Hello everyone. Welcome to the 4th Development Diary for Metropolisim: The Deeply Complex City Building and Management game.

Before I start off I want to address what unfortunately seems to be a common concern about the game that keeps popping up. There have been a lot of questions about whether development is still underway, has the game been cancelled, abandoned, etc. I assure you this is not the case. I have a timeline for how I want to release information and I am following it to the best of my ability. Solo developing a game of this scale is hard work. Please don't read too much into it if there are no updates for significant periods of time. I will still be working on the game behind the scenes and will share as much information as possible when the time is right.

I would ask that those of you who enjoy participating in the community please try to stay positive and not dwell on the fact that there hasn't been an update in whatever timeline you think one should be released.

My motivation for making Metropolisim is to make an outstanding, fun, and challenging city builder. I am doing it for myself more than anyone. I'm making the game I want to play. It's not about a quick cash crab otherwise I would have released the game already. I want the game to be of the highest quality possible, and therefore, it will take time.

Now, let's jump right into the information I have for you today.

This development update is going to familiarize you with some of the most important features of the game which will bring your city to life and make it unique - zoning and building! I say "some of" the features, because there is a lot I want to leave for surprises for you as players the first time you start the game, so I won't be giving away everything just yet.

Before we start let's familiarize ourselves with some terminology I'll be using throughout.

Zoning - The process of designating plots of land within the city for development by citizens (residential), businesses (commercial, industrial, etc.) or state/government use. The player's responsibility is to determine what type of zones they want to lay out to grow their city, but once they zone, it is up to the citizens of the city to occupy and decide what gets built on that land.

Building - Unlike zoning, constructing building allows the player to place buildings directly on plots of land within the city. This is the main way the player will deliver essential services to the city such as crime prevention through the construction of police stations, health services by constructing hospitals and clinics, etc. There are also other entities who will want you to build things for them within your city. More on that in a little while. I will refer to this as "placing" buildings in the rest of this article.

Zoning is split into a number of categories based on the type of buildings you want to grow in certain areas of your city. It is important to understand the land you are building on to make the most educated decision about what type of zoning you use in each area. Each parcel of land will have a land value for each zone type. For example, one parcel may me more valuable to commercial retail zones than it is to residential based on the amount of traffic passing by that parcel of land. For commercial retail the land will be valuable due to the number of customers, and oppositely, for residential, it will be less valuable due to high traffic noise. As you can see it will be important to evaluate land and properly plan before laying out your zones.

Land value will be affected by a number of factors and again each zone type will have it's own land value for each tile in the game. Things like crime, traffic, access to cultural attractions, access to healthcare, access to customers, and much more will affect the land value uniquely for each type of zone.

There are three levels of wealth - high, medium, and low. The higher the land value the more likely that higher wealth buildings will grow or be upgraded on individual parcels of land.

Additionally zones are split into categories based on density. When you zone a piece of land you can determine what density you want to place. For example, residential categories are:
1.Single Family Home
2.Low Density
3. Medium Density
4. High Density

Of course, simply zoning areas of land and waiting for residents and businesses to move in isn't enough to keep a city running. Eventually your citizens are going to start clamoring for utilities, essential services, leisure activities, cultural pursuits, and more. To provide these to your city you will be responsible for strategically placing the service buildings necessary to keep each neighborhood in your city running and your citizens happy.

In addition to this there will be events that occur throughout the early, mid, and late gameplay stages of Metropolisim that will require you to actively make decisions about whether or not to place certain buildings in your city. During these opportunities it will be important to balance the pros and cons of your choice before acting. More on this further down in this diary.

For now, here are some examples of the buildings you'll have the opportunity to place in your city, by category:

Health
Small Clinic, Large Clinic, Small Hospital, Large Hospital, Resarch Hospital, Hospital Offices, Surgery Center

Education
Elementary School, Elementary School (Private(E)), High School, High School (Private), Trade School, Community College, University, Research University

Justice
Regional Justice Center, Local Court, City Court

Utilities - Power
Coal Power Plant, Oil/Gas Power Plant, Power Repeater Facility (Local)

Utilities - Water
Water Tower, Water Pumping Station, Water Treatment Facility

Utilities-Internet
ISP Data Center, ISP Offices, ISP Storage Facility

Utilities-Cellular Phone
Cellular Provider Offices, Cellular Tower, Cellular Repair Facility

Law Enforcement
Police station, Police Command Post, Police Air Unit Station, State Police Barracks

Corrections
Small Jail, City Jail, City Jail Offices

Fire
Fire Station, Central Fire Command, Fire Air Unit Station

Sanitation
Garbage Depot, Recycling Depot, Landfill, Waste Treatment Facility, Fleet Maintenance Facility

Air Travel
Small Airport, Regional Airport, International Airport, Helicopter Airport, Maintenance Facility

Mass Transit
Bus Stop, Small Bus Stop, Large Bus Stop, Transit Depot, Train Station, Large Train Station

Event
Church, House of Worship

This is just a glimpse at a portion of the buildings that will be available at Early Access launch. There are already more in development as well as many more that will be added after the game launches.


Focus paths are specialties that a player can choose each time they embark on managing a new city. They are large-scale, long-term pursuits and endeavors that will keep the player occupied from early through late game. Focus paths are completely optional, but add quite a bit of depth and realism to the game.

Each focus path contains a number of challenges and unlocks, each of which has multiple pre-requisites that the player must meet before moving onto the next phase.

One example of focus paths is for sports teams. There are focus paths for multiple sports including basketball, baseball, football, and soccer. Taking baseball as an example. The focus path will start out requiring the player to invest in local educational programs through their schools to fund baseball athletics. Next, as the city grows, and there is enough talent within the city, a minor league baseball stadium can be constructed. After which, the player will need to invest in television and radio contracts as well as complete other tasks in an attempt to raise support for the team. Eventually, if the team is supported at a high enough level in the city, and the city has grown to a size worthy of a professional team, the player will be able to construct a major league baseball stadium (if they can afford it.)

Of course this is just one example of focus paths and I have simplified the description for the sake of explanation. There are many more that will be in the final game and they will vary in difficulty to execute.


Frequently, as cities grow, next levels of government above the city (state and federal) may require land for use for constructing service buildings for things like government offices, motor vehicle departments, prisons, research facilities, federal or state law enforcement, space exploration, and so forth.

There are two ways the state or federal government can get the needed land within your city. The first is by requesting that you zone an area of land for them to build on. In this case you will be allowed to choose where the building goes. You may even be allowed to decline the construction, depending on the event. For example, the state may request to build a state prison in your city. If allowed it will bring in blue collar jobs, reduce crime overall, generate a bit of revenue, but ultimately lead to unhappiness for any residents residing around the prison.

The second is that the government will choose an appropriate spot within your city and you will receive an event notification that the government will be beginning construction on an area of land within your city.

General
State Office Building, Federal Office Building

Military
Military Base, Military Air Wing Base, Military Command Center, Military Prison

Corrections
State Prison, Federal Prison

Law Enforcement
State Police Barracks, Federal Bureau of Investigation Offices

Motor Vehicles
Department of Motor Vehicles

Research
Space Research Facility, Rocket Development Laboratory, Rocket Test Site, Space Shuttle Launch Pad, Rocket Launch Pad


I am incredibly passionate about building variety. My goal is to limit building repetition as much as possible. Buildings of the same model will have multiple color palette and lot-position variations to keep the game pleasing to the eye and interesting to look at. No two cities will ever look the same. In addition, there will be urban and suburban variations of many of the larger commercial buildings. Suburban versions will have larger parking lots to support their workforces, while urbans will sprawl vertically on a much smaller lot with less parking, expecting the use of mass transportation to reach these destinations.


This is something I have kept under wraps for quite some time but I am incredibly excited to share today. The addition of simulated poverty and homelessness within the city. To my knowledge, something that has not been tackled before in a city builder.

The way it works is, for most other areas of the game the player is able to designate where they want to zone or place buildings, controlling the direction of their city including what goes where. But there is always the potential for things to get out of control. It is up to the player to manage their city adequately or risk poverty taking hold.

When homelessness increases to an unmanageable level the homeless population within the city will begin to take over areas of land that hasn't yet been occupied and construct their own settlements there. You will see tent cities emerge which will lead to crime, public health crises, and unhappy citizens. The longer you fail to act the worse it will become. Eventually it will become very difficult for the city to remove them, and the longer you wait, the more they will lead to unhappiness in the surrounding area for existing residents. More to come on the logistics of city and economy management in future development diaries. Needless to say, you'll want to read those.

Hopefully you enjoyed this update. Hopefully in the next month or so I will be switching gears to provide smaller, but more frequent updates. As usual, if you have any questions please feel free to share and I will do my best to answer.

-Roy

Hello and welcome to Development Diary #3 for Metropolisim. I am really thrilled to be writing this and to be able to share new information about the game with you. I'd like to once again thank you for following and supporting the game. A special thank you to everyone who has Pre-Ordered the game. It is amazing to see the reception the game has already received even in it's early stages. I am eager to show you as much as possible in the coming months as we move towards Early Access release.

Today I am going to be covering a lot of in-depth information surrounding the traffic and pathfinding systems in Metropolisim. For those who have been following my development diaries you will know that initially I planned to have a narrated gameplay video uploaded to YouTube to coincide with this post. However, I just haven't had enough time to make that video. Since I have been seeing a lot of anxious fans awaiting more information on the game I decided to go ahead and post this diary today and continue to work on the video which will be released in the near-future.

The good news is, although I wasn't able to create the narrated video in time for this post, I still have several gameplay videos embedded throughout this diary, including first looks at city traffic in action. Hopefully this is as exciting for you to see as it is for me to share! Without further ado, let's go ahead and jump right into it.

https://youtu.be/1NpYmntkRtk
https://youtu.be/UY7ILHgwPRY
Fast and accurate pathfinding, in my opinion, is one of the core foundational elements of a city building game. Traffic impacts almost every other system in the game and is incredibly important to get right but also incredibly difficult to get right. In order to simulate millions of living citizens with real lives that include families, jobs, and leisure interests each of these citizens need to be able to move around your city from point A to point B in a believable manner and on a schedule that makes sense. Traffic systems are a constant source of feedback for the player as the cars zoom to and from their destinations so getting it right is incredibly important. If paths take too long to create, are not accurate, or traffic behaves in a nonsensical manner it can break immersion and result in poor gameplay.

I have spent a significant amount of time creating the traffic and pathfinding systems for Metropolisim and I am very happy with where these systems are. With that said, the game is still in a pre-alpha state so I am continuing to work on fixing bugs and adding features and functionality. I have lots more planned to add as the game moves into Early Access and beyond.

In this Development Diary I am going to cover some of the points I think the community will be most excited about but keep in mind there is lots more still to share in the future.

Let's start off with a bang. I've had the question posed to me multiple times - "will there be rush hours in Metropolisim?"

I am happy to say the answer is YES!

Rush hour traffic is a factor in any major real-life city and I am happy to say that rush hour traffic systems will be present at Early Access launch of the game. No mods required.

Dynamic traffic that changes throughout a normal 24-hour cycle was something I knew I wanted to have in the game from the beginning. Since citizens are all fully simulated and are constantly evaluating a set of priorities to make decisions about how they should behave it is a must that their travel cycles change throughout the day.

Each citizen of working age in your city who is able to find a job will need to commute to and from work using one of the many transportation options. These could be from anything to walking, driving, or using public transportation. Each citizen will have a maximum tile distance they are willing to commute to work, so don't expect them to be willing to drive four hours each way to and from work. In addition, each transportation option will have a number of factors that influence the maximum distance a citizen is able to use that option. Citizens will not walk more than 20 tiles each way to work, and they will not walk more than 15 tiles to a bus stop, for example.

Careful city planning will be necessary to lay out your communities in the most efficient way possible to ensure citizens are able to use the most effective methods to reach their place of employment or leisure activities. Minimizing the use of cars will be important as you progress into the later stages of the game and begin to have higher density buildings appear. You'll need to get as many citizens as possible to either walk or use public transportation when moving through the city to reduce traffic congestion and eliminate traffic choke points and traffic jams.

On a typical weekday you will see spikes in traffic as citizens commute to work in the morning, and then again, likely in the opposite direction, as they commute home from work. You will also see increased traffic on the weekends as citizens head off to enjoy leisure pursuits like going out to eat, to the movies, or to the park. And of course, late at night, traffic will wind down as your citizens get nestled into their beds for the evening.

What this means to you is increased usage on roadways at peak times depending on citizen desires, and depending on your city layout and the paths citizens choose to reach their destinations. So expect traffic jams and unhappy citizens if you don't plan your road networks accordingly.

Excited yet?

As I alluded to above one of my main goals with the traffic and pathfinding systems is to make the traffic behavior as close to real life as possible. That means full pathfinding and true routes for each citizen in the game. Every citizen and vehicle you see on the screen is moving along an actual path with intent to reach and objective for a purpose. You will not need to investigate charts or look at data overlays in order to understand how traffic is behaving in your city. You can simply look at what is happening on-screen. When you see a car driving on a road you will know that it is a real citizen with a real objective and not simply a randomized vehicle there to make you think there is traffic on the road.

But before you ask, I will still be providing lots of data, charts, and overlays for you to dig into as much as you'd like. Combined with the on-screen traffic you will be able to make informed decisions when deciding how to lay out your road networks whether you are getting ready to zone new communities or need to make improvements to alleviate congestion within existing communities.

https://youtu.be/gvN4PQ05o6A
Another way to make the traffic as realistic as possible is to constantly be handling traffic throughout your entire city even when you aren't observing it. In other words, just because you aren't watching a citizen that doesn't mean they've stopped going about their day.

Since every citizen is a simulated agent they'll still go to school, work, or the park while you aren't watching. This means you'll need to continually be evaluating the paths they are taking and which roads they are using to ensure traffic is able to flow as smoothly as possible and citizens are able to reach their destinations in a fast and orderly fashion. No neighborhood is immune to traffic issues, so you'll need to continually review each section of your city.

Too much time stuck in traffic will result in longer commute times and lead to unhappy citizens. Unhappy citizens will negatively impact a lot of things in the game from mayor rating and land value to the quality of businesses looking to move into your city.
This is another one I'm really excited about. A common complaint from other city building games is vehicles using lanes in ways that don't make sense. In Metropolisim I have spent a significant amount of time developing logic to help your citizens make correct decisions regarding lane usage. It can be incredibly frustrating to watch vehicles all lining up in one lane while there are other options available. Vehicles in Metropolisim follow dynamic paths that understand the best lane to use based on each step in the path.

For road types that have more than one lane traveling in each direction citizens will follow paths that take them into the correct lanes depending on if they are going straight, left, or right at the next intersection. You will not have to deal with all citizens using one lane and creating needless slowdowns or traffic jams regardless of which way they are going. Right now none of the roads in the game have specific turn lanes, but I am still in the process of exploring turn lanes and how to best implement them to even further segment traffic on roads in a more efficient manner. More to come on this.

There are a number of different road types in Metropolisim with different lane compositions. Everything from two-lane streets to four-lane avenues to six-lane highways. You will see behavior that makes sense from your citizens as they move along their paths utilizing these different road types.

https://youtu.be/lWo9B7g-YbY
Yet another exciting feature I think you'll appreciate. In order to manage your traffic more efficiently you will have the ability to change a number of variables for each intersection in your city. These variables range all the way from the actual type of intersection itself down to the timing and pattern of the traffic lights.

When they are constructed each individual intersection type will have a default "type" depending on the expected traffic volume on that road type. Examples of these include:

• 4-Way Intersection with Traffic Lights
  
• 4-Way Intersection with Stop Signs
  
• T-Intersection (cross-traffic does not stop)
  
• T-Intersection with Stop Signs
  
• etc.

These intersection types can be changed at your discretion to whatever you require to manage your road networks and to ensure the best flow of traffic through your city. Initially a quiet residential street may be best served by a 4-way intersection with stop signs. This will ensure residents don't have to wait too long when there may be very little traffic on the street. As that street grows over-time it may be re-zoned for medium or high-density residential. Once larger buildings begin construction there will be an influx of additional traffic. At that point you may want to change the intersections at each end of the street to be 4-way with traffic lights to better control the flow of traffic on the street.

Additionally, through inspecting the road type and bringing up the intersection panel you will be able to change the timing and pattern of traffic lights. This will be useful if you observe a street that has a significant amount of traffic flowing in one direction but not the other. If you have more traffic going north/south on a street than east/west you can set the traffic light to remain open for north/south traffic for twice the amount of time it remains open for east/west. This increased amount of time for traffic traveling north/south to flow through the intersection will alleviate potential traffic jams.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the level of detail that will be present in Metropolisim when it comes to intersection management. Hopefully this gets you thinking about all the exciting possibilities. More to come in the future.

Each road type will have a default maximum speed value at time of construction. These values can be tweaked within a clamped range of values to allow you to directly impact the flow of traffic within the city. However, keep in mind that faster traffic creates more traffic noise which directly impacts the happiness of citizens living on the streets you are modifying. So while you may be decreasing commute times for citizens who commute along those roads it will be important not to attempt to zone medium or higher wealth on high traffic and high-speed-limit streets as these citizens will quickly become unhappy.

Another feature I'd like to highlight to show just how in-depth I am going with traffic speed management is the implementation of school zones. Just like in real-life, schools will require cars to slow down as they pass by in order to protect the increased number of child pedestrians who will be present in the area surrounding the school. So plan accordingly. Probably best not to zone a school directly on an Avenue for example, as this slowdown on a main avenue will lead to increased commute times and unhappy citizens.
Just like in a real city emergency services should take priority over regular vehicles instead of getting stuck behind them. In Metropolisim police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances will cause vehicles in front of them to yield to them by moving to the side of the street allowing the emergency vehicle to pass by unimpeded when possible.

However, this will not be possible on congested roads or roads that are experiencing traffic jams. This is because other vehicles will not have the ability to move out of the way of emergency vehicles due to not having space. Another reason it is important to keep your traffic situation under control. If your emergency vehicles are not able to reach their destinations quickly it can lead to fires spreading, crimes escalating, and citizens dying. This can lead to a cascading amount of negative impacts on your city including everything from citizen unhappiness, to building destruction and abandonment as well as draining your budget.

One of the things I'm most proud of concerning the pathfinding algorithm in Metropolisim is how it determines which is the best path for citizens to use for each of their routes. One critical aspect of this is the differentiation between "shortest path" and "fastest path". Here is a definition of each:

• Shortest path - Least amount of tiles between start point and end point
  
• Fastest path - Most efficient route based on a number of factors including road types traveled and amount of tiles between start and end point

At first glance you might think that the shortest path is the best path but in the majority of cases it actually is not. An example of this would be traveling along a street vs. a highway. On a highway vehicles are able to travel at a higher rate of speed and with limited or no intersections which cause them unnecessary stops. On a street vehicles travel slower and are forced to stop at each intersection along the way.

Now imagine a scenario where a highway and street are running parallel to each other separated by five tiles and a citizen is attempting to travel 100 tiles from south to north on one of those road types. When the pathfinding logic is evaluating the options and trying to find the best path between either the street or highway it should be intelligent enough to know that highways are a more efficient means of travel. I accomplish this by assigning each road type a weight and performing calculations to return a value cost for each path option. The end result of this is that even if the street is closer to the starting point of the path the pathfinding algorithm will understand that it can simply travel 5 tiles further west and get on a highway to proceed the 100 tiles north that is required for the citizen.

This results in much more believable and realistic pathfinding and traffic patterns as citizens will prefer to use highways, avenues and one-way roads instead of surface streets.

I'm so excited about this.

https://youtu.be/8qkxyaclzvI
Finally, I'd like to talk about route views. In Metropolisim you have the ability to see the route any citizen is on at any time simply be inspecting or querying the citizen as they move through the world. Just two clicks of the mouse will get you into their Citizen Detail panel and then to the 'Show Route' button. This will draw their path on the screen.

This gives you the ability to get detailed information about the citizens who are using your roads, what they are using them for, how long it takes for them to reach their destinations, and how they are contributing to the overall traffic patterns in your city. This tool can be incredibly powerful as a Mayor and it also adds a level of depth and realism that I feel is really fun and exciting.

If you've made it this far thank you for reading all of this. As I've said numerous times I remain excited about the future of this game and committed to my vision of creating the most deeply complex city building game available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. We are inching slowly closer to Early Access release later this year but I believe me when I say I have many years of content planned for Metropolisim. New content will not end when we enter Early Access or even after 1.0 release.

If you haven't already please consider Pre-Ordering Metropolisim. 

Thank you again for your support. Signing off for now.

-Roy