Hallo,

I am working on a game and I want to make a city builder. I have already programmed the basics (road system, building placement etc) but now I have to make a critical disign choice. To make this choice I wanted some feedback from other gamers and gamedevolopers who are familiar (or not familiar) with this genre and hear what they havent seen in this genre and would really want to see happen in a city builder game.
For the moment the only thing that is certain is that the game will be a 2D isometric game (like the old school simcity but modernised). This is a screenshot of the current game, art is temporary and will change.I also would like to have some PvE elements like 'RimWorld' or 'They are billions'.

If you have any suggestion please leave a comment or write something on the discord of the game (https://discord.gg/8NBTUkn).

Ps if you want to by join my project just leave a message on the discord.

4 minutes ago, Gilles Meiresonne said:

but now I have to make a critical disign choice.

So, what's the critical design choice you are trying to make?

Also, you're .png link requires a login..

3 minutes ago, Septopus said:

So, what's the critical design choice you are trying to make?

Just overall direction of the game. Like focus (trafic, city design, combat...), setting (historic, present, post-apoc) and gerenal gameplay.

Btw how do I make the png available.

9 minutes ago, Gilles Meiresonne said:

Just overall direction of the game. Like focus (trafic, city design, combat...), setting (historic, present, post-apoc) and gerenal gameplay.

Btw how do I make the png available.

Those are very broad categories, perhaps you can narrow it down to specific things from those categories? 

You can upload the .png directly to here, or post it somewhere that doesn't require a login.

If you are just looking for general feedback, then we'll need to see at least a few pictures and/or you'll have to explain in some greater detail exactly where you are at and what specific things you are wanting feedback on. 

Without knowing how you "want to approach" these topics, it's hard to give you feedback on them. 

It also seems like you are having trouble picking a theme/sub-genre for your game.  These are basic design decisions and without knowing how you would like to proceed, it's very difficult to give feedback that might be useful.

So I would recommend that you decide formally on what you would like the "focus", "setting" and general game-play elements to be, and then you should get much more helpful feedback on those things. 

These 3 topics pretty much cover the entire design of a game, and without knowing the direction you are trying to take, it's hard to give you input.

For example:

If you are focusing on city design, in a historic setting, with a bunch of social behaviors as your main game-play elements.  The feedback will be entirely different than if you wanted to focus on Combat in a futuristic-post-apocalyptic setting with weapons manufacturing and defense building game-play elements.

I see the image now, that looks pretty cool.  Looks like a good starting point.  Now, what do you really want it to become?

Thanks for to reply,

For the moment I don't have much more than this screenshot, the game is still in very early development.
I have my own vision for the game, but i wanted to hear from some people what they would like to see to maybe add to my idea. It might have been better if I explained that better.

My current view for the game is some post-apocalyptic setting where you start an early settlement to rebuild a society but you have to defend your town from scavengers and mutants. Resource gettering would also be implemented, but would not be the main focus. The focus would be general city simulation and stratigic defence.

Sorry for the misunderstanding

No worries there, sounds like you have a pretty good idea where you want to go with it. 

I like the idea, sounds like something I would play. 

Is there something specific you're unsure about how to implement?  I would say, just go for it and just start building it according to YOUR vision, everybody has ideas and opinions, but this is YOUR game.  

If you have trouble implementing or figuring out how to implement some of these ideas/mechanics there are tons of folks here who can help with that.

51 minutes ago, Gilles Meiresonne said:

My current view for the game is some post-apocalyptic setting where you start an early settlement to rebuild a society but you have to defend your town from scavengers and mutants. Resource gettering would also be implemented, but would not be the main focus. The focus would be general city simulation and stratigic defence.

Are you suggesting a city builder with tower defence mechanics?

1 hour ago, Guy Fleegman said:

Are you suggesting a city builder with tower defence mechanics?

Kind of. I was thinking to do something like Clash of Clans, or like They are Billions. But need to find a right way of implemening it to keep a balance between defence and general city simulating.

34 minutes ago, Gilles Meiresonne said:

Kind of. I was thinking to do something like Clash of Clans, or like They are Billions. But need to find a right way of implemening it to keep a balance between defence and general city simulating.

What if you treated the "inside city walls" and "outside city walls" as separate game simulations unless the walls get torn down or damaged.  Then you could more or less allow the player to decide which game-play they feel like participating in at the moment.  If they want to fight and gather resources then they can go outside the city.  Of they want to focus on building, stay inside.  Then you could have breaches and wall damage act like natural disasters in SIM games.  Forcing the player to respond at random times.

Just some ideas.

Hey Gilles,

From your screenshot and what you've described, I see a very simplistic city builder as the foundation for the game. At first, your people just go out and gather/scavenge for food and water, but then those things become integrated into the city as farms and wells. Traffic would be the people walking to and from, delivering the resources around... as well as patrolling guards, builders, etc. You'd need homes, farms, walls, barracks, etc. Paths (roads) take time to make, but allow for faster travel, otherwise people walk slowly through the landscape as they see fit. Players get to control how many people are recruited for certain jobs, but you never directly control them. You choose what and where to build things, but how effective they become depends on the availability of resources and the traffic congestion levels. I think if players controlled the people, it might be too similar to classic Warcraft, but keeping the game-play similar to SimCity with a simple resource gathering component, might be more interesting.

And then, of course, there would be dealing with attacks on your city. These moments would create the chaos needed to make city design and upgrade choices a constant mix of do I build/layout for defense or expansion. Build too much and your hard work is destroyed, but defend too much and the strength of the attacks become overwhelming. These attacks would take the form of tribal warfare, resource stealing, sabotaging your paths and buildings, poisoning grain and water, mother nature, etc. The frequency of conflict is key.

As far as a post-apocalyptic setting goes, would people be inhabiting old ruined cities? How much technology survived? Is it back to the stone age, but with mohawks and sunglasses? Would vehicles play into it, like Mad Max? Do the people need entertainment, like brothels and gladiator arenas? Are you the "mayor" of this city?

Anyway, this is all just food for thought. Personally, I like the idea of a simulation over a typical RTS. Watching a city evolve in somewhat unpredictable ways on it's own has a lot of appeal to me, especially if the remnants of certain things lingered long afterwards. Dead bodies littering the fields, burnt farm lands and forests, land turn up a bit from an earthquake. Seeing the story of your survival in the landscape itself, basically. And that's all I got.