Playing with My Friends but All My Friends Are Strangers
Reacting to the Communite Beta
Jimjum Studios has a beta of their latest game out right now. It's called Communite - if you can figure out how to pronounce that without tripping over it let me know - and I kind of love it. I'm playing on the iOS version of the app, and it's just a joy. In this game, you build stuff on tiles. You start with a biome tile, and then each biome tile can be upgraded with a piece of nature or built scenery, with many of those pieces being upgradable beyond that. It's simple and the design itself is elegant.
What I find particularly elegant... is how they encourage you to build together. There are several design decisions that make the pieces fall into place. The first point is that you never log back into the same place on the map you left from. You have a limited number of bookmarked locations, so you aren't fully thrown to the wind, but generally speaking, where you arrive for each session is random. It often puts me near someone who is currently building - the only option outside of select streamers is to play on a global server - and there's an Active Zone button on the right of the screen at all times that will teleport you to wherever there's people building. (I will note, often I am the person building, but it's a beta, so I'll cut it some slack.)
Important to note: while writing this post, I opened the game to check the name of something, and I ended up playing for ten minutes. It's very easy to quickly play and quickly get sucked in to a project!
Furthermore, and most unique to this game, is the fact that many of these upgraded tiles cannot be completed without the help of other players. You literally cannot progress without other folks coming in to contribute - the building points are called 'Kindness' which is a bit twee but suits the overall style and ethos of the game - and vice versa.
This game does a lot to make sure that you aren't too attached to any one build at "your" project, and I think it overall strengthens the entire experience. When I play this game I feel similar to how I do when I join a town in a public Minecraft server and build with people for a few days, weeks, months, etc. I'm playing with my friends, but I don't know any of these people. Communite has a simple React menu that lets your little character wave or dance and no chat. But I recognize the same names popping up, and when people help out with an area I've been working on. And that's a very unique feeling that I rarely get in games outside of a Minecraft server, and it's deeply nostalgic and fun. I'm excited for Communite's full release!