Cities: Skylines - a computer game in the genre of urban simulation , developed by the Finnish company and published by Paradox Interactive on March 10, 2015.
| Cities: Skylines | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer |  Colossal order |
| Publisher |  Paradox Interactive |
| Date of issue | March 10, 2015 |
| Latest version | 1.12.1-f2 / 21 May 2019 |
| Genre | urban simulation |
| Creators | |
| Composer | |
| Technical details | |
| Platforms | Windows , Mac OS X , Linux , Xbox One , PlayStation 4 , Nintendo Switch |
| Game engine | Unity |
| Game mode | single user |
| Interface language | Russian , English , French , German , Spanish , Polish , Brazilian Portuguese |
| Carriers | digital distribution DVD |
| Control | keyboard, mouse; gamepad |
Content
Gameplay
As in most games of the urban genre, in Cities: Skylines the main task of the player is to build his own city . The player is engaged in the planning of development zones, road allocation, taxation , organizes the work of city services and public transport . During this, the player needs to maintain the level of the city budget, population, health, happiness, employment, environmental pollution (air, water and soil), the flow of car traffic and other factors.
The game starts with a plot of land 4 km² (2 by 2 kilometers), a small supply of money and a set of initial planning tools. The map is a land area with possible access to the sea or other water resources . It already has the main motorways and railways through which new residents will arrive in the player’s city.
The player marks the development zones (residential, commercial, office, and industrial areas), arranges the laying of roads, water supply and sewage , electrifies the city. Gradually, with the development of the city and population growth, new buildings ( schools , hospitals , police and fire stations, landfills ) and new tools (control of expenses and incomes, creation of districts) become available. Using the tools for creating and managing districts, a player can unite parts of a city into single districts and set different districts for these districts (for example, supporting small businesses or raising taxes for the population). Industrial areas can be assigned various specializations ( agriculture , mining , etc.). In the new updates for residential, commercial and business, new specializations also appear (autonomous houses (residential areas), sale and purchase of natural products (commercial areas), specialization in high technologies (business areas).
Buildings in the city have different levels of development, which increase when certain requirements are met (improving the quality of service, level of education or health care, and land value).
With the expansion of the city, the player can buy neighboring plots of land on which he can continue construction. To organize the movement of residents in a big city, it is possible to create a system of urban public transport ( buses , trams , monorails , airships , as well as ferry and metro ). You can connect your city with other cities of the state by rail, air travel or sea transport. This will ensure the development of trade and the influx of tourists .
The game is open for modifications - an API is built into the game for creating modifications in C # . Users can add new models of buildings and vehicles, as well as change the game process itself (increase the allowable game zone, change the game view from a single person view, automate some elements of the game).
Like most games of this genre, Cities: Skylines does not have any ultimate goal, and a player can develop his city without any time limits.
Development
The development of the game was carried out in the studio Colossal Order with the participation of 13 people [1] . This studio previously worked on Cities in Motion , a city transport simulator. From the construction of transport systems, the developers decided to proceed to the creation of a full-fledged city-planning simulator. The basis of the new game, they took the graphics engine Cities in Motion. In fact, the developers expanded the gameplay in the game to be able to build buildings and roads from scratch [2] .
The development of the simulator began back in 2009 and was rather sluggish, partly due to skepticism about the sales of the future game, as the SimCity series of games dominated the gaming market. Initially, the developers of Cities: Skylines focused on the political aspect of city management, rather than on its planning. The player had to think through laws and regulations for the development of the city. However, the publisher of Paradox Interactive felt that this idea could not become competitive.
Everything changed after the sale of the latest version of SimCity in 2013 turned out to be a complete failure, which gave the green light for the Cities: Skylines project [3] . The developers focused on the problems of modeling the city. They paid special attention to road design and city traffic. A complex system was created that imitated the movement of citizens taking into account existing roads and public transport. In the process of movement, this system determined the fastest route. The developed model demonstrated with great accuracy the efficiency of urban transport.
Release
Downloadable Content
Cities: Skylines offers DLC and expansion packs . Below is a list of the main add-ons provided by the developers.
| Title | release date | Description |
|---|---|---|
| After dark | September 24, 2015 | First introduced at Gamescom 2015, After Dark adds unique new buildings, including a casino and luxury hotel, as well as settings for tourism and leisure specialization. [4] Its release coincided with a free patch, adding a daily cycle to the game. [five] |
| Snowfall | February 18, 2016 | Adds snowy weather and other winter-themed elements to the game, as well as trams. [6] [7] Along with this release, a free game update has been added by the theme editor. This feature brought new graphics options that allowed players to create visually different worlds, such as someone else’s landscape. These customized game cards could then be downloaded to Steam Workshop. |
| Match day | June 9, 2016 | It was a free DLC adding football stadiums. [eight] |
| Natural disasters | November 29, 2016 [9] | At Gamescom 2016, it was announced that the add-on would add natural disasters to the game. Other features: new radio stations and a script editor. [ten] |
| Mass transit | May 18, 2017 | It is an addition that adds various types of public transport to the game: buses, ferries, airplanes, airships and more. [11] [12] [13] |
| Concerts | August 17, 2017 | A mini-addition, “Concerts”, allows the player to place venues for concerts and festivals in his city, as well as pass laws related to them. [14] |
| Green cities | October 19, 2017 | The addition, introduced in August 2017, allows the player to implement principles related to sustainable development , such as solar panels, electric cars and other environmental improvements. [15] [16] |
| Parklife | May 24, 2018 | This add-on focuses on creating theme parks, zoos and gardens. Using the tool to create a park zone, the player can create large spaces for custom parks, and also allows you to place buildings along paths, and not just along roads. [17] New district policies, new assets and a new tour bus line were also added. [18] |
| Industries | October 23, 2018 | In this supplement, great emphasis is placed on industrial areas. Now you will have the opportunity to allocate resources and independently build production chains from raw materials to finished products. New factories and plants appear in four areas: agriculture, forestry, oil and mining. Also with the addition in the game there are five new cards, new policies and buildings, a post office and a commercial airport. [nineteen] |
| Campus | May 21, 2019 | There will be three unique types of campuses - a vocational technical school, a liberal arts college and a university. Each settlement will have to be improved, attracting new students, rebuilding buildings and raising fame. Especially interesting is the sports side of campuses, where you will need to create personal sports teams, buy coaches and arrange real competitions. |
It is also planned to release for iOS (iPhone and iPad) and on smartphones and tablets running Android .
Reviews and reviews
| Reviews | |
|---|---|
| Summary rating | |
| Aggregator | Rating |
| Gameranks | 86.49% [20] |
| Metacritic | 85/100 [21] |
| Foreign language editions | |
| Edition | Rating |
| Gamespot | 8/10 [22] |
| IGN | 8.5 / 10 [23] |
| PC Gamer (US) | 86/100 [24] |
| Russian-language editions | |
| Edition | Rating |
| PlayGround.ru | 9/10 [25] |
| Riot pixels | 75% [26] |
| gambling addiction | 9.0 / 10 [27] |
| Games Mail.Ru | 8.0 / 10 [28] |
Critics have given Cities: Skylines a warm welcome. The game has a high score of 8.9 on the Metacritic opinion aggregator site , on the GameRankings portal its rating is also quite high - 86.49%, which has gained popularity on Youtube .
After the release of the game, a large number of reviews appeared, which featured comparisons with other modern urban planning simulators in favor of Cities: Skylines . Reviewers note the understandable and logical laws of the functioning of the city in the game, the detailed management of development zones that have lost rigid boundaries within the rectangle [29] . The players liked the details of the lives of the townspeople themselves, which can be observed in their daily affairs [30] . Also in the press we find praise for the simple and understandable user interface and the ease of economic management of the city [31] .
The criticism of the simulator mainly includes claims to the lack of training and the difficulty of finding the cause of certain problems that arise in the city [32] . Among the shortcomings of Cities: Skylines , the reviews mention an unforeseen change of time of day and natural disasters that would diversify, according to critics, the routine plot [33] (which were later added as additions).
Notes
- ↑ Game Design Deep Dive: Traffic systems in Cities: Skylines . Gamasutra (March 27, 2015). Date of treatment March 27, 2015.
- ↑ Paul Dean. Cities: Skyline is out to satisfy where SimCity couldn't . Eurogamer (September 14, 2014). Date of treatment February 11, 2014.
- ↑ Livingstone, Christopher Cities: Skylines greenlit "after what happened to SimCity" . PC Gamer (March 19, 2015). Date of treatment March 19, 2015.
- ↑ Matulef, Jeffrey Cities: Skylines reveals After Dark DLC . Eurogamer (August 6, 2015). Date of treatment August 6, 2015.
- ↑ Cities Skylines: After Dark release date, price detailed . Eurogamer.net (August 20, 2015). Date of treatment December 17, 2015.
- ↑ Morrison, Angus Cities: Skylines Snowfall expansion announced . PC Gamer (January 19, 2016). Date of treatment January 19, 2016.
- ↑ Morrison, Angus Cities Skylines: Snowfall release date revealed . PC gamer . Future (February 3, 2016). Date of treatment February 3, 2016.
- ↑ Chalk, Andy Cities: Skylines free update adds theme editor, weather effects, and hats unopened . PC Gamer (February 10, 2016). Date of treatment February 10, 2016.
- ↑ Latest News - Cities: Skylines Issues a Disaster Warning for November 29 . Paradox Interactive . Date of treatment November 27, 2016.
- ↑ Purchase, Robert Natural Disasters are coming to Cities Skylines in a new expansion . Eurogamer (August 18, 2016). Date of treatment August 18, 2016.
- ↑ MacLeod, Riley Cities: Skylines will get a mass transit expansion . Kotaku (February 28, 2017). Date of treatment February 28, 2017.
- ↑ Faller, Patrick Cities: Skylines Mass Transit Expansion Gets New Trailer And Release Date . GameSpot (April 14, 2017). Date of appeal April 14, 2017.
- ↑ Newhouse, Alex Cities: Skylines DLC Out Today, Lets You Make A New Mass Transit System . GameSpot (May 18, 2017). Date of treatment May 18, 2017.
- ↑ Donnelly, Joe Turn your city into a stage with Cities: Skylines' Concerts expansion . PC Gamer (August 17, 2017). Date of treatment August 17, 2017.
- ↑ Scott-Jones, Richard Go vegan with the Cities: Skylines Green Cities expansion . PCGamesN (August 22, 2017). Date of treatment August 22, 2017.
- ↑ Liguori, Alice Cities: Skylines - Green Cities does an excellent job of spreading the vegan cause . PCGamesN (October 19, 2017). Date of appeal October 19, 2017.
- ↑ Tarason, Dominic Cities: Skylines aims to please all the people in Parklife . Rock, Paper, Shotgun (April 18, 2018). Date accessed May 10, 2018. Archived May 11, 2018.
- ↑ Wales, Matt Cities Skylines' next expansion lets you build your own theme parks, zoos, and more . Eurogamer (April 18, 2018). Date of circulation May 10, 2018.
- ↑ In Cities: Skylines, the Industrial Revolution Will (October 23, 2018).
- ↑ Cities: Skylines . GameRankings Date of treatment June 11, 2017.
- ↑ Cities: Skylines . Metacritic . Date of treatment June 11, 2017.
- ↑ Brett Todd. Cities: Skylines Review. Zoned in . GameSpot (March 12, 2015). Date of treatment June 29, 2015.
- ↑ Dan Stapleton. Cities: Skylines Review. Slicker Cities IGN (March 10, 2015). Date of treatment June 29, 2015.
- ↑ Christopher Livingston. Cities: Skylines . PC Gamer US (March 10, 2015). Date of treatment June 29, 2015.
- ↑ Evgeny Vasyutinsky. Finally, they built: a review of Cities: Skylines . PlayGround.ru (March 11, 2015). Date of treatment June 1, 2015.
- ↑ Vladimir Goryachev. Review of Cities: Skylines . Riot Pixels (March 17, 2015). Date of treatment January 2, 2016.
- ↑ Evgeny Baranov. Crossroads of three hundred roads. Overview of Cities: Skylines . Gambling (March 10, 2015). Date of treatment June 1, 2015.
- ↑ George Kurgan. Review of Cities: Skylines . Gaming Mail.Ru (March 19, 2015). Date of treatment June 1, 2015.
- ↑ Crossroads of three hundred roads. Overview of Cities: Skylines . Gambling (March 10, 2015). Date of treatment June 11, 2017. Archived June 11, 2017.
- ↑ CITIES: SKYLINES REVIEW unopened . IGN.com (March 10, 2015). Date of treatment June 11, 2017. Archived June 11, 2017.
- ↑ CITIES: SKYLINES REVIEW unopened . PCGAMER.com (March 10, 2015). Date of treatment June 11, 2017. Archived June 11, 2017.
- ↑ Cities: Skylines - work on other people's mistakes. Review . 3Dnews.ru (March 20, 2015). Date of treatment June 11, 2017. Archived June 11, 2017.
- ↑ Review of Cities: Skylines . RIOTPIXELS.com (March 17, 2015). Date of treatment June 11, 2017. Archived June 11, 2017.