You begin with a few huts in a jungle clearing, but slowly unlock decorative items, workshops, and more elaborate huts to build. The Tribez‘ focus on single-player gaming allows for a wider variety of missions and more freedom in designing your tribe’s settlements. So instead of running into the brick wall of the “no friends tax” social network city builders often implement, The Tribez is all about long build times. Instead, players are encouraged to spend them mostly on speeding up building times. Likewise, there’s less of an emphasis on buying vanity items with your virtual currency. While CityVille demands constant nagging of your social graph in order to progress, The Tribez is happy to let you progress throughout the game without interacting with other players at all. Where The Tribez parts way with CityVille is in its philosophy toward social interaction and microtransactions. Treated as a messiah figure by the villagers, you’re roped into helping them develop their civilization, which means the usual CityVille-style grind of erecting buildings, leveling them up, collecting resources, and expanding your territory. You play as someone from the modern day who finds a lost underwater civilization. The Tribez may sound like a civilization building game, but it’s actually just a typical iOS city builder wearing a very elaborate, cleverly designed coat of paint.
The Tribez isn’t revolutionary, but it’s a very colorful and visually pleasing take on city building