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Looks pretty cool. Reminds me also of Metropolis 1998, which is also going for the isometric style - with a lot more detail, i.e. you can design individual homes and see the lives of "sims" too, something like if SimCity and The Sims were merged.

https://yesboxstudios.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZHI2bCCpl0

It has a demo on Steam now: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2287430/Metropolis_1998/ It's quite playable already, and it's a very small 100Mb download.

Awesome! I am going to try this when I have some time next week. Fantasizing about how to make a better SimCity 25 years ago is what inspired me to pursue a computer science degree. I got sidetracked by a PhD and never returned to making games. Maybe your version is the one I always wanted!

This looks great, I just bought a copy. While it's downloading I'm perusing the listing, and I'm curious if this supports generating a large image/print of your finished city, like you could in SCURK (SimCity Urban Renewal Kit, which shipped with SC2K).

One thing I particularly loved was printing out very large maps of my city to go on the wall :)

Edit: I like the music a lot, and the little tutorial guy is endearing. One question, how do I move the viewport around? I tried scroll click drag, mouse button drag, arrow keys.

> The focus on photorealism in modern city builders took away the apophenia

That would be a real challenge to achieve simply because most of us are constantly surrounded by cities, but it is something that we should strive for.

For instance, game designer Fumito Ueda (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Last Guardian) said that I never wants to visit any old castles or ruins for fear that it would ruin his imagination on how game worlds should be built. It is a fair point, none of his games have had any focus on reality in terms of scale and that is what makes them so special.

Also looking at your game... can I get a copy of Microslop Excellence? ;)

Your simulation sounds incredible!

How big can cities get, though? One of the things I love about Cities Skylines is how massive the land plots are, and the tiny plots of SimCity 2013 was a bigger turnoff than anything else in its disastrous launch.

This sounds super interesting, but I'd much rather buy it on GOG than on Steam or itch.io. Any chance on releasing it there?

>https://microlandia.city

thanks for sharing that. i'm a big city builder fan, but this one slipped by me. looks cool, and i'll be picking it up!

I think the simulation in Cities Skylines is also quite advanced, or not? The simulation is much more the reason why it requires powerful hardware to run on, much less the graphics.

> I don't like where the genre is going.

Got an opinion on Timberborn? I think it's a great city builder, plus a fluid dynamics simulator where if you guess wrong everyone dies.

Looks great. For accuracy, when you build something, occasionally construction should stop half way through. You're then told that costs have doubled, and you'll need to pay again to complete the construction.

I've commented this many times, but I definitely want to see more isometric grid games like SC3k, RC2 or TTD.

They were less-realistic, yes, but is so pleasant how everything ties together and you can neatly fill out the whole map.

Meanwhile, while I like Cities Skylines or Planet Zoo, it is always incredibly awkward to build roads and paths to the point where I find it frustrating.

This is fabulous and I'm going to buy a copy to play on my SteamDeck. Will be sure to leave a review after I've put some hours into it!

On Steam Deck, I am having a rough time with the road that the paperclip wants me to place. Holding down the physical A button (of the ABXY group) and wiggling around the left joystick (as well as every other control I can think of), both pressed and not pressed. Sometimes I'll see the green highlight appear, and I can stretch it out into a road path, but when I release A, it just vanishes.

You got me , enjoy your 8,99 €

I'll buy it if you add crypto payment + a tip.

The thing is, I’d actually rather play a game that is basically a virtual modeling hobby than a deep city simulation.

I think Cities Skylines scratched that itch for a lot of people.

whoa that game looks very cool— love it. also loved SC3k… the soundtrack was amazing. game was kinda lowkey hard, though. or maybe it was because i was just a kid haha.

Incredible. Since you’re the dev, please please please isometric camera.

Although I don't have the same focus, I also came to the same conclusion: the actual game and gameplay itself got worse over the years. Same with civilization and many other games. Modern game designers don't understand this or don't care. But I spoke to some of them, and while I initially thought they understand but don't care, most of them really do not UNDERSTAND the problem domain. In particular younger ones; many of them have not played old games.

Do you have water and ports on the roadmap. I'd love some boats :)

you had me at apophenia

I wish someone would do this for a modern TTD but with railroad tycoon stock market/economy dynamics

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> and I still dream about arcologies

even after 9/11 and London's Greenfeel Tower fire? The vertical living seems very strained to me after events like that. Sure, they are not common issues, but there's always that thought in the back of my mind of what if.

YOU CAN'T CUT BACK ON FUNDING! YOU WILL REGRET THIS!!

These aren’t actually from the game…

Wait, are those from Sim City 2000, released in 1993? One of them references Google Maps, first available under that name somewhere around 2004?

I vaguely remember 2 different releases of 3k with different advisors. I liked the cartoony ones better.

These are all amazing. Thank you.

You're describing SimCity 4, not SimCity 3000. The SC3k tool is not entirely 2D, but it does mostly behave like one (with emulated voxels instead of pixels).

And while I cannot confirm what Maxis was doing internally, I am quite sure no-one was using 3DS Max for rendering game assets in the 90s considering it had just been released and well into the 2000s it was still humongously slow.

I was replaying SC2K(dos) recently and it is much harder than I expected. Usually these city games are fairly easy chill affairs. On a 1900 hard(max bond) start the only way I found to succeed(marked when I payed off all bonds) was to pause(to avoid early bond repayment losses), use all your money to setup the perfect layout for the next 40 years. Then wait in debt(can't build anything) for 40 years while hopefully your city profit grows past the bond interest amount and you are able to slowly claw yourself out of the red. Then immediately start saving for the replacement power plant as your original one will explode soon. I was not making a comfortable profit until about 1960. And this was after many failed cities, can't fix anything when you can't build anything.

Not sure to what extent you're looking for a reboot to be representative of the original, but I've been following the development of this indie spiritual successor for some time: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2287430/Metropolis_1998/

i first played 2000 when it was bundled with my family's windows 95 pc, and was sad to learn that gog/steam sell the inferior dos variant. but, yes, 2000 was just right.

I think Chelsea tractors belong in Chelsea, certainly not here in the country where they are completely unsuitable given the size

However he lost me at

> I was cruising in the fast lane, minding my own business

There is no fast lane in the U.K (including NI). There are overtaking lanes. If you are in this lane it’s because you are overtaking slower moving traffic in inside lanes.

If you aren’t, then you need to be losing your license

> his is allegedly for better compatibility for streaming, but since I'm not an egotist who needs every second of his life broadcast to an audience, we will switch it to true fullscreen.

Ahh of course, every streamer streams every second and is egotistical. What a moron

Not only that this is so dangerous. Back off, and let the idiots idiot.

That said, probably don't want to discuss other weird posts for each HN submission!

According to Denis Leary, he would be an "asshole". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrgpZ0fUixs

Real people are complex and hold a wide palette of skills, opinions, habits, biases, etc. Just enjoy the good and disregard the bad.

I think it's some type of personality disorder.

Funny, I'm reading this as very dry, tongue-in-cheek humour.

Off topic rage bait harassment has top comment? Why?

Tailgating in a massive SUV is not disrespectful, it's dangerous to other person. Why encourage this behavior by immediately letting them through?

Well, I can

> The picture caption with a 9/11 joke is a little off-putting

9/11 seems to be an important milestone in his life. In the about section of his web page it says this:

Q:/> How old are you?

A:/> I can't remember the collapse of the Soviet Union, but I can remember 9/11.

Some of us use 9/11 as a milestone event in our lexicon of world changing events.

I really love Jerry Martin's music. He did the iconic music in the Sims too, collaborating with Marc Ruso and Kirk Casey.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Martin_(composer)

https://www.last.fm/music/Marc+Russo

https://soundcloud.com/kirk-casey

Here are his web sites with more:

https://boombamboom.com/

“The Streets” 70’s Car Chase Music (reminds me of the Austin Powers theme Soul Bosa Nova by Quincy Jones):

https://jerrymartinmusic.com/music-70s-car-chase-1/

“Batucada” Bossa Nova:

https://jerrymartinmusic.com/music-bossa-nova-3/

“New Beginnings” This one is definitely in the 4 million plus club for plays on youtube:

https://jerrymartinmusic.com/music-sims-1-build-1/

“Let’s Go Shopping” Happy 50’s Shopping Music:

https://jerrymartinmusic.com/music-shopping-1/

Jerry Martin – Music From SimCity 3000:

https://www.discogs.com/release/794952-Jerry-Martin-Music-Fr...

Simcity 4 Soundtrack

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSv37HwwojU

SimCasino (Early Access) - Soundtrack Sessions Complete:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOm9SSXyQ_g

How The Sims Made New-Age Jazz Piano the Soundtrack of Our Lives:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LpVUi9TQ8U

>The Sims soundtrack is an iconic piece of video game music, and the build mode's minimalist new age jazz piano songs are undoubtedly among it's most famous tracks. We spoke to Jerry Martin, the composer of the soundtrack, to find out how and why new age jazz piano became the sound of The Sims.

The Sims Soundtrack CHEATED. Here's how:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJMds3jT7c8

The Untold Story of 'The Sims,' Your First Favorite Jazz Record:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-untold-story-of-the-sims...

Music in The Sims:

https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Music_in_The_Sims

Interview with SimCasino Composer Jerry Martin! A Master of Simulation Game Music:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1158420/view/4689895...

SimCity Micropolis Tile Sets Space Inventory Cellular Automata To Jerry Martin's Chill Resolve:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=319i7slXcbI

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Same.. I'd rather have it 2x scaling at half-resolution. Vision issues.

Have you played SC4 with NAM?

A small frustration I have with playing old games is that the GOG/Steam version is always the PC original and the Mac versions almost always had far better sound and music and sometimes graphics.

In 3k you could rotate the camera to 3 (or 4?) different angles, but each was fixed isometric rendered. Meaning they did all assets in the game at multiple angles.

> I was surprised to see SC3k described as isometric like 2k. I recall versions after 2k being "look anywhere" 3D

You recall wrong.

The only 3D SimCity game was the one released in 2013 that was simply titled "SimCity" but is frequently called "SimCity 2013" to differentiate it from the original classic.

2K, 3K, and SimCity 4 were all 2D games.

You're thinking of simcopter maybe, which follwed 2K and was full 3D.

I'm pretty sure the phone number was just printed on the manual back then... Many games back then had a phone number printed in the manual.

Or a demoscener.

SimCity 4 has a native Mac build, it's on Steam. Most of the modding community uses Windows now though since the .dll hacks became feasible.

At this point you can probably just run it with proton or wine. Why bother porting the whole thing?

I run Arch. I purchased it on Steam last week after the dos.zone site was shared here and dropped the GOG executable in the steamapps directory, and it worked flawlessly with proton.

I agree that games are excellent value, particularly compared to the 90s when they cost a LOT more than they do today. However, I think the point is a wider one: even if games were priced more 'fairly', should you be able to buy a game and then have, effectively, perpetual ownership of it?

The copies of Stardew Valley are not free but you can just buy them on every device you have I have 436 copies of Stardew Valley.

Replace the executable, even on a Steam copy.

claude --dangerously-skip-permissions -p "get this all installed https://www.thran.uk/writ/hdid/2025/12/simcity-3k-in-4k.html"

It would be nice if they remade Simcopter or Streets of SimCity yeah

Windows on Hyper-V, on Proxmox, air gapped, wearing an aluminum foil cap.