izigame.me

Strongly recommended. An underappreciated, atmospheric gem for those who can self-motivate.

Although few people probably want to actually live in a Blade Runner-esque megalopolis, you have to admit they have an extremely cool aesthetic going on. The soaring buildings, the neon glow, the 80-storey tall holographic billboards - they have style to burn. Building a city like that would cost trillions of dollars, real estate's expensive, and let's be honest, who has that kind of time?
Well, don't let the visual artists from Johnny Mnemonic have all the fun. Dystopika lets you build the futuristic hellhole of your dreams.
Your very own techno-dystopia with the click of a mouse...
Calling Dystopika a game is a bit of a stretch. It's more of a minimalist art project, but without the pretentiousness and pointlessness of the average "art project." There isn't really a game here - there are no resources to collect, no budget to manage, no endlessly irritating little electronic citizens to placate as you run for re-election. There's no zoning to worry about - you want a skyscraper right here? You got it, just plop it down. Oh, you wanted a 250 storey skyscraper? Why didn't you say? Take the short one and stretch it until you're happy. Nice building but it's pointed the wrong way? Turn it. No civil engineer ever had it this good.
There are a variety of "district types" (read: building aesthetics) you can use, and each one has a few variants. How tall you stretch a building changes how it will look beyond simply height, and if you place buildings close together synergistic elements like skybridges can appear. As you populate your city with buildings, more and more skycars will begin to flit about, their lights dancing in the foggy, drizzling night. (It's always foggy and drizzling in dystopias, but your godlike municipal powers let you turn that off too, if you like.)
What would a futuristic dystopia be without ubiquitous, intrusive visual marketing and neon signs? Well, we have a lot of that too, right at your fingertips. Place neon graphic screens the size of the Chrysler building as you see fit. Free-floating holograms? Check. Bright neon signs in pseudo-Japanese characters? Check. Ominous vapor-spewing smokestacks? Well...
Okay, so there is a small element of gameplay here. Not everything is available to you at the start. If you want that vapor-spewing stack, you're going to have to unlock it. How? Easy: build stuff! As you build more things and vary what you build, you'll unlock new things. New signs, smokestacks, comm towers, skycar highways - all kinds of stuff awaits.
There's even customization. Want that 200 storey holo-billboard to be your friend's face or your Twitch channel logo? Import the graphic and it's done.
Bonus: there's a wonderfully atmospheric soundtrack with suitably dystopian-yet-wondrous music.
This is something you can pick up and with a few minutes of messing about be creating an awesome looking city. It's that good.
...but this dystopia isn't all utopia.
Okay, so this title isn't perfect. Very few are. Fortunately, the gripes are pretty low level.
First of all, there's nothing driving you here. No scores, no quests, no lore - just your desire to flex your inner Blade Runner architect. So, if you don't have a self-motivating mindset to just create things, you might tire of this one pretty quickly. This isn't a criticism, it's merely a statement of fact.
The other thing - also not a big deal but disappointing - is that while there are signs you can place with customizable text, you can't resize them and they don't scale. So if you enter more than about three or four characters, your ubiquitous-marketing-neon eyesore will only be readable with a microscope. That's not the future dystopia way. Worse, they look like they're resizable, but that's just the UI aesthetic; they're fixed. (Or if they're not, I've yet to find out how to change the size.)
Finally, there are no tooltips or other guidance. It's strictly trial and error. Granted, with this title that's not a big deal, but it could be a little frustrating for some users. Don't let that put you off, though; there are only a few tools - you'll figure them out quickly.

In short, this is worth it.

If a chill artistic builder to relax with sounds like something you'd like to do, by all means get this. It's relaxing, it's fun, and it's satisfying to watch your city come to life. With the tools available to you, you can craft your own little future dystopian world ready for you to headcanon a story together for it. It's that good.

Final grade: A.