Microlandia is a "brutally honest" scion of SimCity that thinks of cities as "beautiful but insane machines"

Microlandia deserves a much longer article, preferably written by our resident virtual metropolis judger Sin Vega. For the moment, I will only say that it’s a work-in-progress city-builder fuelled by a poetical mixture of admiration and terror for cities.

This is the impression given by the developer’s changelogs, anyway. Here, for example, is how they describe Microlandia update 1.4 on Itch.io, which makes adjustments to the game’s economy, company management and public transport simulation: “A city is a beautiful, but insane machine that survives always in homeostasis and always in chaos. In 1.4 you get a little less narrative, a little more reality, the structures of everyday life exposed, greed companies, economy that doesn’t forgive, even the broke. The night mode is a pleasant anesthesia; use it, but do not confuse ambience with robustness.”

I will try not to, Information Superhighway Games. I will try not to confuse ambience with robustness.

Microlandia hit 1.0 release over December, so yes, we are playing Jenny Catch-Up here. In general, it looks to deliver a “brutally honest” rendition of city life and management. It executes the chemistry and causality of the urban human experience with chilly exactitude. Citizens are capable of falling not just into, but out of love. Imagine that. Imagine making it possible for your pops to undergo heartbreak. They also risk being fired if they show up late for work, perhaps because you’ve screwed up the bus timetables, and if they can’t find a job, they’ll turn to crime.

The mechanics go beyond pegging out residences, workplaces and leisure facilities while staying in budget. This is a mean town indeed. Landlords are greedy and will raise the rent when accommodation is scarce. Rich folk will embrace their opportunities without qualm: as an older Itch.io update explains, “high-net-worth citizens will rent only low-density housing, and along with the upper class get NIMBY vibes and avoid buildings with disapproval aura.”

You’ll have to worry about pandemics, heatwaves, and compensating people for rezoning. There’s a local newspaper that tracks your decisions and does not spare the lash; if you reap some bad headlines, your budget may be reduced.

As developer explodi explains in last year’s announcement post, Microlandia is both a homage to and a critique of the classic SimCity. “I always wondered what will happen in simcity if citizens live or die because of the many real reasons that determine the length of our lives here on earth,” they write. “Life expectancy, accidents, bad health system, or the lack of access to it. This statistics exist [sic], and we can use the power of new technology [to] create more realistic simulations.”

The game’s mechanics draw on study of research shared by the World Bank, US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US Environmental Protection Agency, National Equity Atlas and the Center for Urban Future, among others. They’re keeping track of all these sources in a colossal live document, auto-generated from the game’s code. If you’re proper nerdy about this stuff, I imagine you will have Opinions on the facts and figures therein. Do tell. You can also find Microlandia on Steam.