You know I like to mix things up on my blog, that means whenever I get a new idea, I try it out! If you don’t know what this post will be about, it’s me, basically, playing a game and sharing the progress. Steam summer sales ended and of course I grabbed some games from my wish list heavily price reduced. One of the games is Cities Skylines, a city simulation or city builder game. I played this already in the past when Steam offered a free weekend to play the game, but now I really own it. I did do a lot of sports over the last weeks, and I thought it’s time to think about gaming again too. I wanted to play something, but not something where I have to perform contortions. Simulations are much more relaxing and with that in mind I started to create a city that I called Riverbank and I welcome you to take a look. This will be more of a funny and fictional post. I took some screenshots and applied black and white filters to them to make them look a bit like retro photos…
Riverbank is the city where we take renewable energy and livability serious, that is at least the plan. We did set up some high-tech wind turbines with solar panels. Further we wanted to have the best and cleanest water and we achieved this with a high-tech water treatment plant. Apart from that we built a super long street that leads to an industrial area, so that our citizens don’t have to smell the exhaust gas pollution. We had to break the bank and paid in advance but that is no problem because our constantly growing population paid it already back (laugh)! As the mayor and urbanist of Riverbank, I am so proud about the city layout that I had to task a pilot to take some areal photos of the city…
Of course we just started out, and there is still room to grow. Currently there are 3717 citizens and we get 2 tourists per week and I’d wager my boots on it that they tell the family and friends how awesome the stay was. Is this new city an insider tip? Only those who came here can tell! To be on the safe side, we built a three-way highway through the middle of the city, but don’t worry, in case your hotel is nearby, in the inner-city the highway has a sound barrier that will make you sleep well…
We don’t have a lot of problems in Riverbank, but owners of stores in the commercial areas complain that they can’t find enough educated workers, but only mayors understand that things take time. Once we have enough schools and universities, it could happen that they complain about applicants demanding too much money and extras. There is not much more to tell, only time will tell if there will be more challenges…
Of course, we do also have postcards in colour
Index
Let’s Play Cities Skylines… Welcome to Riverbank – Part 1
Let’s Play Cities Skylines… Welcome to Riverbank – Part 2
Diary of Dennis 
How does your city pay it’s way Dennis? Just from residential and commercial taxes? The sustainable options often seem to cost more in Sim City. I keep on trying to build cities with parks and trees and wind power but inevitably I end up having to invite a casino to set up shop for a cash injection.
Yes, currently only from residential, commerical taxes. Looks like I balanced it somewhat and I make an income right now. I do already have an elementary school and a college, but I think the trouble that my offices complain is because I still don’t have an university. Put if I would build the university now, I would start to make minus. There is still a lot of stuff that I can’t afford at the moment. I remember when I played it during the free Steam weekend there were also toll houses in the game. I want to set some up soon but I remember this can mess up traffic 🙂 Also I don’t have a metro, bus stations, airport or ferries yet, that’s where I can earn later too. And touristic income is shows in the economy screen, but my two tourists per day don’t make me money yet 🙂 I can push policies too, like the gambling you mentioned. So, all this is very similar ito Sim City.
What I like more about Cities Skylines is that there are tons of user-modifications in the Steam Workshop. I downloaded plants, decals, new buildings and a mod that is called “First Person View” which allows me to be passanger in any car, following a passant or roaming through the streets of my city manually. Endless supply of user content, that’s really cool. 🙂
It sounds like a cool game. I might have to check it out.
Very addictive, I almost couldn’t stop yesterday 🙂 I was totally amazed when I placed a dam, I forgot to make it working and the river water did dam up and flooded some of my areas which later became deserts when the water dried up… on the other side the river completely dried up because of the not working energy producing dam. Some cool physics and details in the game 😀 I also tried to create canals yesterday, this is fun too but difficult 🙂 Next time I play I will have to fix some issues that I caused 😀
I’ve never seen Cities: Skylines in grainy black & white before. That really works! These are great photos.
Yes, the best one was the grainy b&w filter on the bridge photo, but the same filter didn’t work out well for the other photos, which is why I tried different b&w settings there. The idea was a bit inspired, because back then I posted screenshots of Battlefield 1 that another user shared on social media… He made the Battlefield 1 screenshots black and white too and the results were much more mindblowing. I was fascinated how just a b&w filter can remove the typical catoony look and make things look more real in the screenshot: https://diaryofdennis.com/2016/08/09/this-is-how-battlefield-1-looks-like-in-black-and-white/
I shall watch your progress. I’ve been hoping to find something that brings back echoes of the long-demised SimCity. I love building. I always found it very relaxing and I love that there are no battles to fight.
Then this game is really for you. It’s very similar to SimCity 🙂