Cities: Skylines Gameboy Edition

Cities: Skylines demake for PC and MAC. Note, this is not a gameboy ROM, sadly.

In this game that was never made, relive childhood memories you may or may not even have of building a city in any way you want where everybody is included. Try to make the happiest citizens! 

The goal of this game is to do whatever you like, with an emphasis on being able to draw out what you want your city to look like like a paint program. I encourage you to experiment with the arrangement and layout of your city as there are no harsh penalties for trying different things. 

Features:

• Cozy sandbox city-builder gameplay with no punishments
• Progression from tiny hamlet to huge metropolis based on population size
• Gameboy aesthetics (160*144 resolution and 4 color palette)
• The ability to change the color palette to various Pride colors (L,G,B,T, NB, ACE, etc.)
• Lots of different types of buildings and constructions to choose from in each of 16 categories 
• Dynamic stats from constructions that keep track of money, population, happiness, utilities, transit, and public services/space.
  

Detailed information about the mechanics: 

Unlike other city builder games, you do not need to place a building next to a road in order to gain its benefits. This means you only have to place it for its effects to take place.

The main drivers of economic activity are farms, low through high density buildings, and heavy industry. Instead of being divided by R, C, I and so on, mixed use areas are emphasized, that is buildings of various uses like shops, houses, light industry, and so on next to one another instead of discrete districts for each type of activity. In order to afford the other things your city needs, you need plenty of these types of buildings. 

The other things you might consider are your utility, transit, and public services ratings. These determine how accessible those things are in your city. Utilities (represented by a thunderbolt and waterdrop) can be increased by placing utility buildings such as power and water facilities. Landmarks increase public services (represented by a little government building) via things like parks, monuments, and schools. Lastly is transit (represented by a bus) which can be increased through roads, rail, airports, or ports. Each of these options have their own benefits and drawbacks, like railroads being able to move more people and thus giving you a higher score.  

You can also place vehicles (the last option in the build menu), but right now they are not animated yet. I'll add that later on. 

Overall happiness (the little happy face ^u^) is represented as a percentage (0-100) and is a good shorthand for how well everything is going on in your city. If there are plenty of the various things your citizens need, they will be happy. Increasing the size of your city by gaining ranks also increases happiness. There are 10 ranks, unlocked every 100 new citizens. 

You can use backspace or escape to enter the main menu. You can also press escape again to exit a menu. 

Once you achieve the status of metropolis, there is only sandbox gameplay. 

If your money goes negative, this is ok! There is no punishment for being super far in the negative. Try playing around with what increases your revenue and what decreases it. If this distresses you, you can always start with a blank city! 

This game was made for the Slime Salad Ridiculous Games Contest 2023. More info about this jam can be found here: 
https://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=142177 

If you enjoyed this game and have any suggestions on how to make it better or would like to see more games like it, please let me know with a comment or review! 

Let's build a community where all living things can thrive together in harmony! 

Have fun building!