Re:We’d rather have the iceberg than the ship
by fennecfoxen on Friday July 23, 2021 @10:59AM
(#27931427)
If I ever retire early to build city building games, I think it’d be nice to step back from the “series of rectangular lots” model and instead model the house, garage, driveways, and the like, as objects that a constraint solver can place. Then zoning becomes a series of specific rules: setbacks, fire codes, parking, accessibility, and the like. Bundle up zoning rules and apply them as you will. Make your agents look for a place that meets their needs, or renovate their own property. Have actual landlords, offer rent control if you dare… build civic capital with community organizations so that displacing people or gentrifying the neighborhood too quickly means a loss of stability, and urban conflict …
Mind you, this is a boatload of work.
I would absolutely love to work on building a simulation at this level of fidelity, but I feel like making it actually fun to play would be the largest challenge. Maybe if the scale of it was at a neighborhood scope it would be possible to make it engaging - somewhere between The Sims and Sim City in scale and granularity
This style of zoning allows a good middle ground where the player has input into the usage of the city without having to micromanage every building.
A city builder that lacked that concept entirely would be interesting, but you'd have to come up with some other abstraction that feels vaguely reminiscent of city planning and also is engaging from a gameplay perspective.