The board game Monopoly was designed to mock landlords and call out the greed and cruelty inherent in the real estate market.
Has Cities Skylines inadvertently done the same?
They did a lot more than that. The simulation in Cities Skylines 2 was so broken at the beginning that people couldn’t afford their rent but at the same time demanded better housing. The patch that fixed that essentially had „Removed landlords“ in its patch notes.
No, it’s true: the cars in Cities Skylines fold up like George Jetson’s car when they arrive at their destination. The devs found that if they actually included realistic amounts of parking, it would ruin the aesthetics and urban feel of the city (much like it does in real life). Nobody wants to play “Suburbs: low-rise NIMBY edition!”
I’ve been wanting to make a Free Software city building game that’s accurate enough to also be a city planning / traffic engineering tool, but my lack of motivation has sabotaged me.
Cities Skylines is the first domino on the new boom of people caring about city planning, walkability, public transit, micro-mobility, etc.
People build extremely dense cities then go “wait but traffic” dig into how to fix it and ultimately end up building far less car dependency into their cities as the easiest solution
The people who made Cities: Skylines previously made a public transit business game series called Cities in Motion. Skylines was started from that point design wise, so it makes sense that it’s a transit heavy game.
I actually had played Cities in Motion and Cities in Motion II before Cities Skylines was released. The first Cities in Motion is actually really well done, the second one feels too much like a city builder that doesn’t want to be a city builder
The big difference between any Sim City game and Cities Skylines is Cities Skylines has an extremely in-depth traffic simulation that actually punishes bad road design and encourages non-car modes of transit. Meanwhile Sim City always made nods to traffic, it never bothered with actual per person routing where you can focus on tweaking a single intersection for hours trying to get it to flow nicely
Also the first step in realizing that suburbs will strangle your city and its economy due to the low density (and therefore lower tax revenue), high traffic demands, and high service costs compared to more dense parts of the city.
The board game Monopoly was designed to mock landlords and call out the greed and cruelty inherent in the real estate market.
Has Cities Skylines inadvertently done the same?
They did a lot more than that. The simulation in Cities Skylines 2 was so broken at the beginning that people couldn’t afford their rent but at the same time demanded better housing. The patch that fixed that essentially had „Removed landlords“ in its patch notes.
Isn’t it also true that they tried to put realistic parking lots in the game but it made it ugly and impossible to play?
Edit: It was SimCity
I personally doubt it. They paid lots of attention to roads that mimick traffic well which has a similar effect.
No, it’s true: the cars in Cities Skylines fold up like George Jetson’s car when they arrive at their destination. The devs found that if they actually included realistic amounts of parking, it would ruin the aesthetics and urban feel of the city (much like it does in real life). Nobody wants to play “Suburbs: low-rise NIMBY edition!”
A dystopian city builder with accurate parking and traffic and pedestrian fatalities would be kinda rad
I’ve been wanting to make a Free Software city building game that’s accurate enough to also be a city planning / traffic engineering tool, but my lack of motivation has sabotaged me.
Make one where you design a street system and vehicles to kill as many pedestrians as possible.
Make the victory condition look like the US.
Just have fun with it.
to clarify: the game monopoly plagiarized was created to mock landlords (the game in question is The Landlord’s Game)
It’s so annoying that this incorrect fact is repeated so much. Thank you for correcting it.
Cities Skylines is the first domino on the new boom of people caring about city planning, walkability, public transit, micro-mobility, etc.
People build extremely dense cities then go “wait but traffic” dig into how to fix it and ultimately end up building far less car dependency into their cities as the easiest solution
The people who made Cities: Skylines previously made a public transit business game series called Cities in Motion. Skylines was started from that point design wise, so it makes sense that it’s a transit heavy game.
And Cities: Skylines succeeded because EA shit the bed with SimCity.
I actually had played Cities in Motion and Cities in Motion II before Cities Skylines was released. The first Cities in Motion is actually really well done, the second one feels too much like a city builder that doesn’t want to be a city builder
SimCity was released in 1989. It’s essentially the same game as Cities Skylines.
Absolutely isn’t the same.
You can see design evolution. It wouldn’t be too hard to describe C:S as Sim City 5.
Same genre for sure, totally different game in how it functions. It’s like saying Quake is the same as Call of Duty because you shoot things.
C:S had a lot of similarities to the Sim City that was released as its contemporary.
SimCity: open-ended city building game.
Cities Skylines: open-ended city building game.
The big difference between any Sim City game and Cities Skylines is Cities Skylines has an extremely in-depth traffic simulation that actually punishes bad road design and encourages non-car modes of transit. Meanwhile Sim City always made nods to traffic, it never bothered with actual per person routing where you can focus on tweaking a single intersection for hours trying to get it to flow nicely
One thing SimCity (except 2013) has is much better city management system. In C:S it feels almost trivial compared to SimCity.
Honestly I kinda prefer that. I always found SimCity too difficult to progress in for my taste
Call of duty: first person shooter
Doom 1993: first person shooter
They are essentially the same game!
Also the first step in realizing that suburbs will strangle your city and its economy due to the low density (and therefore lower tax revenue), high traffic demands, and high service costs compared to more dense parts of the city.
If only they have Afterdark, plaza, and park life build into the base game.