A thread for the discussion of a independent project to make 'Simcity 5'

[NCGAIO 562]

Would be difficult to assess to what extent the concept could be adapted for simulations of traffic and development for games like Simcity due to enormous flexibility applied to all models.

It seems more believable that has been developed to create scenarios than for simulations that require certainly remove much of that flexibility.

[Mark Waybill 242]

http://www.mediafire.../?8o1x2lbggsgzg

The above link is for the latest release of Virtucity which is now, technically and barely and just by a hair's breadth, 3d. yes, 3d. I decided that I might as well make that 3d mode I always talked about, so there it is.

I still have the facebook page. However it is written with game maker, and while there may be a gml to C++ conversion program or something, naturally it is highly clunky and this by no means indicates I am making any real progress besides finally doing what I said I would and making Vc 3d.

I don't know about Cityscape but from what you guys have said I reckon 1. it's not legal unless we buy it and that aint going to happen any time soon, and 2. we could easily get massive amounts of outsourced modelling done. Modelling is a very widely had skill, whereas coding the simulation itself, pathfinding, etc are the real challenges.

If you dl Virtucity (it is a folder with the exe file and the 3d model files) post feedback on the facebook page if you like. Hope that isn't off topic as there was an old thread for that game particularly.

Meanwhile I have been trying to get freeglut, OpenGL, Irrlicht and just about every graphics library/engine to work with Dev C++. I am considering downloading code::blocks... My internet connection is expensive for downloads though.

I am thinking it would be good if we could get the spade stuck into the ground so to speak in some way... But if we are to do this properly, whether as Boom Town or Virtucity or whatever, we need to get things right. I am still highly tempted by getting a US citizen to start a Kickstarter fund and getting a pro developer to build the game to our specs... As much as I am all for the 'by fans for fans' mentality and all that, if Maxis had given us 5 I wouldn't even be working on Virtucity now.

Edit: I have now got lighting to work

  Edited August 29, 2012 by Mark Waybill  

[Dale Kent 28]

I am thinking it would be good if we could get the spade stuck into the ground so to speak in some way... But if we are to do this properly, whether as Boom Town or Virtucity or whatever, we need to get things right. I am still highly tempted by getting a US citizen to start a Kickstarter fund and getting a pro developer to build the game to our specs... As much as I am all for the 'by fans for fans' mentality and all that, if Maxis had given us 5 I wouldn't even be working on Virtucity now.

Just want to point out there are many crowd-sourcing sites. Most of them allow non-US, so you don't have to use kickstarter.

Also, I would advise planning for at least a month before even starting a kickstarter. Make sure you have the entire text worked out, rewards costed out and agreed on, etc etc. I know of people who started a kickstarter, made up some rewards, then found out later that their rewards were going to cost too much and they'd end up with not much left to make the game.

[Mark Waybill 242]

Yeah I understand your logic Thesdale. I have never tried to start such a project but I imagine you are right and one would have to write up a polished document with all the clauses. My basic idea would be that a team (to avoid confusion and limit likeliness of problems arising from individual contribution) should make the game and anyone with the skill could contribute models, music etc that wouldn't need to tie in with the simulation code itself.

If accepted the contribution would earn a fixed amount and then a cut in all sales of the game representing their share of the workload. Thus those who did all the hard work on the long endless code for pathfinding and making trees that take water from water tables and give out Co2 and so forth get most of the reward, and those who constribute graphics, music, or small input would be given a smaller cut.

Any profit wou;d be split 50/50, 50 percent going to those aforementioned rewards and the other fifty to a fund for maintenance and improvement of the game, such as expansion packs or tech support, a website etc.

Obviously that is a rough idea. Ideally a game company with the experience could be afforded by the total contributions initial fund, but a company willing to listen to us and let us hold the reins. They get the profit, we get our game. Everyone is happy.

The game now has terrain of a primitive nature with primitive water.

http://www.mediafire.com/?de698266o48yaef

The download is now compressed to 2.5 mb.

  Edited September 13, 2012 by Mark Waybill  

[nuyokcity 22]

I am thinking it would be good if we could get the spade stuck into the ground so to speak in some way... But if we are to do this properly, whether as Boom Town or Virtucity or whatever, we need to get things right. I am still highly tempted by getting a US citizen to start a Kickstarter fund and getting a pro developer to build the game to our specs... As much as I am all for the 'by fans for fans' mentality and all that, if Maxis had given us 5 I wouldn't even be working on Virtucity now.

Just want to point out there are many crowd-sourcing sites. Most of them allow non-US, so you don't have to use kickstarter.

Also, I would advise planning for at least a month before even starting a kickstarter. Make sure you have the entire text worked out, rewards costed out and agreed on, etc etc. I know of people who started a kickstarter, made up some rewards, then found out later that their rewards were going to cost too much and they'd end up with not much left to make the game.

I recently came across Planetary Annihilation, a successfully funded rts game project on Kickstarter. So it's possible that a SimCity project could get similar funding. Here's a list of various crowd funding websites and their options on Wikipedia and a blog post about Kickstarter versus IndieGoGo (which doesn't require one to be a Usa resident and might be a better option).

[Mark Waybill 242]

From what I read IndieGoGo sounds better than KS.

Whichever is chosen it appears the campaigns are limited in duration, although I don't know if one could merely relaunch it or what have you. At any rate it would be advisable to generate enthusiasm for the project before the KS/IGG campaign is launched. VC has a Facebook page, but as I am unsure if VC is a registered name for something already or not that might be problematic. A Google search didn't reveal anything other than my project.

An issue is where would the campaign be advertised. Aside from this site there are few places where enthusiasm for this project is anything beyond lukewarm and uncommitted. It is a niche project, but as the original game shows, the end result would probably be quite successful if marketed properly. A true Sc5 would be a great game and if it was made I doubt it would be a flop.

A business plan, a constitution/design document of an agreed upon nature, a central place for discussion of the project. Reading about KickStarter being the 'Coca Cola' of crowdfunders makes one think. Amidst the sea of like projects, ours is ambitious, and closer to the roots than many others. It is still in the earliest of stages. VC is an experiment at present, and naturally whatever project does succeed will be the right one. I think we need to become known as the project, whether it be BoomTown or another title that is used, or whoever is behind the project.

I forsee miserable failure for a crowdfunding success unles we can advertise to interested parties that we are the one that will make it. Goodness, if all the time and effort and money invested in Cities XL, 2013 and all the Indie projects and CityVille had been spent instead on a united effort to make a true 5 we'd have something beyond all our wildest dreams. The resources are there, we need to collect and organise them.

[Dale Kent 28]

An issue is where would the campaign be advertised. Aside from this site there are few places where enthusiasm for this project is anything beyond lukewarm and uncommitted. It is a niche project, but as the original game shows, the end result would probably be quite successful if marketed properly. A true Sc5 would be a great game and if it was made I doubt it would be a flop.

FaceBook. It's cheap and there's some sneaky things you can do that other companies can't stop you doing. For instance, you can target people who "like" the SimCity FaceBook page and SimCity Social players. Nothing EA could do about that one.

I wouldn't bother with Google advertising. It's way too cut-throat for Indies. Your definite best place is to get some specialist reviewer interest. Maybe Tom Chick? Or Rock Paper Scissors? It's more about who's talking about the game. So you also might want to find out email addresses of strategy game designers and introduce the project to them. Do not advertise it to them, but say something that says, "hey, we're working on an Indie city simulator and I know you enjoy these games. I really enjoyed **** of yours and I think my game ***** may be of interest. Drop by at blah.com.au if you like".

Designers are really good because they like to check out other games (mostly for ideas), and are very happy to spread the word if they like it.

[Mark Waybill 242]

Hmm well at present I am introducing a rotation system for models which, due to the limitations of Game Maker's grid system, is working great for 90 degree placement but no other...

Well the project has a FaceBook page but nobody has liked it yet, although it's been there for a year or so now. I daresay in a decade it'll still be rotting away doing nowt. The present development using GM is experimental I should think, as I doubt with my skill and time I will be able to turn it into anything more than a more realistic version of CityVille... Road placement is still using puzzle pieces rather than organic 'curvy' roads, and I got rid of intersections and puzzle piece diagonals in the interim so roads are less advanced than 2000 now.

If a game does become 5 it will need to be done properly from the start. I have little hope that the present incarnation of VC will become anything more than a hobby that in a few years somebody just possibly might like at FaceBook, if I introduce mutant zombies or giant tarantulas...

Contacting game designers might make sense, but I would come across as being quite the $%&^! considering my limited C experience, reliance on GM for making anything substantial and total lack of history working on anything professional. However I am open to that sort of idea if it might actually get such a project off the ground.

Would writing a design document be the very very very first step in such a process? I think that from reading Buggi's I can understand what it would include, and it unlike a program is easy to edit. Would it be worthwhile to type up a sort of constitution for what we want in the game, covering all points, so that if it was liked that would indicate the game would be accepted as a true 5? Or would I just be wasting my time writing up yet another 'what we want in 5' list rather than finding some way to use diagonal grids in GM?

edit: Wrote a simple DD. It is on the info page at the project FaceBook. Also linked the FaceBook page with the ProBoard

  Edited September 15, 2012 by Mark Waybill  

[Urban Cartographer 601]

IndieGoGo has two huge advantages over its larger rival Kickstarter: IndieGoGo allows non-US residents to start up a project (though Kickstarter will begin to have non-US residents to start up in the near future) and even allows for crowd funding of charities. I never thought of IndieGoGo until now.

How about teaming up with Amplitude Studios? What I have read about them is that they have a very strong philosophy in having their fanbase develop games with them, and yes, they are an independent studio based in France but has an American office as well. Though they focus on strategy games (such as their only game as of yet, Endless Space), they might provide synergy with city-building simulation games as well. Here is Amplitude Studios' philosophy called GAMES2GETHER: http://www.amplitude...m/About-us2/G2G

  Edited September 15, 2012 by Urban Cartographer  

[Mark Waybill 242]

http://www.mediafire.com/?mnyj8d3l6phmz7y The latest download link. I doubt I will ever be able to develop curvy roads, but now we have 3d straight ones at any rate. I don't have any time to upload any screenshots, and there may be a few bugs.

I visited the Amplitude site. Their philosophy is indeed intriguing. The main issue appears to be funding, if these people will listen to what we want. I could send them or whoever is the dev team the design document. It needn't be 'Virtucity' but if that name is available it just sounds better to me than BoomTown. City building is strategy to my mind. Any Mayoral decision is strategic unless absolutely aesthetic, and even the most apparently cosmetic decisions like the colour of street signs are taken with community consideration in mind, so I don't see why our genre shouldn't be considered strategy.

I am all for teaming up with Amplitude, but we need the funding. The Indie GoGo site slounds great, but the campaign is a max of 100 days. What amount could we seriously hope to raise in such a short time frame? Also what sort of contract are we going to make with Amplitude in order that they do keep to our input, and what sort of arrangements for sales will be used? Is the game commercial? I imagine if it needs funding it will have to return some profit. I, in my idealistic communistic mind, envisage ten dollar sales and no price for expansions, but naturally I'm no businessman.

The main problem is generating enthusiasm for the campaign, getting all those interested aware of its existence. How best to advertise it? Facebook is naturally useful, but so far my VC page has no likes.

We really need to get attention from interested parties and make them feel it worthwhile to fund the campaign.

Is everyone happy with the design document on Facebook? Also could everyone like the page. The more likes the better. I am not suggesting creating fake accounts, but use social networking to your advantage. We really need to get this out there so come campaign time it doesn't flop. I do believe we will have to get a studio like the one discussed to make the game. It will take me years with Game Maker to make something close to 2000, put aside 5.

But first we need to get the funds and the contract so everything is down pat and businesslike. If everyone who wanted this game donated ten dollars we'd be able to go to any company we liked and get it made... There needs to be more central organisation of fans... Less dispersment and inefficiency...

[Dale Kent 28]

Mark, just so you're aware, I'm building a DX10 game engine with the flexibility to cater for the three big game ideas I want to push out. I'm making it to fully support a space-based colonisation game, a planet-based colonisation game, and a region-based colonisation game. A city-builder would most definitely fit into the third category.

Progress is slow (day job and family takes priority of course) but things are progressing well.

[Mark Waybill 242]

Well Thesdale it is good to hear some progress is being made on some form of simulation engine. Meanwhile due to bugmania I've decided to totally revamp VC and make sure every last character is syntax-nazi friendly. I doubt my GM project will ever get beyond a distraction and possibly a playable but limited game in the end.

Possibly you or somebody or a group, if they created a GlassBox of sorts, could then have more cred when speaking to developers, and could maybe outsource all the non integral elements of the project.

I think the idea GlassBox used of resources was good. The granularity flexibility potential for a similar engine would be useful. I'd like to say I was actively working with Code Blocks on some marvellous C++ project but alas I doubt I will ever be able to find a way to build a proper engine.

[Dale Kent 28]

Mark, I've looked at many game engines and none of them are really suited to simulation/strategy games (by strategy I mean old-style TBS games). Most engines that support modern equipment only cater for mobile, social or FPS/RPG games, or have no support/community. That's why I decided for the games I want to build it'd be best just to start from scratch and design the engine specific for it.

Basically, the three games I want to make are:

- Solar system level game where humans return (after a major cosmic event which we evacuated the solar system for) to rebuild.

- An updated and modern take on the old game Imperialism II.

- A city builder.

Not sure if you're interested in bashing heads together, but it seems you're pretty far along on your own game. But if you're looking for a partner, let me know.

BTW, call me Dale.

  Edited September 20, 2012 by thesdale  

[NCGAIO 562]

Very simple reason .... algorithms for simulation are not exactly the best thing to be over Multithread code

As current processors for handheld devices are dependent on the ratio clock / core become almost mandatory distribution for applications requiring high speed CPU.

This is why we have in some "new games" irritating limitations, which all already know ....

  Edited September 20, 2012 by NCGAIO  

[Dale Kent 28]

Very simple reason .... algorithms for simulation are not exactly the best thing to be over Multithread code

As current processors for handheld devices are dependent on the ratio clock / core become almost mandatory distribution for applications requiring high speed CPU.

This is why we have in some "new games" irritating limitations, which all already know ....

TBH, I'd say the "irritating limitations" in some new games are more due to the socialisation of gaming than any real technological issues. Broadness of audience has taken over depth of design as the prime motivator in games these days, especially in the big publisher houses. Reading Obsidian's explanation for taking to Kickstarter is a dark look at the state of major publishers these days. At least EA came straight out and said no new games without socialisation and broadness of audience.

Multi-threaded is perfect for simulations BTW, particularly real-time simulations like flight sims and city sims. The background algorithms will happily churn away in their own threads/cores whilst the main thread is for dealing with the player.

  Edited September 20, 2012 by thesdale  

[Mark Waybill 242]

Well Dale I'm all for cooperation if it can achieve anything. I've said before that I'd support whatever project looked likely to succeed, and the only reason I still chug away at VC is the lack of such a suitable project to contribute to. I am restructuring the whole game at present to try and make it more logical and comprehensive. The way I have designed it you can add an infinite amount of elements by plugging them into the folders in GM, so if I want to add a new service or utility, say a rural fire station or a small police station, I just copy from a former service building and add any required changes.

If I was to do all this in code without the GM IDE it would take a gazillion years and be very difficult to debug. Most of the bugs in my games aren't syntactic (GM has a good color code system of detecting errors in code) but ones that take a lot of brain racking to get to the bottom of, and in a sea of code that would be all the more time consuming.

The way I see it if raising money and getting a pro dev team to make 5 is an option let's pursue it if we can, but there is no harm in working on our own idea at the same time. Look at how many such projects floundered.

Designing an engine from ground up is theoretically a great idea but to get things right takes trial and error and time, and I'd want to think I had a good chance of success on the 'first draft' if I went C++. My knowledge is limited to bookish stuff like syntax and formula names, and my actual experience doesn't go far beyond simple input/putput programs. My main area of weakness is graphics. OpenGL was a headache to work not only for my compiler but for me. The more one can integrate outsourcing (model builders for graphics, using libraries for pathfinding etc) the better.

My design plan so far is thus:

Virtucity

Design Document

Written 2012 by Mark Waybill (Atomius)

Overview

In this document I would like to detail what features the finished game will include and give an overview of the project and its aims. By 'liking' this document/webpage you are agreeing that your honest opinion is that if a game were made to the standard written and including the entities listed, you would honestly agree it was a worthy and logical successor to the last great city building game.

This project began in 2005 as a Game Maker project called Atocity which in 2012 went 3D and was called Virtucity. There have been many similar projects, too many to name, but all have shared a similar fate of failure to meet their intended goal. I hope that by hook or by crook mine shall prevail and attain the heights we expected attained by the preceding series to which we gave our loyalty.

First and foremost let it be known that Virtucity is a working title I thought of in 2009.

Features of the Finished Product

This game shall have the following features:

Landscaping

Terrain shall be modifiable in game and shall have the ability to weather, raise, lower, run water upon its surface, simulate tabular water features, simulate weather, and have the ability to grow flora in a realistic and simplified fashion to represent any ecological community (rainforest, tundra etc), with the more noticeable beasts that would attract, to be simulated to a reasonable granularity of detail. The landscape shall have a good height limit so as to allow for high peaks and great canyons, and other such beautiful features that shall complement our cities, and should also have various soil types and both fresh and salt water.

Transportation

Options shall include but are not limited to heavy and light rail, traditional trams and streetcars, motor roads and freeways and highways, lanes and avenues and all varieties of motor road that are commonly seen or have been seen in the modern era, sea ports of a zoned nature, as will be airports, ferry systems both small and high capacity, bicycle lanes/paths and pedestrian paths and bush tracks, bus lanes and motorcycle lanes, elevated railways, subterranean railways and roads, helicopter pads and monorails. In all network type transport systems stations will be freely placeable anywhere on a line where it would not be hazardous to the safety of passengers, and thus engineering considerations must be realistic. Banking of curves, realistic gradients, and so forth are a must. Platforms must reflect the length of trains. Carriage numbers, timetables and so forth will be optionally adjustable features with defaults depending on the situation. Rolling stock will age as will stations, which will be reflected in higher maintenance costs over time.

Intercity Interaction

Regions will be the default area of play. Cities will be incorporated zones within a region. The exact method by which a city is played (whether other cities are greyed out and frozen during this time, or merely cease to be drawn etc) is to be decided based on the limitations of the hardware. Options will exist. Cities will be able to cover any area of a region, and for multiplayer games each city represents a different players territory. Multiplayer will naturally be optional, as would any world economic simulation, if it were even implemented. Cities may interact (MP) economically, however, and so a great project such as an airport could be constructed using two cities contributions, by agreement.

Citizens

Citizens shall be as detailed as is considered wise. The aim of the game is of course to create a city building game, but I see no valid objection to citizens taking on a more faceted role. However they are implemented, they should be constant throughout their lives, and must not be 'day flies'. Interactions of a social nature such as conversation are not important but I am not averse to citizens acting in an intelligent fashion if it fits with the games progress. They must however be able to upgrade or downgrade from one house/job to another, and should exhibit some level of evolution based upon their surroundings.

Zoning

The following will be zoned: airports, seaports, military bases, commercial, residential, industrial, agricultural, government, conservation, primary industry (logging and mining, fishing etc) and recreational. Transportation infrastructure can be thought of as a zone, and railways and roads could be 'council owned land'. I believe mixed zoning should be allowed, such as residential towers with businesses operating on the ground floor, or commercio-industrial developments. Modules within zones will include buildings and progressively more decorative features such as lamp posts etc. Naturally editing of individual modules will be allowed but not necessary.

Government

The City Council will be by default filled with simulated individuals who live in your city from the start. A novel approach, but realistic. Whoever heard of a Councillor working for one city and living in another? Perhaps it happens, but it is hardly an ideal scenario. Councillors will be high income earning individuals, and so will remain loyal until times get so bad that even they are adversely affected. Thus the Council's loyalty reflects that of the upper strata of the citizenry. You naturally still have absolute power and can kill your citizens or burn down their houses if you wish, but naturally these actions will have their consequences, such as unrest in your citizenry or widespread disillusionment.

Opinions, Statistics and Health

There will naturally be the usual array of statistics and detailed charts of your city and its populace. They may voice their opinions by common action, protest or riot, and eventually a sacking of the Mayoral office.

Organisation

The Project must be organised and carried out properly in a businesslike fashion. For this to be achieved it requires time and resources such as skills. Ideas such as crowdfunding have been raised, but exactly what system would be best has yet to be agreed upon. This document shall remain the only real progressive step until a decision has been reached, and some method of democratic process created, whereby the project is recognised as the leader in its field, and has a central based known to those interested in such a project. The Facebook page will until this time remain the base for the project, and one can only hope that it shall eventually attract all those interested in the idea.

Opinion

To contribute to this document or comment/discuss its worth and features, go to either the Facebook page, the Simtropolis discussion, or the YoYoGames forum discussion. (Only go to the latter if you actually believe Game Maker is the way to build this, which I highly doubt)

However ideally discussion would take place at the purpose built ProBoard: Virtucity Project. As yet no one has commented there, and I am having issues uploading a suitable logo image so the board appears highly unprofessional at present. However it is purpose built and it makes sense to have a home away from sites with another purpose.

  Edited September 20, 2012 by Mark Waybill  

[Urban Cartographer 601]

Mark Waybill, that sounds very ambitious and many times better than what EA (with a much larger budget) comes up with.

The ways to fund the development of the game would be very interesting. We can use Kickstarter/IndieGoGo (depending if Kickstarter is open to non-US residents as of yet or not). The rewards for pledging can include T-shirts, coffee mugs, game posters, mousepads with the game's logo on it, and even limited edition copies of the game (and artbook). You should send an e-mail to Amplitude Studios if they are interested, since they can develop an engine that can potentially work with city simulations (and already have the people who can take on the project). Very likely they will, but they would ask for funding methods anyways. If it becomes open to funding, I may be willing to contribute $100 or so to the project.

[Mark Waybill 242]

If we do get a proffesional dev team to do the engine we may as well put them on a leash and get them to do everything by our orders. I am no artist. My 3d models are blocky untextured and quite frankly ugly. They lack that 'Simcityness' they should have. My music is painful to hear. My User Interface is like the TARDIS when it doesn't feel like even trying to cooperate. My coding abilities would be inspiring to grade two students who had only just learnt what HTML stands for.

To put it bluntly I am all for drawing concept art and contributing as much as I can but really the only place I am going to achieve much is in an IDE like Game Maker, which so far has failed to produce anything near to a 5.

However while my practical skill is weak my theoretical understanding of how these games work is perfectly good, and I daresay that if the right people with the right skills were under my direction I could get 5 made. I know what 5 needs. We all know what it needs. What needs to be done is for the people with the resources tools and skill to make something out of our ideas and theories.

I am all for crowdfunding in theory. It sounds like the perfect solution, as no big company like EA is going to pull a 360 and start making 90s style games just to please core fans. I like the idea of rewards like merchandise mentioned.

However the first thing to do is to agree on just what we want and how we wish it to be implemented. Once this is done and we have our 'constitution' we can be founding fathers and try and make a nation out of this mess of concepts.

The other problem is getting publicity for the campaign. If campaigns are finite in length then before we even start it we need to know what company we want to get working with us, we need an agreed upon design plan, and we need to have agreed upon basic things like the name (I will stick with VC if it is available legally). If I contacted the studio you mentioned now I might sound somewaht of a upstart trying to act like he knows what he is talking about. They will no doubt raise the question of how it is to be funded and I should respond 'oh, crowdfunding or that sort of thing'. We need to be organised.

At the same time I'm all for making progress of some kind or another. I don't think the design document in its present generalised state would be of much use in a businesslike approach to the project. If a developer were to ask 'should we use OpenGL or DirectX' I would say 'whatever works best'.

[Dale Kent 28]

More importantly than the design, you need a "pitch". An answer to "why should we do/fund/help you?"

Without that answer, no one will ask for the design document.

[Mark Waybill 242]

A pitch... Well seeing as this is meant to be a serious project and not some commercial venture just for profit I wouldn't want them to have any power. This is after all about us getting what we want. I don't want to compromise. If they say 'yeah, that sounds fine, only let's make it into a cityville clone and charge players to build things' then naturally I don't want to feel obliged to let them do that.

I would like to be able to retain control in our hands, so this pitch would have to be honest, even if it was positive.

What would I say? 'Hello, I have an idea. Let's make a city building game to rival Simcity and heres what I want it to have. Make it. As to funds, we're working on that one. Bear with us.'

Such a project like this needs to be taken seriously and committed to by the team.

I really wouldn't know how to 'pitch' such an idea, seeing as my default is honest and blunt, and that doesn't do much in the world of entrepreneurial game design.

Any suggestions on a good format? Ideally we should have something substantial to refer to, like a Facebook page with lots of likes or a poll. Alas we have neither. I suppose one can't crowdfund and then hire a team with the funds as an incentive, as the campaigns would have to end with a product being made immediately? Even if we have a team found before the campaign it will take much time to produce this game, so we couldn't exactly promise instant rewards.

[Dale Kent 28]

I've used this site in the past to get two games up and done. I highly recommend it.

Find one you feel comfortable with to use as a template, and then modify to suit.

http://www.gamepitches.com/game-designs/

[Mark Waybill 242]

I tried to but the captcha didn't load.

http://www.mediafire.com/?qslluf3hi39z510

Well that is the latest upload. I got rid of the 3d models as they were bad and untextured. I daresay that should be outsourced anyway.

  Edited September 23, 2012 by Mark Waybill  

[Elmux 0]

I have an idea :

Whats about basing it on OpenTTD ,they have already a working landdcape generator, good graphics, very good music. We can save much work then we are basing it on an other project

a must-have are the drawable areas from SC4

Sorry for my bad english, its notmy mother tongue

[Mark Waybill 242]

Well Elmux to tell you the truth I haven't tested OpenTTD. I tend not to download much due to my high internet costs (which is why I compress Virtucity).

At present VC has just introduced a simple percentage based tax system for res, com and ind and I am making some models for the buildings.

I really think any serious proper 5 will have to be crowdfunded and done from scratch by a pro dev team. Alas the advertisement of the campaign is probably the biggest hurdle, although Facebook could be used to advertise it if we could get a nice well liked page.

'make a real simcity 5' or something?

[heat33330 26]

If you'd like to have it multi-platform (OS X, Windows, *nix) you should go with OpenGL. Please. lol .

  Edited October 6, 2012 by heat33330  

[Mark Waybill 242]

Well if this project is done by a professional dev team I imagine we would instruct them to make it cross platform as much as possible. I feel like making a Facebook page for this campaign... I think the best way to do this is to get the attention of those who would support the idea... Then work with that energy. The most difficult task is the initial communication to get interest in the idea from the right areas

http://www.mediafire.com/?x522au9192h9dlu

This is how far I've got so far.

  Edited October 25, 2012 by Mark Waybill  

[wrighteous 1]

The is a great thread.

I have been working with the real cities of Manchester UK, Amsterdam and Dubai. They would all like a serious game developed out of their current 'as-is' state to engage citizens in the narrative of how their own built environment can be shaped.

I spoke to EA games here in the UK and I've even tried to contact Will Wright, but he's like Falken in Wargames these days...

If you were all serious and we could select a project manager and assign tasks etc in a lucid project plan, I think it would be an amazing opportunity to crowd source and crowd fund a City Sim of a real city. We could even investigate creating inputs from real world sensor data from transport, pollution vectors.

Kickstarter is now UK based and I'd like to think this project is viable. It just needs planning and resourcing.

Everyone involved could be partners in a cooperative model to ensure equilibrium and fairness as well as compensation for effort.

Let me know if you agree.

[Screwballl 196]

I am definitely a hardware and ideas guy, not a programmer... but for the simulation side, rather than relying on full CPU based processing, why not relay that over to something like CUDA? Since GPUs have a parallel throughput architecture that emphasizes executing many concurrent threads slowly, rather than executing a single thread very quickly, this should work nicely for processing routes for people, cars, water, power, etc that only need to be done on occasion, rather than maintaining those routes all the time (which I believe is the reason for CitiesXL memory leak)... Since CUDA will work on all nvidia cards from 8000 on up, it shouldn't be a problem of compatibility.

For people with ATI GPUs, there this software called GPU Ocelot that will figure out what hardware to run the gpu code on at runtime. Ocelot is a modular dynamic compilation framework for heterogeneous system, providing various backend targets for CUDA programs and analysis modules for the PTX virtual instruction set. Ocelot currently allows CUDA programs to be executed on NVIDIA GPUs, AMD GPUs, and x86-CPUs at full speed without recompilation.

[Mark Waybill 242]

I agree wholeheartedly with your opinion, Wrighteous. Indeed the idea of real world data being able to be input to the game and used for just such a purpose had occurred to me as one of the prime reaons why EA's direction with SC is the wrong one. GlassBox was the one thing they did that I do agree with. Resource simulation should be at the heart of the game engine, so that a potato from a farm becomes chips in a retail store and so that a worker commutes to a car parking space, works, and drives to his house etc etc.

Crowfunding is a great idea but Kickstarter's 'campaign' mechanism seems limited? Surely an independent 'campaign' donation system over time would enable greater contribution and spread of the news to interested parties. I think a 100 day campaign would achieve very little unless we advertised a lot beforehand.

To Screwball, that sounds promising. Of course it is the development team who will be interested most in that. Technically speaking I am sure that if we find the right guys they'll find the right tools. Our main job is to design the game and raise the cash so that they take us seriously. I think we should target simulation centred companies, ones with the right knowledge, but preferably indie companies who will be willing to take a gamble on a venture as unique and challenging as this.

Once again Wrighteous, can't overstress how much I approve of the real world data idea. Ever since I first tried making my home town in SC2000 I have been thinking how many uses the game could have. Indeed Maxis received early interest from real life parties interested in their simulation. This game could become quite a useful tool for many branches of research and development.

[Urban Cartographer 601]

Interesting. If we raise enough funds, then we can ask Amplitude Studios (strategy and simulation are close enough for our purposes) to help us create a true successor to SC4. Amplitude's Endless Space is very successful for an independent studio with only one published game.