Citybound - an indie city simulation game.

Hi, I'm the developer of CityBound.

Thanks for posting this here!

 

You can find the main discussion in the SimCity Subreddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1z9udk/citybound_the_beginning_of_my_own_city_building/?sort=confidence

 

But if anyone has questions or remarks I'm happy to discuss them here as well.

Looks really interesting so far, subscribed to the newsletter. Looks like it has a lot of potential :3

It does look very interesting so far, in particular I love the way the roads are placed (I wish SC4 were like that).

 

The biggest problem I've had with other city-sims is the horrible plastic-3D look they often have. SC 2013 for instance has a really cartoony and unrealisitc style so I would never play it (since I'm all about realism). Hopefully this one will be different, although it's obviously too early to tell at this stage.

 

Good luck with the project.

It does look very interesting so far, in particular I love the way the roads are placed (I wish SC4 were like that).

 

The biggest problem I've had with other city-sims is the horrible plastic-3D look they often have. SC 2013 for instance has a really cartoony and unrealisitc style so I would never play it (since I'm all about realism). Hopefully this one will be different, although it's obviously too early to tell at this stage.

 

Good luck with the project.

 

Thanks!

Can you describe in more detail what you mean with plastic-3D look? Because these games seem to try to look realistic.

At this point, it looks sort of like an early version of Synekism.

At this point, it looks sort of like an early version of Synekism.

That was exactly what I was thinking

Looks like it's gonna be some good times coming for us city builders. I will be watching this with interest.

 

To the developer: Are you doing this with help?

Hi, I'm the developer of CityBound.

Thanks for posting this here!

 

You can find the main discussion in the SimCity Subreddit:

http://www.reddit.co...sort=confidence

 

But if anyone has questions or remarks I'm happy to discuss them here as well.

 

By one huge region, do you mean one big city or one big metropolitan area with multiple cities? If the second one this game is already my dream game!

To the developer: Are you doing this with help?

 

Not yet. But I have received a handful of offers of help today, in many different areas (composers, geologists, civil engineers).

 

Right now I am confident that I can do the programming part alone. In the future I might need to expand. We will see.

 

Also I'll have a detailed look at Synekism, it has been mentioned a few times now and I'll see what I can learn from it.

 

And yes, it is a City Buildulation game

Good luck on your traffic simulation and terrain simulations. I think those are hard areas. Just today I was thinking of the math required for the development on hills. SimCity 4 and SimCity 2013 have graphical problems with development on hills. Plus the amount of monotonous graphic design of all the different buildings.  

Thanks.

 

Yeah, terrain/building interaction will be fun to implement.

Already now I often had to draw stuff on paper to understand the geometry of my problem, before I could code it.

I'm liking in the .gifs on your site how the roads can be laid out. I especially like how the buildings seem to be able to conform easily to the direction/angle of the road and the other buildings immediately around them. 

In SC2013 I didn't like how there was open space between larger zoned buildings. That really showed when the roads they were on curved or the city block wasn't large enough.

Are you planning to throw in agriculture and zoning density? 

Yep, both.

Yep, both.

 

City Buildation Game! I really like the sound of it (probably cause I'm so happy right now). And you answered pretty fast I edited my comment and changed the question after you seen it lol #fail

Along with procedurally growing buildings, will we have the ability to plop buildings where we want?

 

Yep, both.

 

City Buildation Game! I really like the sound of it (probably cause I'm so happy right now). And you answered pretty fast I edited my comment and changed the question after you seen it lol #fail

 

 

 

one big metropolitan area with multiple cities.

 

 

 

Along with procedurally growing buildings, will we have the ability to plop buildings where we want?

 

Only service buildings, RCI will develop itself. But modding can change that.

My one suggestion would be to make only a few generic buildings, cars, sims, etc. and don't waste your time on making content for the game.  Instead make tools to make content and release those so you can focus on game mechanics.  The community will happily (if the game mechanics are good) make content for the game for you.  That way you can focus on the underlying quality of the game but still have a critical area of the game still advance (and advance in a way the customer wants as they are making the content).  Then I would try to hook up with Simtropolis to get them to host the community generated content so you don't have to moderate that.

Im actually trying to make as much of the assets as possible procedurally generated. I will definitely focus on gameplay first, then on assets.

Good luck man, I think we are all looking for a decent alternative to the SimCity franchise.

Im actually trying to make as much of the assets as possible procedurally generated. I will definitely focus on gameplay first, then on assets.

 If you go for procedurally  generated buildings one good thing to do might be to make the textures procedural as well. You could have them applied to the building mesh based on the overall size of the building mesh. Heres what i mean:

 

The game would just have a library of different textures to choose from, and each would be defined as a certain type. If a small house sized building was generated, then it would look to the house type textures when it went to add color/detail to the building. Thoose textures would be stuff like wood siding, shingle roofs, residential windows etc.

 

Then if it was a bigger building, it would look in the apartment textures instead. Thoose textures would contain brick facades, apartment style windows, and tar sealed roof textures etc.

 

If textures were applied that way, it would make it easy to expand on them. That way, the variety of looks you get from you buildings would be defined by how many textures you had in the folder for each type. It would also allow for customized texture sets, for example i could make a set of "Paris" textures, and replace the ones that come with the game. Then when my city loads again, it would have a "Paris" look to it without having to change the base mesh of the buildings.

 

Don't know if that's possible though.