Overthrown is a city building game made by and for people who can’t work out whether they love or despise city building games. In this curious concoction from developers Brimstone and publishers Maximum Entertainment, you are a chirpy anime monarch equipped with a magic crown that confers the ability to seize entire buildings and throw them away because aaaararargahragrhagh, I am sick of this dang sawmill. I am sick of perfecting the infrastructure. I am sick of stockpiling food for the winter. I am sick of my hard-working peasants and their happiness levels. I am going to pick everything up and hurl it into the sky.
The crown doesn’t just give you superhuman strength. It also lets you sprint so fast that you can run on water. Combine your superhuman speed with your superhuman strength, and you have the means to accelerate the generic business of, say, turning trees into lumber. All you have to do is heft your sawmill over your head and run through the woods, screaming in exhilaration and despair as an entire forest ecosystem disappears into the building’s whirling blades.
Every action in Overthrown appears to be conducted in the same spirit of nihilistic frenzy. Crops are harvested using spin-attacks and ground-pounds. Land is cultivated by using your shovel like a pogo stick. One way of summarising it is that your character is secretly the protagonist of a third-person action game, ported into a city builder by accident. They don’t have time for all this construction and strategy! They’ve got places to be! Not sure what places, exactly, but still, get me out of here!
The only problem with that framing is that the actual combat side of Overthrown looks pretty leaden and uninspired, but you don’t necessarily have to fight the mutants and outlaws who raid your town. You can just pick up the mutant lair and place it next to the outlaw camp, then watch them murder each other.
The last twist in the tale here is that Overthrown is a co-op game, with room for up to six players (there’s a moment of throwback joy in one trailer where it looks like they’re advertising six-way splitscreen, but don’t be fooled – it’s online co-op only). Your friends all have magic crowns of their own and as such, are to be regarded with deep suspicion. They will throw your buildings away! Better throw their buildings away first.
All told, Overthrown feels like a great fit for the kind of SimCity player who’s always itching to push the Godzilla button. It’s out in early access this year.