@alfred_twu on city building games

Comparing the philosophies and practices of different city building games (SimCity, Cities Skylines, Transport Tycoon, A-Train, and Soviet Republic).

The discussion on parking in particular is fascinating:

one of the tensions in SimCity is that most players want to build a big downtown with lots of buildings, but the car-centered transportation model makes it hard. So when it comes to parking lots, the game designer “just imagine they are underground.”

in contrast, in the Slovakian game “Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic”, parking lots are realistically sized and something the player has to build if they decide to let people own personal cars.

more often though, in the Soviet Republic game, cities are compact, with most things within walking distance, and buses and trains are used to get people to factories that are too polluting to put next to homes.

The American game assumes personal cars, and thus doesn’t even make parking part of the game. The Slovakian one makes cars a choice, forcing you to reckon with their trade-offs.