It is already safe to say that sometime toward the end of this year you will be able to download Foundation for free. It is a city-building simulator devoted to Romanesque and Gothic architecture, since the setting is the Middle Ages. Don't expect anything primitive, though, because the developer, the young Canadian studio Polymorph Games, has borrowed the best from classics like Settlers, SimCity, Anno and Crusader Kings. That makes it clear this is about more than just building: Foundation is expected to include wars and the settling of new lands.
To bring its ideas to life, including some completely new ones, the studio created its own engine with the grand name Hurricane Engine. Thanks to it, players will be able to customize building blocks, which means putting up structures that would have been downright avant-garde by the standards of the time. Another interesting touch is that zoning is done with a brush: a stroke here marks out the settlement, a stroke there marks a mining area, and over there you can even create a restricted zone.
What else stands out? Even though it is a building game, it also reflects the social side of life. Depending on how your relationships develop with the peasants, the clergy and the nobility, different buildings and structures become available. But back to where we started: will Foundation really be out soon? Funding was raised through Kickstarter, and the campaign had not even ended at the time of writing, yet the required sum of $59,117 was reached several weeks before the finish line.
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