Good Authority

NEWS, 22 May 2024

As you may have guessed, unfortunately we never got around to finishing the prototype. 

I've unlocked the original 2016 jam build for download if you're curious. It might be buggy, or not fun, or even entirely broken -- especially the Mac build. Sorry in advance.

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a city simulation game about the most prolific urban planner ever

by Robert Yang @radiatoryang (art, game design, game code) and Eddie Cameron @eddiecameron (systems design, simulation code)

This is a one-act prototype for a much larger five-act game that would attempt to cover the major periods of Robert Moses' life.

Act I would cover his initial Long Island parkway projects and beach projects and introduce a park building mechanic. Act II (this demo) covers roughly 1934-1936, when Moses first took power as NYC Parks Commissioner and TBA Chairman. Act III would cover blah blah blah etc, etc, etc.

Some design pillars for this game:

• Resist the implicit crypto-fascism of SimCity by depicting and simulating the consequences of "urban renewal", and the city will resist your changes. A city sandbox-style game with political friction.
• Give shape to Moses' historical rise to power and relationships, such as the love-hate with Mayor LaGuardia and animosity with President FDR. Think of it as historical fiction.
• Let the player unknowingly rehearse many of Moses' tendencies: to constantly read memos and work in his car, to mindlessly rubber-stamp memos and give approvals, to imagine the city as a "miniature model" to be modified on his whim, to build "traffic machines" that funnel traffic through toll booths to power the TBTA, to think of a city as a machine for cars.
• Simplify the city sim genre and emphasize narrative aspects that takes advantage of common "it's your city!!!" genre traditions.
• Sprinkle with historical and period details about New York City. Unfortunately I only got around to modeling only like 5 landmarks, but imagine there were more like 50!!!

(If you're interested, you can also read about more of the process here and there.)

FINISHEDNESS: We ran out of time with everything, and tried to sew up the gaps as much as we could, etc. sorry in advance... there's quite a few little interface bugs everywhere

RUNTIME: 1-2 hours, but of course don't feel obliged to play the whole thing. Unfortunately, you'll have to play it all in one go, though -- we didn't have time to implement a save system, sorry.

NOTES FOR PLAYING: You'll need a mouse and keyboard, and sound provides important UI cues. If the game runs slowly, go to the game menu and disable shadows, or try a lower resolution in the game launcher. (The game is a bit taxing on a Macbook Air)