[Darth-Apple]

So I've always been a huge fan of the Simcity franchise. Unfortunately, the new Simcity has apparently had a lot of older fans disappointed, and I haven't really had the money to shell out on it to give it a shot yet. (Some people really love it, but apparently that's mostly newer players of the franchise, and it isn't really anything like the older versions of the game.) Cities XL wasn't bad, but it's starting to become a bit outdated and due to some bugs, it never became as popular as games such as SC4 did.

It seems that some new indie gamers and programmers have been independently working on some new interesting projects in recent years. I doubt that an indie game would overnight become as advanced as Cities XL was, but hey, it's interesting seeing what people can come up with. In particular, Banished was recently released, which looks interesting. Although I haven't tried it myself yet, the reviews for it have been great so far. (The concept isn't quite the same as what you'd expect to see in a traditional simcity game. It's more of a survival kind of a game, but it's neat to see something unique. )

Project Avalon is also a browser based project that looks very interesting over at Simtropolis. I've been following the project since its earlier stages of development, and the developer is doing a fantastic job on it so far. With it being browser based, compatibility won't be as much of an issue either, although I imagine the graphical complexity will be a bit limited in the long run. Hey, it means that the simulation will end up being the focus, so I can't complain. I think it's a brilliant idea personally.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on the indie market for city simulation games? For the other fans of the Simcity franchise out there, what would you like to see happen in this particular corner of the gaming market?

[simlink]

I seriously love the look of Project Avalon. It looks extremely promising.

[CapTon]

Citybound has amazing potential as well I'm loving how that's turning out.

[Darth-Apple]

City bound has quite a bit of hype going for it, but I wasn't particularly impressed last time I looked at it. Now that I think about it, it seems that they are going more for a bottom up approach, so if they continue work on it, it could be a pretty impressive option in the future. So far it seems they have been working more on the less glamorous framework stuff.

[CapTon]

I just think that they haven't added onto the graphics too much yet I bet they will in the near future.

[Guardian]

Project Avalon died, then rebooted, then died again.
Reboot thread:
https://community.simtropolis.com/forums...17-now-3d/

Citybound still seems to be going though: http://cityboundsim.com/devblog

[Darth-Apple]

Wait you're a simtropolis member?! That was I think the very first ever forum that I ever joined. Oh, the memories!

I actually vaguely remember both projects. I was pretty surprised at how far they had gotten with only one person developing them.

[Guardian]

Wait you're a simtropolis member?! That was I think the very first ever forum that I ever joined. Oh, the memories!

I actually vaguely remember both projects. I was pretty surprised at how far they had gotten with only one person developing them.

Never a member, always a lurker. Same as I was here for a while. It took a lot to get me to actually register for things back in the day.

I found Citybound separately somehow, but I've had the devblog bookmarked for years and check in periodically. I'm not sure I'll ever play it.

[Darvince]

https://aeplay.org/citybound-devblog/int...ive-builds

Citybound seems to finally be making progress after years of stagntion. Although from what I hear there was a rewrite to allow the game to have more complexity some time around 2017ish?

[Guardian]

https://aeplay.org/citybound-devblog/int...ive-builds

Citybound seems to finally be making progress after years of stagntion. Although from what I hear there was a rewrite to allow the game to have more complexity some time around 2017ish?

Interesting...

I was following it for years, but gave up waiting on it a few years ago. Can't wait to see what they've come up with!

[zoldos]

Simcity 5 is one of the best simulation games of the genre. I love it! My only complaint is the size of the map is a bit small. But shit, they outdid themselves with this game! I've also played (and own) Cities XL and XXL, Banished, and Cities Skylines, and they just don't compare.

[SpookyZalost]

well... I do like SC5/sc2013's addon pack... I just love future cities

however as someone who's been playing city simulators for a very long time (I started with simcity 2000 and simcity classic back in the late 90's.).. I have to say as nice as it was to have arcologies back, I rather liked the region play of sc4, and for the first while sc2013 had that unfortunate always online requirement... it's so annoying that so many things require that now.