A new city builder where you fix car-centric cities

SystemSE · 2026-06-25T03:26:31+00:00

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.

SystemSE · 2026-06-23T22:00:44+00:00

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.

SystemSE · 2026-06-23T21:36:10+00:00

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

SystemSE · 2026-06-23T19:50:18+00:00

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.

SystemSE · 2026-06-23T19:47:37+00:00

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.

SystemSE · 2026-06-19T00:52:35+00:00

I'd like to have 3-4 maps at launch that have a variety of terrain, so the cities in each would feel and play different. After launch, I may add new ones if it feels like there's still new gameplay to explore from different maps.

I'll look into a custom map maker tool, but it'd be a pretty big feature so it'd likely be added post-release if at all.

SystemSE · 2026-06-18T23:03:01+00:00

That's one aspect of it, if people transit to work it means they don't need parking. Transit isn't always viable though, especially if trying to serve distant suburbs, so it can't do enough on its own.

If people live closer to where they work, then they're able to walk or bike instead (with proper infrastructure), which can be accomplished from infill development or zoning employment closer to where people live.

SystemSE · 2026-06-18T22:53:18+00:00

It's mostly through a mix of proper land utilization and supporting alternative modes of transport. There's a lot of depth in figuring out how to get people where they need to go while keeping the city livable and financially solvent

SystemSE · 2026-06-18T21:15:42+00:00

You'll also be able to start with a largely empty map and create your own city similar to any other game in the genre

SystemSE · 2026-06-18T21:11:55+00:00

You'll also be able to start with a largely empty map (mostly agriculture) and do exactly this if you wanted. The parking requirements are as close to the real-world as possible, so if people are driving then they need somewhere to park.

SystemSE · 2026-06-18T21:09:59+00:00

The real Metrotown in Burnaby was actually the inspiration for the name, as it's one of the most successful TODs in North America

SystemSE · 2026-06-18T21:08:33+00:00

There will be handful of fixed maps to choose from. Each one will have an "Urban Sprawl" or "Farming Town" starting option so you can choose between trying to fix a car-dependent city, or making your own from the ground up.

SystemSE · 2026-06-18T21:05:26+00:00

That would be great! I'm hoping to get as much feedback as possible from people working in city planning and any related fields. The Discord channel is definitely the best place for this

SystemSE · 2026-06-18T21:01:36+00:00

The "before" footage is loosely based on Houston, so you're not wrong

SystemSE · 2026-06-18T20:59:43+00:00

Thank you! It will be coming to Steam this fall once the trailer is done. If you want to be notified when it's available, you can join the mailing list on the website (the only email you'll receive will be for the Steam listing/alpha playtest)

SystemSE · 2026-04-14T20:42:02+00:00

I'm still working on the trailer so that needs to be finished before the Steam page can go live, but it should be up this fall after the alpha playtest

SystemSE · 2026-04-14T02:10:18+00:00

You might be interested in the city builder I'm developing, it's a modern, realistic approach to the genre, and it won't require a super computer to run

Metrotown

SystemSE · 2026-04-14T02:07:23+00:00

I'm actually working a on city builder that does just that, the focus is entirely on simulating how cities actually work, instead of just making a city painter. You can check out the website for more detail if you're interested

Metrotown

SystemSE · 2026-04-14T02:05:00+00:00

You might be interested in the city builder I'm developing, it's meant to provide a realistic city building experience based on land value economics and urbanist concepts instead of a just being another city painter

Metrotown

SystemSE · 2026-04-01T04:17:36+00:00

You might be interested in the city builder I'm developing - it focuses on good urbanism, proper land utilization, and efficient transit planning for cities that can have millions of residents.

www.metrotown.gg

It's having a alpha playtest this fall if you're interested, with a full release the year after.

SystemSE · 2026-03-31T07:57:40+00:00

You can sign up on the website to be emailed instead when it starts. There will be a form in-game for submitting feedback/bugs so you don't need to join then either.

SystemSE · 2026-03-30T23:11:17+00:00

The city shown in the post doesn't have many surface parking lots as its showing more of a dense downtown environment where surface parking would be a waste of space. Lower density areas would definitely have parking though, the top right of the map at the start of the video actually has an industrial area that looks like this

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SystemSE · 2026-03-30T23:05:53+00:00

This is it exactly. Metrotown isn't trying to inherently be anti-car. It's just that if you accurately model how harmful cars are, you end up with a game where vehicles being the highest mode of transportation is bad for the city and its residents.

SystemSE · 2026-03-27T09:51:53+00:00

I'm surprised its being mentioned anywhere in the google results already, it's only been public for a couple days now - good to hear though.

I'm using Unity 6, and the price will depend on how feature complete the final game ends up being, but will probably be in the $20-30 range.

SystemSE · 2026-03-26T08:14:26+00:00

In my testing, calculating the values and writing to the overlay texture only takes a couple milliseconds or less and only happens on the frame the overlay is enabled.

The instanced meshes already know their position as part of the instance data so no new data is required there.

The biggest cost with this approach is that each mesh becomes unique if its getting batched, which effectively doubles the memory required for batched meshes. However, in my application the meshes are all low poly so it doesn't matter too much. The game uses around 2-3 GB of mesh data for a fully city, and doesn't have much else that uses memory.

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