Pixel People Diary: Day One

It's safe to say that we've become borderline obsessed with Chillingo's Pixel People, the world-building game with a gene-splicing twist. The thing is, all of our creations to date have been, well, a bit rubbish. So we've decided to restart the game entirely, focusing on creating the ultimate Utopia complete with trees, parks, roads and an eye for aesthetic quality as much as efficiency.

Let's see how well we can do with our third attempt at creating the ultimate Pixel People planet.

The home from home, just like yours, and that's one of the things we really do like about Pixel People - This is where we'll all start out, but it won't be long until we all have something completely unique.

After whizzing through the early part of the tutorial, we now have our first residential building, an engineer and a Utopium Mine. But we're not happy with how they're positioned, so the first order of business is to separate industry from housing and move a few things around - we don't want our citizens choking on Utopium fumes after all. There are no pathways available yet, so we've clustered houses together and started making a few clones to increase our population.

Our first clone combination of two mayors has rewarded us with a Sheriff, but where to put the Sheriff's Office that's been unlocked? Well, we reckon our residential area will appreciate the extra security so it feels right to put them together. Once we've got roads, paths and ornamental lakes sorted out, we'll be moving everything around to make it a little less cramped, but for now we have something like civilization.

We haven't experimented much with the different residential buildings as there doesn't seem to be any benefit in land and occupancy for the increased costs involved. But, let's not forget that we're all about creating a utopia that's as aesthetically pleasing as it is efficient, so we've treated ourselves to a Terra Terrace for our next residential building. Now that it's built, we're finally able to call in more clones, so what to choose next?

On this playthrough, we're going to be attempting to make as much progress as possible without dipping into our wallets, so we won't be wasting our Utopium on worker hints. If we tap on the Town Hall though, we can see that there's a need for an Architect. We've got the complete list of professions in our guide, so we know we can combine the Mayor with the Engineer to create the Architect! Once built, he's sent into the Town Hall to start earning his keep.

Right now we can't bring any new clones in until we have more housing, so we've laid down a couple more Rocky Mansions. It's used up most of our funds, but doing two immediately will save us from missing cloning opportunities later on. While we wait for the homes to finish building, we combine a Mechanic with an Engineer to create a Mechanical Engineer - this particular citizen is very important if we're to complete the employment gaps in the Town Hall and Sheriff's Office. It also allows us to create a Construction Yard, which we place near the Utopium mine so as not to annoy the residents.

Now that we've created a Mechanical Engineer, we next combine two Mechanics to get an Assistant, and put him to work in the Town Hall, maxing out its employment. What about the Sheriff's Office though? Well, there's a hint there that it needs a Deputy, so we combine the Assistant with the Sheriff then put her to work, maxing out another coin-generating building.

It's always worth investigating each and every building you create. We missed this the first time around, but inside the Sheriff's Office there's the opportunity to inspect a line-up of criminals for a Utopium reward! We'll be keeping an eye out on any other buildings that come up.

While we were tinkering with our employment schedule we received a special character, The Dreamer! We need new buildings to start filling with workers, so this seems like a sensible bit of genetic material to start with. We get a positive cloning match with Architect, so we start the procedure, and receive an Artist! This gives us the option to create a Gallery - the people might like some culture, so we place it near the residential area.

Now that our Artist Winston Van Gogh is in the Gallery, we can get a look at some of the other vacancies. We know we can make a Photographer because we have the Artist & Mechanic material available. We clone him up and put him to work.

The end of our first day in Pixel People may not be much to look at, but underneath that simplicity there are happy co-workers, residents slowly falling in love with each other, and we've also moved a few things around to both create some roads as well as free up a little breathing space.

Look out for our next Diary update where we'll start planning a rapid expansion...

Read our review of Pixel People

Read our complete guide to professions in Pixel People

Download Pixel People (iOS)