Combolands is Balatro for all us infrastructure heads

I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but a game called Balatro really took the world by storm a few years back. So much so that it has joined the ranks of shorthand games like Slay the Spire – roguelite deckbuilders with maps are "Slay the Spire-likes," the same way that combo-based strategy roguelites are now "Balatro-likes."

Well, Combolands isn't the first Balatro-like I've discussed on this website over the last year (it's almost been a year, isn't that crazy?), but I certainly think it's my favorite.

See, I'm a sicko. And by sicko, I mean I'm a city-building man. I love me some infrastructure, and I love placing buildings down on a map. And as soon as I find a game that gets granular enough that it has me managing waste? I'm like a pig in shit (sorry).

Anyway, Combolands is for the sickos.

See, Combolands is all about building a small society on an island and taking it from tiny village to sprawling metropolis. To do this, you'll need to place down buildings in the environment to earn points. Each milestone you need to hit for your city has a point threshold, and you have a certain number of weeks – with each building placed consuming a single week – to hit that milestone.

You get points by placing down buildings in specific places, and next to other buildings. Some buildings trigger when they're first placed, others trigger every few weeks, and others are entirely unique.