Citybound – A city building game using actor-based distributed simulation

Highly complex, in-depth, system simulation is like a siren song for game developers and players alike. There's this perception that an amazing simulation will be the basis for an amazing game. In practice, high-quality simulations seem to be interesting but not all that fun. See: F.E.A.R.'s Goal-Oriented Action Planning (https://alumni.media.mit.edu/~jorkin/goap.html) which had to be modified to broadcast its intent to the player, because play-testers felt the game was unfair and that the A.I. was cheating. And…

Every city builder ignores something that most American planning ignores: mixed-use districts. The neighborhood bar. The grocery shop down by the corner. The bakery in a remodeled house. The multi-story apartment block with a couple restaurants on the ground floor. The plumbing business in an old warehouse completely surrounded by houses. The 150-year-old pastry shop that's been in its current location for fifty years and seen the neighborhood change around it. The run-down building whose owner has been letting it…