Topia can look however you want it to look. As the name suggest, you can build your own world, which means you can customize the look of it.

Topia World Builder (Universal: $0.99) 

“Topia World Builder is a world creation simulation. You become god and shape the land as you choose, by the use of touch controls. Swipe your finger to create mountains, valleys, rivers, and oceans. Watch trees grow, spawn thousands of animals – and watch them live and die on the planet of your creation!”

Presentation

But no matter what, it will look gorgeous. If you choose to start from scratch (instead of from one of the pre made worlds), you’ll start out with an empty world. But you can change the landscape however you want to: whether it be valleys, mountains, bodies of water, you name it. When you’re done you can rotate around your planet and take in the view. You can also control animals, and surprisingly no matter how many animals were present on the screen, the game did not slow down at all.

Controls

Controls seem a bit overpowering at first, but they’re not too hard. You can spin around your world with one or two fingers (depending on what you’re doing). On the top right button you’ll have a button which you can tap, and pick from a variety of tools. The tools are represented by icons, which are pretty easy to understand. The hill with an up arrow lets you lift land, the one with the down arrow lets you sink land, etc. And in case you forget what the last tool you picked was, that button on the top right? Yeah, it changes to whatever tool you’re using at the moment.

Gameplay

There’s a lot to do in Topia, and at the same time not a whole lot. I know you’re probably screaming “oxymoron!” at me right now, but let me explain. In Topia you don’t only just build your planet, you run it. And what can you put in your planet? Animals! I mean, why would you want people in your planet? They’d probably end up wanting to run the damn thing.

Anyways, where were we? Ah, yes, animals. There are six different fictional species you can put on your planet, each with it’s own behavior. Some will attack nearby species, while others can live peacefully. You will also notice how certain kind of animals prefer a certain type of terrain to other. There is no wrong way here, only experimentation. So why is there not a whole lot to do? Sadly, at the moment, there are only two modes in Topia: tutorial, and sandbox. That’s it.

Conclusion

I like Topia, and I had a lot of fun with it. But for the time being, once you’ve played around with your planet and with how the animals interact (with both themselves and their environment), that’s pretty much all there is at the moment. I’d love to see the developer add some missions or challenges, goals, etc. in an update. Topia for now has potential, but there’s not a lot to do. 5/10