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Cytopia: Open-source city simulator with pixel-art graphics
- icy 4y agoLooks quite similar to OpenTTD (https://openttd.org https://openttd.org).
- poser-boy 4y agoOpenTTD has more of a focus on transport and economy. This project focuses more on city building like the SimCity games.
- elliotec 4y agoSimCity games had a major focus on transport and economy as well, just as you'd expect from any city builder. Both of these are really just SimCity copies, which I applaud because I am a huge city builder fan. That said, I hope we start seeing something new in the genre soon. Pixel graphics just ain't gonna cut it anymore. I love playing Cities Skylines but I do feel like it's also just a newer copy and would love to see some sort of significant (r)evolution of the genre.
- IggleSniggle 4y agoI couldn’t care less about the graphics. I agree with you on the rest.
- steve_coral 4y agoI'd be very interested in a city builder where there are meaningful social, cultural, and political dimensions. Games like SimCity and Cities: Skylines have robust, detailed models for aspects like traffic and power distribution, but the actual social modeling is relatively basic. At points they seem more like complex cellular automata than cities (see Magnasanti in SimCity 3k)
- hutattedonmyarm 4y agoI think Pharaoh does a good job at that, although it is quite old. Currently getting a remake though. Cultures: 8th Wonder of The World is leaning heavily into the society aspect as well. However I did find the controls to be extremely irritating by today’s standards
- NikolaNovak 4y agoThat's funny... I never heard about Pharaoh until last night when I read a retrospective (1),and now I read about it first thing in the morning :-) 1: https://scientificgamer.com/in-praise-of-pharaoh/ https://scientificgamer.com/in-praise-of-pharaoh/
- steve_coral 4y agoYes, something that has the in-depth city building mechanics of SimCity with the social modeling of Pharaoh, Caesar, or Europa 1400: The Guild would be incredible.
- zo1 4y agoDon't forget Zeus in that list! Think it was the third iteration in the Caesar->Pharaoh-> city-building genre.
- mikepurvis 4y agoWere the later Caesar games better for that stuff? I remember playing Caesar II back in the day, and even as a kid feeling that it was a bit on the shallow side— like the main objective at city level was just to get as much tax revenue as possible, and that meant getting your housing to be more luxurious, and that meant exposing the housing to as many amenities as possible. But the exposure was basically just making sure there was enough of everything close by that the walkers spawned by each building would find their way to each residence before their previous visit had "worn off".
- xorcist 4y agoCity simulators seems to a large extent exist to reinforce the idea that cities == cars. It bores me.
- andai 4y agoI'm a big fan of pixel art, but the screenshots on the GitHub are a bit too "programmer art" for my liking.
- derefr 4y ago> Pixel graphics just ain't gonna cut it anymore. How so? To be honest, I don't know why we even need something as "realistic" as pixel graphics — when immersing yourself in city planning, an aerial view of the city you're building is actually too much noise; for the signal you need, it'd be far better to be looking directly at overlaid zoning grids, coverage maps, etc. And for that kind of thing, it seems that vector graphics should be more than enough. In other words, I'd personally love a full-sim city builder in the style of Mini Metro or Mini Motorways. That sort of simple+clean aesthetic can be a lot more informationally-dense than a SimCity game ever could.
- lioeters 4y agoOoh, thanks for the mention, these games look lovely: https://dinopoloclub.com/games/mini-metro/ https://dinopoloclub.com/games/mini-metro/ https://dinopoloclub.com/games/mini-motorways/ https://dinopoloclub.com/games/mini-motorways/
- gigglesupstairs 4y agoI’ve played Mini Metro. Love its minimal and non-intrusive aesthetics but it doesn’t use pixel art the way game in question is using. Its graphics treatment is way different.
- derefr 4y agoI didn’t say they did. I said they used vector graphics (more specifically, they use vector schematics), with the implication that these vector graphics are “lesser” even than pixel graphics in terms of potential for representational fidelity / skeuomorphism — but also that this doesn’t matter (and in fact, is a benefit), because most sim games are fundamentally about simulating abstract models, not about simulating reality; so a direct representation of the model is clearer and more "fun" than any attempt to embed that model into a view of reality.
- rhdunn 4y agoAlso, games like Stardew Valley use pixel graphics (pixel art) and that hasn't hurt their popularity.
- poglet 4y agoTransport Tycoon is probably more of a copy of Railroad Tycoon.
- ninjin 4y agoAbsolutely not, get your facts straight: “Though [Railroad Tycoon] shares the "Tycoon" suffix, it is not related to other Microprose games such as RollerCoaster Tycoon and Transport Tycoon, which were developed by Scottish programmer Chris Sawyer.” [1] There are similarities, yes, but they play very differently. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Tycoon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_Tycoon They are all great games – although I am greatly favourable to Transport Tycoon – but do not fall for Microprose’s 90s naming that most likely was purely for marketing reasons.
- poglet 4y agoI agree with you. My argument was against Transport Tycoon being a copy of SimCity.
- hnlmorg 4y agoOpenTTD isn’t a Sim City copy. Its a reimplement of Transport Tycoon. It’s a strategy game that focuses on business that covers multiple cities and industrial works. While city builders are a subset of strategy games, not all strategy sims are city builders. Examples of how the strategy genre covers more than just city builders would be: Theme Park, The Settlers, Theme Hospital, Railroad Tycoon, Populous, Command & Conquerer and Civilisation. Sim City isn’t even the first city builder, let along first strategy sim. The genre has existed since the days of text-based games. Though it’s fair to say Sim City is one of the most iconic and successful entries in the genre.
- SimplyLiz 4y agoI chose this artstyle for Cytopia because I wanted to created a game in the Spirit of SC2000. This is still my favorite city builder but it’s way outdated in terms of gameplay. And I love pixelart.
- ekianjo 4y agoOpenTTD is not at all Sim City. You can't build stuff, you focus on building transport infrastructure between existing cities and resources.
- rkagerer 4y agoHow developed / mature is this compared to the SimCity games?
- poser-boy 4y agoVery much still a prototype compared to SimCity.
- thrdbndndn 4y agoDemo ( https://game.cytopia.net/ https://game.cytopia.net/ ) is broken. "Exception thrown, see JavaScript console"
- johnhenry 4y agoIt's because of this: https://developer.chrome.com/blog/enabling-shared-array-buffer/ https://developer.chrome.com/blog/enabling-shared-array-buff...
- kylek14 4y agoWe updated our demo page to point to the download page and updated the literature. The demo was way outdated and no longer supported.
- smusamashah 4y agoIt looks a lot like Theotown https://hi.theotown.com/ https://hi.theotown.com/
- TobTobXX 4y agoBefore TheoTown was overloaded with microtransactions...
- 88840-8855 4y agoDont know what you are talking about. You get pretty much a FULL game. Through steam you pay a few Euros and have the full content. On the iPad you get the FULL GAME for FREE(!) with some options on to unlock end-game stuff like big powerlines or some government agency/secret research facility. Before you even need those things you have collected those diamonds and you can unlock pretty much everything you want and need. If you really want to have the 100% from the beginning (which you will not need/cannot use anyway) then you just pay your 5-6 Euros and there you go. No microtransaction horror. I LOVE theotown and I recommend it to everyone who wants: 1) Sim City 2) on an iPad/iPhone/Android device 3) many hours of gameplay and a pretty balanced game + end game content 4) free mods 5) NO ADS https://store.steampowered.com/app/1084020/TheoTown/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1084020/TheoTown/ https://hi.theotown.com/ https://hi.theotown.com/ Cytopia looks fine, but Theotown just has TONS of more content and is available on mobile, too.
- SimplyLiz 4y agoCytopia will be available for mobile devices too, when it makes sense. Right now there’s an internal build for Android on our GitHub, but that’s considered a proof of concept at this time :)
- 88840-8855 4y agoGreat to hear that. Step by step!
- martin_henk 4y agoI was just looking into city builder games this weekend, after having binged on SC4000 for two weeks. There are actually a lot of new city builder games on the market, but their focus is mostly more narrow than the original SC series.
- rpastuszak 4y agoHave you played Cities: skylines? I feel like it’s hard to even compare it to SC at this stage. It’s a wonderful game.
- capableweb 4y agoBiggest difference (for me) was that Cities: Skylines is marketed as a "city simulator" but it's more of a traffic simulator than anything, while SimCity focuses more on the city simulation part and just has a small focus on actual roads.
- rpastuszak 4y agoI see what you mean. Traffic is a really important part of the game and people (including the modding community) seem to focus on it a lot. But I do think there's a lot of freedom in terms of how you play and shape the game using mods. To me CS is more of a weird mix of Factorio and a bonsai tree. I need to tend to it from time to time, slow down the gameplay and trim here and there (plop a new neighbourhood or a small detail). Fixing traffic issues is a small part of it (in my case). I loved SC2000 and SC3000, but now SC4 (edit: SC4, not SC4000) feels just really ugly.
- petepete 4y agoSorry what is Sim City 4000? Is it a mobile game or are you referring to Sim City 4? Or was SC4 called different things in other markets?
- rpastuszak 4y ago
- elevaet 4y agoVery nice to see this genre is alive and well! Looking good, and I look forward to seeing the progress on Cytopia :D
- kensai 4y agoExtemely nice project. But from the looks of its Subreddit, not much is going on community-wise.
- SimplyLiz 4y agoQuite the opposite. We have quite a big community on discord and most devs including me are online a lot. I’m not on Reddit or twitter but there are team members posting stuff from time to time.
- bayesian_horse 4y agoAny way to download binaries? The build process on Linux seems a little involved...
- oynqr 4y agoIt looks like a standard cmake build. Did I miss something?
- SimplyLiz 4y agoWe use Conan as package manager
- bayesian_horse 4y agoThe guide didn't specify what to do on linux, and I had to install a ton of packages, then this conan thing proceeded to compile wayland or something?? I don't know, just seemed sketchy for a simple game.
- TazeTSchnitzel 4y agohttps://github.com/CytopiaTeam/Cytopia/releases https://github.com/CytopiaTeam/Cytopia/releases
- caslon 4y agomkdir build cd build cmake .. This is involved?
- SimplyLiz 4y agoVisit our itch.io page. It’s linked on GitHub.
- ekianjo 4y agohi SimplyLiz, on Linux it seems that it's not possible to run your itch.io executables because it requires a libnoise version that's completely outdated. Any idea on how to fix it?
- orthoxerox 4y agoThere's something off about the graphics, and I think it's the fact that the game doesn't use 1:2 ratio (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isometric_video_game_graphics#/media/File:Isometric_camera_view_30_degrees_color.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isometric_video_game_graphics#...) for the X and Y axes. It's especially noticeable on the edges of the roads, which go "wibba-wobba-wibba-wobba" instead of having uniform thickness.
- hypertele-Xii 4y agoI see exactly 2:1 everywhere [0], including road edges. What are you talking about? [0] https://www.cytopia.net/images/jimmy2_2.png https://www.cytopia.net/images/jimmy2_2.png
- selcuka 4y agoThe screenshot [1] they used on their Github page is different. [1] https://camo.githubusercontent.com/bc5894f89d64f4cb8f01e4c02233d6934519e26d34a13fa006cd9bce301554c0/68747470733a2f2f6379746f7069612e6e65742f6769746875622f53637265656e73686f74312e706e67 https://camo.githubusercontent.com/bc5894f89d64f4cb8f01e4c02...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ZetaZero 4y agoThe first image on the project page is off. Here is a closeup: https://imgur.com/a/JtkhVNH https://imgur.com/a/JtkhVNH It's 2-1-1-2-1-1-2 EDIT: on closer inspection, it is 2:1, but with a weird artifacting. It does a 1x3 segment followed by a 2x3 segment, repeating. On the game site, the images do follow 2:1 with expected pixel-perfect rendering.
- marginalia_nu 4y agoLooks a lot like it might be aliasing from resizing the image, maybe from github. Pixel art is notoriously difficult to scale.
- yreg 4y agoThe mac binary is named `cytopia-osx`, but interestingly the latest OS X (Catalina) is unable to run it. Cytopia actually requires OS 11 or higher.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- SimplyLiz 4y agoIf you’re talking about the release on GitHub, it’s well outdated. We always push the latest version if Cytopia to itch.io and this works fine. I’m Cytopias lead dev and I’m on a MacBook M1 with latest OSX
- 88840-8855 4y agoI got it from there and it crashed when launching. M1.
- SimplyLiz 4y agoCan you submit a bug report on our GitHub page? I’ll gladly take a look at this later.
- yreg 4y agoThe build from itch.io (cytopia-osx-ci.zip) doesn't run on OS X either :) You can't use this version of the application "Cytopia" with this version of macOS. You have macOS 10.15.7. The application requires macOS 11.6 or later. The "X" in OS X means version 10.
- SimplyLiz 4y agoOh, sorry, older version of OS X. We can take a look at supporting older platforms later when the project is more matured. Meanwhile you could compile it Yourself.
- 4y ago
- spacechild1 4y agoWhy are all comments by SimplyLiz dead? False positive caused by anti-spam algorithm?
- capableweb 4y agoSigned up an hour ago and made five comments since, maybe tripped some protection? In any way, if you click on the permalink to the comment (via the timestamp), you can "vouch" for dead comments in case they are actually proper. I just did for all of them, and helps fight incorrect dead comments.
- spacechild1 4y agoThanks! I didn't realize that I was able to vouch...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- SimplyLiz 4y agoIdk, I got this link from someone from our team and felt like signing up here and commenting:)
- dang 4y agoWelcome—we're glad to have you! (I'm an admin here.) Your comments were affected by a software filter. Sorry about that—those are a bit harder on new accounts. Fortunately a bunch of users vouched for your comments, so they weren't affected for long. In the meantime we've marked your account legit so this won't happen again.
- jokoon 4y agoI'm trying to build a game with item manufacturing, a bit like a mix of factorio and sim city, with logistics and other stuff. I never really played transport tycoon. I tried, but it felt quite overwhelming.
- bombcar 4y agoCities Skylines: Industries DLC adds some logistics to the game, but it’s relatively rudimentary and the main challenge is not crushing your road network with trucks.
- yreg 4y ago>I tried, but it felt quite overwhelming. How come? TTD (OpenTTD) has a rather gentle learning curve. Find an industry that produces a resource (say a Forest), find an industry that consumes said resource (a Sawmill). Plop a train station next to both, connect it by rail. Place a depot next to the rail, buy a locomotive + a few wood wagons. Set it to go to the Forest station, load up, go to the Sawmill station, unload, repeat. That's pretty much the whole game. You can also learn to design complex tracks making use of signals, but you don't have to.
- 88840-8855 4y agoI love those city building games, especially with this gfx style. 3D simply does not work for me. As already posted twice in this thread, i love theotown, but what theotown lacks is a proper traffic simulator. It just feels not right. What theotown also does not handle well is the subway system. It feels very basic and is not really necassary for developing a large city.