours of good time managing crowds, vomits and punctual train lines.
Reviewed on PC. Review copy provided by the developer
Overcrowd: A Commute 'Em Up
Overcrowd: A Commute' Em Up is a valiant debut effort for Squareplay Games. It does what a builder/management game should do, and brings its own brand of charm and ideas to the table.
It has rough edges, but once you've adapted to its shortcomings you're in for hours of good time managing crowds, vomits and punctual train lines.
- Presentation 7.5
- Gameplay 8.5
- Content 8.5
- Personal Enjoyment 8