Alfred Twu Profile picture
Jan 4, 2021 25 tweets 11 min read Read on X
Been doing some gaming on the holidays. There's a lot of differences between different city building games, and it reflects the places where they're designed. Here's a thread on SimCity, Cities Skylines, Transport Tycoon, A-Train, and Soviet Republic. 1/ A look at 5 Different City ...
Different city building games have both different player roles, as well as differences over what you have control over. While all of them let you build roads and rails, there are differences when it comes to zoning, as well as whether players can build homes & businesses. 2/ Chart showing where the gam...
SimCity is one of the older ones. The first version came out in 1989, the most recent one in 2013. Surprisingly the game mechanics have not changed much over a quarter century - the game still does not have mixed use zoning or buildings. simcity zones over the years
Somehow SimCity ended up using a completely backwards color scheme from actual American zoning. American planners have used yellow for homes, red for businesses, and blue for industry since the 1950s redmine.auroville.org.in/attachments/do… Image
one of the tensions in SimCity is that most players want to build a big downtown with lots of buildings, but the car-centered transportation model makes it hard. So when it comes to parking lots, the game designer "just imagine they are underground."
humantransit.org/2013/05/how-si…
in contrast, in the Slovakian game "Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic", parking lots are realistically sized and something the player has to build if they decide to let people own personal cars. workers and resources sovie...
more often though, in the Soviet Republic game, cities are compact, with most things within walking distance, and buses and trains are used to get people to factories that are too polluting to put next to homes. Image
While Cities Skylines has a lot in common with SimCity, it has more focus on transportation. The company that made it, @ColossalOrder in Finland, got its start with the game Cities in Motion, which involved building transit systems in existing cities. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cities_in… Image
there's also a smol but big difference in how Cities Skylines (Finnish) and SimCity (American) does density.
In Cities Skylines, low-density zones have a mix of houses and small apartment buildings. In SimCity, Low is just houses - there's a separate zone for medium density. Image
While in SimCity and Cities Skylines the player is a local government, in the Japanese A-Train games (now up to A-Train 9) the player is a combined real estate & railroad company, which is how many real life Japanese railroads operate. Image
In the A-Train games, the game AI will build businesses and housing on its own, but the player can also build, buy, and sell buildings. Building material production and distribution is part of the game. ImageImage
While most city builders are single player games, in Transport Tycoon (now also available as OpenTTD), the player is one of many competing companies. This game was designed in the UK in the early 1990s, right around the time the railways were privatised. Image
A key design decision in city building games is whether the map starts as a blank slate. Early versions of SimCity started out as completely empty maps. Cities Skylines starts with a freeway exit. Transport Tycoon and A-Train start with homes, farms, etc already on the map. ImageImageImageImage
Lots of differences in the economy and budget in different city building games. Though it's Californian to the point of having Nuclear Free Zone ordinances, SimCity allows players to set tax property tax rates above 1%. (probably because it would be unplayable otherwise) 🤣🙃😬 Image
SimCity 4 has even more options with property taxes (but only property taxes), allowing different rates based on income. By setting an income bracket's rate high enough, players can exclude entire income brackets. (which is similar to a real thing some US cities have tried to do) Image
see here for more on the history of US cities using artificially high property tax assessments as a racist tool to force poor homeowners to move. historynewsnetwork.org/article/135752
Cities Skylines also has a budget based on property taxes, though in contrast to SimCity, where players can set different rates based on resident income, in Cities Skylines different rates are allowed based on density.
cities skylines property ta...
In both Transport Tycoon and A-Train, the player is a private company. In Transport Tycoon all income is from transportation, based on distance and speed. There are no taxes. 🙃 Image
In contrast, in A-Train, the player makes money from train fares, as well as businesses and real estate. They also have to pay taxes (which were 50% of profits in the early versions of the game, reflecting Japan's very high corporate income tax before changes made in the 1990s) Image
In the game Workers & Resources Soviet Republic, since businesses are government run, two economic models are possible: create vertical supply chains in-house, or earn money to buy stuff by making stuff to export to the USSR or the West at a border crossing at the edge of the map Image
Looking at the different types of city builders, what other types are possible? The obvious missing one is the "state capitalism" model (China or Dubai) where the player is the government and builds transportation but also some homes & businesses.
For all the news coverage it got in the West, most of it about it being a popular patriotic game that came out on the country's 70th anniversary, the "Chinese SimCity" game 家国梦 (Homeland Dream) is a fairly simple mobile game. Image
Circling back to parking... this thread on parking in the Soviet Republic game is hilarious. The comments keep getting better. steamcommunity.com/app/784150/dis… https://steamcommunity.com/...
this part was unexpected, or was it? both SimCity and Soviet Republic have the same back story: A programmer made a helicopter combat game and had so much fun designing levels that they made a city builder. 🙃 how helicopter games led to...
so that's why some of the buildings don't have an elevator penthouse... it's because they were from another game where you could land a helicopter on the roof 🤣 picture of the same buildin...

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Alfred Twu

Alfred Twu Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @alfred_twu

Jul 5
List is final: 10 California Propositions for 2024:
2🏫School bond
3🏳️‍🌈Marriage Equality
4🌎Climate bond
5🏗️Easier to pass local bonds
6⚖️Ends Slavery
32💵$18 min wage
33🏠Rent Control
34🚫Limits AHF political activities
35🏥Medi-Cal funding
36🚨Increased drug & theft penalties
1/
Several other Props were removed from the ballot or postponed by the courts or the Legislature.

Details of the ten November 2024 Propositions, including link to text, support/opposition, etc at
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
Prop 2 school bond is a $10 billion bond for school facilities, provided as matching funds to school districts. $1.5 billion of the $10B total is set aside for Community Colleges.

It's supported by the Building Trades, 100+ school/college districts, though some districts oppose
Read 10 tweets
Dec 15, 2022
Five shapes of apartment buildings, each with 60 homes. Top left, a wide block with doors off a long hallway, is the most common type built today in the US.

Top center is common in Europe. Today we'll also look at a few other styles.

Which do you prefer?
1/ 3D views of five types of a...
In the last few decades, as codes in the US have allowed large wood buildings, the hotel-style floorplan has become standard for 4-8 story apartments.

It's the most efficient plan that meets code requirements of 2 stairs. Downsides: most people only get windows on one side.
2/ a five story apartment buil...
In places where code allows a single stair, the layout often looks like this: a long building might actually be several connected buildings, each with its own stair and elevator.

Advantage: cross ventilation, two views, also can put bedrooms on quiet side.
3/ an 8 story perimeter block,...
Read 12 tweets
Dec 7, 2022
Thoughts on what AI means for artists: AI art often has a sci-fi / fantasy style to it as it's one of the last big industries for illustrators. In 1960s-70s, color photos took over most work depicting things that exist, but artists were still needed to draw things that didn't. 1/
The style of a lot of AI art - realism with high contrast and bold colors - is similar to that used in video, card, and board games, which often have sci-fi or fantasy settings. It's likely the AI was trained on images from websites such as DeviantArt or ArtStation. 2/
A physical game will have a couple hundred pieces of "card art" - standalone images to represent a character, object, event, or place. Video games have even more. This is likely one of the first things that AI images would replace. 3/
Read 7 tweets
Dec 7, 2022
Hello from #pinolemtg !
#VisitPinole 🍐 A meeting in Pinole city hall
Most of tonight's meeting is ceremonial but we do have some public comments, including one about the need to act now to improve pedestrian safety at a downtown crosswalk #pinolemtg 🐦
And it's official! @MaliaCohen swears in the new Mayor of #Pinole, @DevinMurphyDTM ! 🎉🎉🎉🍐🐦 City council meeting at Pin...
Read 5 tweets
Dec 6, 2022
I don't think I've seen a city council meeting go this late before, 2:59 am might be some kind of record.

San Mateo has a five person council but there is one vacant seat, so they are stuck at 2-2 on both filling the vacancy and appointing a mayor (who could break the tie)
Like most cities where members of the city council take turns being the mayor, the process in San Mateo is supposed to be just a formality, until now
Read 4 tweets
Nov 28, 2022
The growing protests in China reminds me of the research that revolutions are most likely when the standard of living rises but then goes in reverse, causing anger due to unmet expectations.

China's last 20 years have got to be one of the most extreme versions of this.
1/
China's economy today is several times larger than it was in 2000, but the lifestyle changes are more than just about a number, the two decades saw an even bigger change in mobility: high speed trains, car ownership, international travel.

With lockdowns, mobility went to zero
2/
During the first couple years of the pandemic relatively few places were locked down in China, and at the same time, people in other parts of the world were also staying home.

2022 is different. People are out and about everywhere else, while China has had more lockdowns
3/
Read 6 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(