Overview
CitySense is a personal project that i've been working on during the past few months. It's a simulation game where you construct a neighborhood ('district', 'borough', 'hood', whatever), based on classics such as SimCity, Cities: Skylines, and so on. The player allocates zones (Residential, Commercial or Mixed Developments) and builds public service buildings such as power plants, public transportation, and so on. The player also has the power to change legislation; such as city ordinances, but also more radical changes (privatisation of government companies, certain taxes on companies and citizens...) to steer the development of the hood in a certain direction. This way, the game also deals with societal discussions and dilemma's. (All kept within a very easygoing, care-free atmosphere).
While I call it an urban planning sim; the focus really lies on the social cohesion, economics, and identity (posh part of town, slums, suburbs...) of the neighborhood and less on the engineering side of things (i.e: construction of roads is not a thing). Also; I'm a massive lore fan; so players will discover small pieces of information about the game world all over the place.
I'm still thinking about how the game should development further. I'm not a professional programmer nor an artist; so my capabilities are limited. However, i'd love to hear what you guys think & which direction you guys would take with the game!
Origin
I've always been a MASSIVE simulation games fan. I loved games like SimCity, Transport Fever, The Sims, and so on. Also, I've always been interested in game developement (but i'd like to stress again that I am by no means very good at it and that this is purely because I like creating this) so I decided to give GameMaker Studio a try. Thus, this is the first game I made.
It's influenced by many other games, series, books, and real-world stuff, including 'The Sims', 'World of Goo', 'Desperate Housewives', 'Happy City', 'Free Cash for Everyone', 'Transport Fever', the 'London Undergroud', the 'City Beautiful' YouTube channel, and my field of education: economics!
Demo
When requested, i'll be happy to put a playable demo online. However; the game uses some licensed music and two images that (i think?) are licensed too; i'll have to change those things first but I haven't found the time yet
CITYSENSE: pictures
A small district with a District Hall & an Underground station.
Every lot can be zoned individually; the player determines the type (R C M) and maximum height (low-mid-high)
An empty neighborhood with zoned residential en commercial areas. However no power station has been built yet, so development wont come.
The player may decide to make land 'public' which allows for city-ownded buildings such as power plants, subways stations, and so on.
Players who are interested in lore can look up a bit of history about each building built in the game, just because I like writing these things heh. The other tab shows more important things such as land value, tax revenue, and so on.
Some models that arent implement yet.
As you can see, this is all very basic and amateuristic. However, i'm having loads of fun designing this and I was wondering what people on this forum would think about it!
I'd love to hear your opinions on where the game should be taken too next! If you have any questions, shoot!
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