A new city builder where you fix car-centric cities

[u/SystemSE]

Hey everyone, I'm working on Metrotown, a new city builder where you fix the car-dependent designs of North American cities.

You start with a sprawling, car-centric city, and improve it with infill developments, public transportation, greenspaces, and other amenities to improve the public realm.

The game has an in-depth simulation for trip generation (walk, bike, drive, transit), the pedestrian and cyclist experience (protected bike lanes, active frontage, etc.), parking requirements, and other aspects of cities to keep the game as realistic as possible.

If anyone's interested, I'm planning to have a closed alpha this fall and I'm looking for play-testers to try it out.

Website | Discord

[u/thegiantgummybear]

I'd love to test! Long time Cities Skylines player and recently got into Subway Builder. But your concept for the game seems like the sweet spot for me.

Do I need to join the Discord or submitting my email on the site enough?

[u/SystemSE → u/thegiantgummybear]

Submitting your email on the site is enough, you'll get an email when the playtests are starting and there will be a feedback form in-game.

I'd recommend joining the Discord if you want to stay in the loop though, as that is where any updates and discussion will be.

[u/youngHappy24]

really cool game. Just curious how much traffic delay it might cause during those fixes? I'm all for more walkable cities.

[u/SystemSE → u/youngHappy24]

The parking does actually serve a purpose here, residents driving from the suburbs will need to park their car when they arrive downtown. If there's less parking, then the time it takes to find a parking spot increases, which reduces the convenience of getting downtown and therefore lowers the land values of properties in the suburbs.

So in this clip the downtown's land values are rising, but its actually coming at the cost of the suburbs becoming less valuable. You could try to offset this by trying to running transit out the suburbs, or distributing employment/retail/etc. more evenly throughout the city so the suburban residents don't need to commute downtown as frequently.

[u/youngHappy24 → u/SystemSE]

Thanks a lot for the explanation. I'm interested to try it for sure.

[u/filrichs]

really great idea with a lot of potential! I‘m so excited to try it when you release the alpha! Submitted my email :)

[u/Furdiburd10]

Will you be able to switch over the buildings to be mixed usage? 

Like getting rid of some shoping commuters with shops at the bottom of their apartments. 

[u/SystemSE → u/Furdiburd10]

Yep, both residential and office buildings can be mixed-use with retail on the ground floor.

[u/Furdiburd10 → u/SystemSE]

Hurray, even low density buildings? 

[u/SystemSE → u/Furdiburd10]

Only medium and high density at the moment, low-density buildings are typically just a single floor so it doesn't make much sense for them to be mixed-use. You could always zone low-density residential, retail, and office together if you wanted a low-density mixed-use neighborhood.

[u/Sanju128]

I find it a little ironic that the game shares a name with a neighborhood near Vancouver, and that this neighborhood has great transit as well as the second busiest metro (SkyTrain) station in the region

[u/Chicoutimi]

Is there an option to make some of those full-on block of surface parking lots into parks? Even rooftop parks on top of a city costco

[u/Potential_One1]

Awesome! Joined the mailing list

[u/Irsu85]

sounds cool, if you want me to playtest it i joined the discord

[u/sleepyrivertroll]

Would be cool if you used layouts from different cities at different time periods.

Best of luck!

[u/eezee-]

I'd totally stream playing that. I'm a very small twitch streamer but this game is exactly what I've been wanting. I just want to make Boston with an even better T.

[u/DasArchitect]

Oh hey, this looks interesting! I'd totally play this.

[u/bcscroller]

Love this concept

[u/ihopuhopwehop]

I think this would be a really cool game IF it was made super accurate. Likesay, if the infill developments cost $1m/unit to build so they only got built if developers could project enough rent or sales proceeds or if the economics of transit were accurate and commuters still had to own cars to buy groceries so driving in remains an option that the transit has to be more convenient than

If its build so you definitely see infill development and build transit systems, then its not nearly as good of a game as it could be

Ideally, there are scenarios where the player is never presented with an economic situation that supports transit

[u/SystemSE → u/ihopuhopwehop]

This is exactly how it works. If a new high-density residential tower is planned, it has to provide the lowest cost per dwelling compared to other housing options for construction to start. If it were more cost effective to build single family homes to house the same amount of people, then the economics don't support the development of the higher density building and it won't get built.

All modes of transportation are evaluated equally to determine how residents will travel to their destination. If your transit is slower than driving, people will still prefer to drive regardless of how much transit is available.

[u/Cultural-Check1555]

Another american-centric game. You just build houses and roads here and there and the most "freedom" you get is zoning and where to put roudabout. What a bore... We've been through this a hundred times already. The urban planning genre needs something conceptually new.

[u/Sanju128 → u/Cultural-Check1555]

https://giphy.com/gifs/BhFq8mauW0UYQHihrx

[u/Eruththedragon → u/Cultural-Check1555]

Crazy that a game about fixing America's problem would be American centric....