city-building games

     A city-building game, or town-building game, is a subgenre of construction and management game where players act as the overall planner and leader of a city or town, looking down on it from above, and being responsible for its growth and management strategy. Players choose building placement and city management features such as salaries and work priorities, and the city develops accordingly.

    The city-building game genre was established in 1989 with SimCity, which emphasized continuous building rather than a set victory condition. Players followed personal preferences in design and growth. Indicators of success were maintaining positive budget balance and citizen satisfaction.

     The first sim game, Utopia (1982) developed for the Mattel Intellivision console system, covered many of these same elements, but was limited by the primitive screen resolutions of its era. Unlike the thousands of individual spaces possible a few years later in SimCity, each island in Utopia held only 29 "buildable" spaces for schools, factories and other constructions. The player's score was based on the well-being of his people.

      A second boost in the popularity of the genre came in 1993 with the release of various games. Including The Settlers, which is set in medieval times and simulates a complex settlement and economic system, which was revolutionary at the time. It started a series that has continued ever since. In the same year, a blockbuster game which modeled cities in ancient Rome was published: Caesar. Subsequent titles in the City Building Series followed, all simulating cities in past civilizations. Another development trend is the increased popularity for city building games by independent developers, like the 2019 Islanders or the 2020 release Townscaper with their simple, intuition-based gameplay.

Wikipedia contributors. "City-building game." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 15 Jan. 2023.

List of City-Building Games