‘Building’ is a pretty broad theme. There are a lot of games where you build things, after all, and they can be very different. Helpfully, then, I’ve split this list of the 20 best building games on PC into four sections, each covering a sub-category of this big, messy genre.

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There’s a coat in a window on my way home and I want it. Or possibly a blazer, I was in a hurry. It is purple and the shop had put a sign saying “VAMPIRE” over it, but I don’t need to use the cover of the worst holiday as an excuse. Which reminds me: when did we agree that Halloween was an entire bloody month and not a single day?

The Pleasuredome does not recognise this false season (also I coincidentally booked half of next week off anyway). It is time, then, for a resolutely pumpkin-free Unknown Pleasures, our regular selection of the very best games on Steam that aren’t getting their due.

Styling it out this week: Bickering nobles, micro planets, and robotic angels.

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The skeletons don’t care about the storms I’m lobbing around the place. They’re marching onward, through the maze of walls and gates I’ve constructed, and a little bit of rain isn’t going to deter them. I was hoping for skull-splitting bolts of lightning but instead I’ve just made everyone a bit damp.

Rise to Ruins is a village-building simulator that’s somewhere between the complexity of Dwarf Fortress and the relative simplicity of The Settlers or Banished. I’m currently preparing to watch my latest creation collapse.

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Retro-Pixel Castles [official site] is a game I’d been meaning to play for a long time. It’s still moving through Early Access, with regular and meaty updates, and is often described as one of those fabled ‘Dwarf Fortress with a neater interface” games, a select group in which Rimworld is the undisputed master (disputes to take place in the comments!). I fired Castles up this morning, having spotted that it’s 50% off in the Steam sale right now, available for 3.49 until July 4th. It’s more like the Settlers as a strategy roguelike than a sibling of Dwarf Fortress, and I can see myself spending a lot of time with it.

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