As I sit here with hot cocoa — and an almost irresistible urge to twist the thermostat up to triple digits (just for a few seconds you see) — I think of the residents of Islandshire from the game Royal Envoy and realize maybe a devastating storm is a bit worse than a frosty pile of snow. Although, it does look quite a deal warmer there.

Essentially, your main goal in Royal Envoy is to restore the communities and homes of regular island folk who’ve had a storm cut through and devastate their way of life, thus causing their drastic need of aid from the monarchy. As the best city planner this side of, well Islandshire, the king tasks you with the job of helping the island folk regain their communities before the rainy season sets in and wreaks havoc. That, and the king has been informed his shoes are created by the folk of Islandshire, so it’s very important you save his shoes.

At your disposal are workers and tax collectors in a top-down city construction game setting in which you’ll need to master the creation of houses, markets and workshops and gather resources to meet the goal of each level and save Islandshire. The game starts simply with basic housing units that are upgradeable, and with those upgrades come increased level requirements.

Soon enough you’ll be constructing monuments and gardens in order to keep the happiness of your townsfolk high. If, for example, you make them live near a noisy workshop or bustling market. All the while you’ll be sending your tax collectors to haggle over market prices and ransom with pirates. This is all accomplished while there’s a golden timer slowly ticking away precious seconds. Now, you can complete the level at a leisurely pace if you’d like, but if you have any of the golden time left, you gain a points bonus upon completion of the level.

With each level’s completion, points are added to your overall score, and that score unlocks different trophies, and you get a gold star rating. Of course, I wanted to try and get as many gold star ratings as I could. I mean, getting enough points to gain the rank of “Legendary City Planner” is just one of those things that sounds pretty cool. Add to that the unlocking of a trophy each time you complete every level on an island with a gold rating, and points become more imperative.

The plaques and trophies you receive for completing these tasks look really nice (I managed to snag a few while I played), but overall I’d say outside of accomplishing those sorts of things, I loved the challenge and fun Royal Envoy gave me. Whether I was taking a level slow and carefree, or if I was trying to get as many cottages built in as fast a time as I could to get golden time, it was both a rush and form of relaxation.

I really loved Royal Envoy for its feel, catering to both my more competitive and casual sides, and certainly the numbers of different challenges presented to me while playing. Never once did I feel like a level was repetitive or dull, all of the different areas of each island felt unique yet tied together in their respective themes.

Certainly the art of the game kept with the theme with the cartoonish yet wonderful looking aesthetics. The humor of Royal Envoy is upbeat and always reminded me and reinforced that, yeah, I’m really having fun with this game. I’m used to a game that requires fast reflexes and a quick trigger finger, but the use of quick decision making and strategic placement of buildings, when to use resources, where exactly to place what building, it all really appealed to me.

I greatly enjoyed Royal Envoy; it had humor, fun, a superb artistic look and entertaining music that mixed in well with the gameplay without being overbearing or obnoxious when I needed to concentrate to play a level a few more times and beat it in golden time.

In addition to trying to beat levels fast, the game loaded quick on my machine without too much fuss and kept its light-hearted, fun-filled theme going throughout. Royal Envoy didn’t try to add any superfluous or extraneous stuff it didn’t need and kept to its central idea of city building. I thought each island and level building on the previous as far as possibilities and puzzles felt smooth and well-paced.

Every little while, new housing opportunities appear so you can build fancier housing for your residents. This in effect raises rent, increases your available gold but costs more in resources. Now you have to decide whether you want to spend what you’d need to get that extra boost. And, that’s all dependent on that level’s goal. Do you need to get 110 Happiness to show you’re a great city planner with flowers and monuments, or do you have to get an abundant amount of wood to build a boat and head to the next island?

The variety in the levels set from the single original goal of “rebuild everyone’s home” I found refreshing and a great experience to explore. It was intriguing to see what new challenge would pop up and figure out what exactly to build or do to attain my goal.

If you want a game that’s just plain fun, exciting yet can also be enjoyed at your own pace without the need to really rush through to get any golden time, then certainly Royal Envoy is for you. I had a blast rebuilding Islandshire with the quirky characters that live on the lovely islands, and I definitely think you will, too. Now if I could just get the pirates to stop making me pay ransom to go across a road.