Time managers? The goal is usually to clear a level under the goal time. You collect resources, then spend them on removing obstacles to open up more of the level, or on production buildings to have enough resources to clear the rest.

A good one is where the level layout is tricky enough to make you think but not gimmicky enough to have only one solution. Balance is good when you are not bottlenecked by a single resource and the timer is not down to the last millisecond. Having a good rhythm is also nice, so you don't have downtime or wait around for the workers to get back from the other end of the map.

The story in these games is mostly irrelevant, but the overall aesthetics and core mechanics like whether you have magic to boost workers helps a lot. The 12 Labours series is fun in this department, it looks cute, although some later installments tend to fall into a routine on the levels with little variety.