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Comment by phaser | Hacker News Reader

I continue to work on my city builder game Microlandia, launched here in HN ~6 months ago. I originally predicted a few dozen urbanism nerds would play it, but now almost 10,000 copies sold. I'm still a solo developer but now I collaborate with 2D, 3D and music artists. Which is good because the original art that I drew myself for the launch was horrible.

I'm currently working on modeling energy, climate and new policies like universal basic income

https://microlandia.city

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Based on the general reception you get almost every time you mention this on HN, you really should make your own text-based forum available as there is a ton of us interested in diving into the game mechanics, your plans and general ideas a lot more than probably HN could support.

Let me know if you're looking for an experienced web dev who can help you with all of it ;)

That's brilliant. And 10,000 copies! Woot, look at you go! Very well done and I think it looks great. It gives me hope. I'll go make it 10,001.

For reference, here's the original post:

Show HN: Microlandia, a brutally honest city builder (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46137953)

This reminds me of what "Hell Mod" did to Diablo I: Basically reinvented the game as it would have been if Blizzard hadn't been constrained by money or time, and knew what worked from their sequels.

Only to Sim City.

I'm working on a game myself. Mind if I ask:

- How difficult was it to get on Steam and other vendors?

- Are there any artists you'd recommend working with? I need a 3D/Blender artist, especially.

Steam is simple - pay the $99 and follow the instructions.

Depending on the kind of artist you want I might be able to recommend some people, have you done this before?

I'm saying this as a gamedev who's had some mixed experiences, not an expert at this at all, so happy to pass on any useful tips if it's helpful

Drop me an email if you want to discuss more, email in my profile

> How difficult was it to get on Steam and other vendors?

Not difficult at all. Pay the fee, get something going.

> Are there any artists you'd recommend working with? I need a 3D/Blender artist, especially.

My e-mail is on my profile, happy to send a few intros your way.

I'm really interested in how the landlord/land price logic works, as it would be key to building a realistic city where higher income earners live closer to CBD, etc. Are there slums and ghettos? Gentrification? The promo shows single detached houses seemingly quite close to city center.

Unhoused people do exist, and they vote for you so it's in there. Also shelters with real costs based on good data. Modeling slums is actually quite hard. There were unhoused camping sites in the early access version but I was unhappy with how it turned out and retired the feature back to the drawing board.

I want it to come back because it's in the spirit of the game not to hide the "ugly" aspects of city life.

There is gentrification in the way that landlords discriminate low income renters and NIMBYs have political power over you (in the form of the 'disagreement aura')

There's no rules against building single family homes in a city center, but the effect is what you would expect: non optimal tax revenue as you could zone it for something that's worth a lot more.

Does the AI have a say in what type of residential buildings are built, or is it all up to the player? If the AI is choosing, then there should be some way to naturally incentivize the landlords to build apartment towers where there is a higher demand, and cheaper housing in the suburbs where workers can't afford to pay higher rents.

Congrats on the game and I hope you're keeping some design notes as the balancing act between realism and gameplay will surely make for an interesting story.

I like that it's non-serious and contains jokes throughout the user interfaces. Reminds me a little of Airline Tycoon's non-serious/joking nature, and Theme Hospital if going further back in time. It makes the game fun rather than a boring simulator some city planner would use for work.

This looks great. I've had a quick look through the docs and can't see anything about bikes under transport, or, under housing, anything relating to modes of tenure that aren't private rentals (e.g. Vienna-style social housing, housing co-operatives, or private ownership). Would be lovely to play around with those variables.

Also, for finance, is there a particular reason why the finance sector calculations look quite simple (on the face of it, at least)? They seem only to be a percentage lift based on aura, rather than anything resembling any number of complex sectoral dynamics, from full rentier-financial domination to prudent support of industry/services.

Social housing and bikes are on the roadmap :)

Regarding the unit economics for finance sector, you are right, the calculations are way too simple, and I'm not entirely happy with it, so I'm looking to improve it, but it does need to be a sweet spot between 1. realistic enough to be educatioal and 2. simple enough you can use it as a gameplay mechanic.

Before the end of the year there will be mod support, and I will pay special attention to making sure that modders can swap the economic formulas for more sophisticated models.

Great stuff!

I can imagine the financial modelling side is a particularly difficult balance, yeah. Mod support sounds amazing though, I'll keep a look out. :)

Congratulations on releasing a game! It’s beautiful, looks like a mix of voxel art games and sim city

When I get time I want to buy it and play it :)

Do you work on it full time or do you have a day job too?

It's my main activity but I also work on other stuff to make ends meet.

Looks amazing! Might I ask what tool you're using to design the 3d models? Some kind of voxel editor, like MagicaVoxel?

We use Goxel. https://goxel.xyz

Steam says its unavailable on Mac's with Apple Silicon processors, is that right?

Only Apple Silicon is supported. It's unavailable for Intel, sadly.

Man looks amazing, the detail level of the simulation seems to be in another level compared to sity skylines and co. If you need any help or just chat about this, reach out to contact (At) khorchani (dot)fr

I've played a little bit of it so far, and really enjoyed it.

This looks awesome. I’m pumped to try it out.

Great work! Game looks amazing. I'm curious. How many percent of people left a review on Steam?

less than 2%

> Microslop Excellent (TM)

Niceeeeee

"... new policies like universal basic income."

Is the engine honest enough to reality to demonstrate failure?

OK, I'll bite - what would a failure of UBI look like?

Government revenue doesn't keep up with expenditures.

check the results from texas and illinois

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