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Townscaper – A building game inspired by the design of Scandinavian cities
- abafazi 6y agoI picked this up on Steam and its quite fun for a while, I just hope it continues to see development
- matthewhartmans 6y agoThis looks super neat! Love the animation styles, just looks so satisfying!
- XCSme 6y agoIs this a game or a "video toy"? A game should have a goal and maybe a win/lose condition. I saw a streamer playing this a couple weeks ago and it seemed that the only thing you can/have to do is to build random towns. EDIT: Nevermind, it is mentioned in the first paragraph: > When Oskar Stalberg announced the release of Townscaper a few weeks ago, he made a point of calling it a “toy” rather than a video game — because it has no goal apart from the sheer enjoyment and satisfaction you get from seeing a pretty town rising from the sea as you click.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- freehunter 6y agoPersonally I prefer “toys” to real video games. I’m not very good at video games that have a win/lose condition, and when I lose I get upset because I’m just trying to have fun. My favorite games are actually toys, like BeamNG Drive, Euro Truck Simulator, Cities Skylines, etc. Games where I can create my own win/lose conditions and maybe even create my own narratives. I’ve gotten more enjoyment from GTA V and Red Dead 2 from just random playing after I had already finished the story missions, because there was no stress to be good and no punishment if you make a mistake. You can just be, rather than having to be perfect.
- 082349872349872 6y ago> You can just be, rather than having to be perfect. Shorter existentialism: life is a massive multiplayer open world game.
- Hyolobrika 6y agoYou have a ridiculously complicated name. Can I just call you 'numbers'?
- 082349872349872 6y agoBy all means. Pleased to meet you.
- tomaskafka 6y agoThe goal is what turns game into work :). https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/10/dont-play-the-goose-game/600472/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/10/dont-...
- Kiro 6y ago> A game should have a goal and maybe a win/lose condition. No, that's not a requirement.
- XCSme 6y agoWell, that's also what the author himself said.
- jamestimmins 6y agoThis looks awesome! Heads up that it's only available for Windows at the moment.
- kibibu 6y agoYou can opt into the Mac beta. Apparently it works fine but has some dpi issues
- Shared404 6y agoPlatinum on ProtonDB as well.
- ishanjain28 6y agoWorks fine on Linux with proton 4.11 or 5.09 but you do have to add the WINE D3D env variable in launch options otherwise it keeps locking up every few seconds
- rudilee 6y agoThank you so much, can confirm to works great. In case anyone looking for how to, follow the instructions on https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton#runtime-config-options https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton#runtime-config-optio..., uncomment the PROTON_USE_WINED3D=1 line.
- zadjii 6y agoI remember seeing this on r/proceeduralgeneration a while back - it's hard to forget an art style as distinct as that. I'm really glad he did end up putting it on steam, because it does look like a really interesting toy, even if there's not much game to it yet. People often forget the first versions of Minecraft weren't much more than a toy either, and look at it now.
- plorntus 6y agoMinecraft (before survival mode was added) was a free game though to be fair
- ido 6y agoIIRC minecraft was only free for a very short while (a few weeks into development)?
- grenoire 6y agoCreative mode, where you have infinite blocks and just build stuff, was free to play online through the Java applet. That was I think until beta came out.
- lazycouchpotato 6y agoThey brought it back last year. It's now at https://classic.minecraft.net/ https://classic.minecraft.net/
- soared 6y agoWhile reading I though this would be perfect for the Japanese market if he included an art style for the country - and then the author mentioned it himself.
- leetrout 6y agoRelated discussion the other day on his webgl toy Brick Block https://oskarstalberg.com/game/house/index.html https://oskarstalberg.com/game/house/index.html https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23904991 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23904991
- alextheparrot 6y agoI recently purchased Islanders [0] which is a similar incremental building game. Really peaceful to play and just zen out for a bit. Might grab Townscaper too, looks nice. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islanders_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islanders_(video_game)
- leetrout 6y agoI was just looking at that. How do you like it? I am always interested in games I can pickup and put down for quick sessions during my lunch break.
- alextheparrot 6y agoThat’s the perfect timespan and context for it, I think you’d love it
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- kibwen 6y agoI can second Islanders, it's a lovely and relaxing game. After playing a level to completion I'd find myself just gazing at it for half an hour or more just imagining life and society on the island. Any game that can so playfully stimulate my imagination is an instant recommendation. My only complaint when last I played was that they didn't let you save a previous island after moving on to the next level, which makes progression somewhat bittersweet.
- alextheparrot 6y agoOh I find that lovely actually, that bittersweetness is one of my favorite parts of the game. It makes me imagine god was a painter, moving from one piece to the next. Each creation perfect to its time and place, but evaporated along the temporal axis as well.
- Quequau 6y agoMy friend gifted me this and I really struggled to get it. My conclusion was that it was solely about finding the right spot to place things, given the constraints of the tile and the world. Is that right?
- foota 6y agoWow, this looks great!
- polytely 6y agoThe most interesting part of this is how it works, which this article is kinda light on. It uses the "wave function collapse" procedural generation technique (has been on the frontpage before if I recall correctly) to select fitting tiles when the player clicks on the map to build something. https://github.com/mxgmn/WaveFunctionCollapse https://github.com/mxgmn/WaveFunctionCollapse In the section about notable forks, ports and spin-offs there are some links to Oskar Stalsberg's twitter showing various points along the development of this digital toy. https://github.com/mxgmn/WaveFunctionCollapse#notable-ports-forks-and-spinoffs https://github.com/mxgmn/WaveFunctionCollapse#notable-ports-... I've been following this for years and it is really inspiring to see this be so successful. I have the feeling that digital toys will become more common when gamedevs get access to things like GTP-3 seens like a really natural fit to me, supporting the creativity of the player by filling in blanks in a sufficiently advanced way.
- Kinrany 6y ago"Wave function collapse", aka constraint satisfaction
- bschne 6y agoNot sure what of this was actually used in townscaper, but someone in another discussion of the game (can't remember where unfortunately) referred to these two sources: - Oskar Stålberg's 2018 Talk "Wave Function Collapse in Bad North" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bcZb-SsnrA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bcZb-SsnrA) - Müller et al, 2006 - "Procedural Modeling of Buildings" (https://doi.org/10.1145/1141911.1141931 https://doi.org/10.1145/1141911.1141931)
- OneGuy123 6y agoThe name "wave function collapse" is such a overcomplicated academic term. In reality this algorith is very simple: 1) try to randomly place a part at X if it fits 2) try to pick the random part in such a way that once it will be placed we will maximize that probability that we will be able to build further on (so you just pick the part that reduces the chance of blocking the build in the next step in case nothing can fit anymore). Then you just have to provide all combination of possible connection in terms of 2d/3d graphics.
- jdshaffer 6y agoI picked this up on Steam as well. Definitely a fun way to relax and spend a few minutes. Really well designed and implemented!
- winrid 6y agoGreat, well designed little game. What engine is this made with, if any?
- mwill 6y agoAlmost certainly Unity3d, the developers previous games and toys are made with Unity3d, and use the same technique of wave function collapse, I can't imagine he changed engine since since.
- binarycrusader 6y agoIt's Unity; I just checked my local copy.
- bluehazed 6y agoOskar Stålberg makes some great games. Dude did Bad North before this one.
- 236dev 6y agoUnfortunately less and less of Scandinavia and all of Europe is looking like this. It's a shame what has happened to architecture in my opinion.
- cpach 6y agoPerhaps architect schools could use this to inspire the students.
- bschne 6y agoFirst thing I thought when I discovered this was "looks like Sim City if it had been designed by Jane Jacobs"
- Dahoon 6y agoI live in Scandinavia. Doesn't look anything like what style we have or had to me at all. Looks more like something from Germany or Austria.
- timcameron 6y agoFor anyone on Mac who is keen to try it out, there is a public Beta available. How to play the beta: 1. Buy the game on Steam 2. Once the game is in your Steam library, right-click on it and select 'properties' 3. Click the 'BETAS' tab and select the beta from the dropdown list 4. Install the game 5. Enjoy :)
- blargmaster33 6y agoOld Scandinavian cities. All new construction is brutalist modernist concrete monstrosities.
- mildzebrataste 6y agoMy fourth grade son loves this game. As do I. It’s like meditation
- simurg 6y agoLooks awesome. Would be fun to play it now as I actually live in Stockholm from last year. I wonder would it be possible to extend the game with more city types. Cyberpunk-city builder would quite interesting.