City-Building Done Right: Learning Foundation with City Planner Plays

I’ve been a fan of city-building games for years, drawn to the blend of strategy, creativity, and the satisfying rhythm of watching a settlement grow. From meticulously planning road layouts in Cities: Skylines to managing survival in Frostpunk, I love the challenge of building something from the ground up. 

But Polymorph Game's Foundation feels different.

After finally diving in over the weekend—despite having picked it up in Early Access in 2023—I found myself completely losing track of time. Somehow, four hours vanished out of thin air. The way villages grow organically, without a rigid grid, gives the game a unique feel, and balancing resources and villager needs is incredibly rewarding. Add in its gorgeous visuals, and I can already tell this is a city-builder I’ll be spending a lot more time with.

Of course, learning a new game like Foundation can be a challenge, and that’s where great content creators make all the difference. I’ve followed City Planner Plays (@cityplannerplays.bsky.social) for years—first for his Cities: Skylines content and later for his deep-dive How-To guides in other games. His approach is what makes him stand out: clear, structured instructions, useful background context, and a willingness to show his own mistakes when they serve as valuable lessons.

This post is as much a learning tool for myself as it is a guide for anyone new to the game. 

Below, I’ve broken down City Planner Plays’ step-by-step instructions for starting a village, prioritizing buildings, and setting up a successful economy. 

If you’re diving into the game for the first time (or coming back like me), this should help you get started—and I highly recommend checking out his full video (below) for even more insights.

Diving back into Severance feels just as chilling and addictive as ever!

I watched the first two episodes of Severance Season 2 last night, and it instantly pulled me right back in. It’s just as addictive, weird, and unnerving as ever, maybe even more so. That creeping sense of unease, the little details that make you question everything, the way it slowly tightens its grip without you even realizing; yeah, it’s all still there. 

I have no idea where this season is going, but I’m fully along for the ride.

Below is the a helpful recap of Season 1, courtesy of 

The not-so-hidden link between Dune and Star Wars—and why one is the more grown-up sci-fi epic

Frank Herbert’s Dune and George Lucas’ Star Wars share a striking number of similarities, from their world-building to their overarching themes. While Star Wars is a sprawling space opera and Dune is a more intricate exploration of power, politics, and destiny, both stories revolve around desert planets, mystical abilities, and intergalactic conflicts. 

The similarities run so deep that it’s hard to ignore Dune’s influence on Lucas’s work.

Let's dive into their similarities and differences!

The rise and fall of Alien (or: How Ridley Scott lost the Alien plot)

When Alien burst onto the screen in 1979, it was the kind of film that crawled under your skin and stayed there. A masterclass in psychological horror, it didn’t just scare the bejesus out of us—it haunted us. The Xenomorph wasn’t just a monster; it was pure, unrelenting terror, an evolutionary nightmare with acid for blood and a life cycle straight out of a Lovecraftian fever dream. And then there was the mystery—so many questions. Where did this perfect killing machine come from? Who was the Space Jockey, that eerie, fossilized giant slumped over in his derelict ship? What the hell had he been carrying, and why was he crash-landed on that barren, hostile rock?

Then came James Cameron, who took one look at Ridley Scott’s slow-burn horror masterpiece and said, Hold my beer. With Aliens (1986), he flipped the script, swapping dread for adrenaline. It was no longer about one crew being hunted in the shadows—it was war. Cameron turned Ellen Ripley from a survivor into an absolute badass, threw in a squad of space marines, and cranked the action up to eleven. It worked. Instead of diminishing the terror, it made the Xenomorphs even more frightening—because now there were hundreds of them, and they were organized.

Then… things got weird.

Alien 3 stumbled in like a confused drunk at a house party, unsure of what it was supposed to be. David Fincher (who, to be fair, was tormented by studio meddling) tried to recapture the original’s claustrophobic horror but ended up with a bleak, unsatisfying mess. Worse, it killed off Newt and Hicks in the first five minutes (WTF!)—a gut punch that felt more like a slap in the face to fans who had grown attached to them. 

But the real tragedy? 

The what could have been. 

William Gibson, the cyberpunk god himself, had written an early script draft that would have taken the franchise in a wildly different direction—Cold War paranoia, genetic experimentation, Weyland-Yutani versus the UPP (basically Soviet space marines), and a new breed of Xenomorphs. But nah, Fox scrapped that and gave us… a single dog-alien on a prison planet.

By this point, the Alien series had lost its sense of direction. The magic of the first two films—the mystery, the fear, the sheer brilliance—had been watered down by confused storytelling and studio interference. (And no, I haven't forgotten about Alien Resurrection (1997)—I’m just choosing to pretend it never happened. That bizarre, campy mess deserves to be locked in a vault and yeeted into a black hole. A clone-Ripley with alien DNA? A Xenomorph with puppy dog eyes? No thanks. Some things are best left unacknowledged.). 

And then, decades later, Ridley Scott returned. He promised to answer those burning questions we’d had since Alien. He promised us something epic, something profound.

Instead, we got Prometheus and Alien: Covenant—films that thought they were profound, but mostly just left us shaking our heads, wondering how some of the dumbest people in the universe got sent on space missions.

Let’s talk about the prequels.

Why does the Academy snub sci-Fi? A look at iconic science fiction films that went unrewarded

 At last evening's 97th Academy Awards, Dune: Part Two secured two Oscars: Best Sound and Best Visual Effects. While these awards recognize the film's technical excellence, they also highlight the Academy's historical tendency to limit recognition of science fiction (sci-fi) films to technical categories, often overlooking them in major awards such as Best Picture, Best Director, and acting categories.​

Historically, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has shown reluctance in honoring sci-fi films in major categories. Notable sci-fi classics like Blade Runner (1982) & Blade Runner 2049 (2018), The Matrix (1999), and Inception (2010) received acclaim for their groundbreaking visuals and storytelling but were largely confined to technical awards. For instance, The Matrix won four Oscars, all in technical categories, without nominations for Best Picture or Best Director. ​2018's Blade Runner 2049 won for Best Visual Effects and Best Cinematography, but wasn't even nominated for Best Picture, nor Best Director.