City Next is an innovative urban developer that combines various elements such as the industrial management of „Anno“ like games and the urban development of other citybuilders. The player takes control of the planning and design of a city. The core elements are the combination of collecting and managing resources and urban planning to create a system that works smoothly.
Urban development
- Plan a smooth road network (free planning, no basic grid)
- Building infrastructure and supply buildings
- Define residential areas and meet the needs of the population (health, food supply, consumer goods, safety, leisure, reduction of pollution, …)
- The inhabitants can rise in the ranks of prosperity
- Higher-ranking residents are more demanding in terms of consumer goods and needs
- Administration of the city’s finances
- Enjoy the hustle and bustle of your city
- Adapt your own buildings
Industry and supply chain management
- Construct buildings for raw material extraction
- refining raw materials into more complex products to meet the needs and growth of your city
- Define routes for transporting various goods to where they are needed
- Exploring new technologies
- Organise trade with other cities
Content
- Innovative City Builder that combines different game elements in a new way.
- Creative and strategic approach to create a thriving city.
- A vibrant metropolis designed according to the player’s ideas
- City Next combines the industrial management of „Anno“ like games and the urban development of other citybuilders.
Core Concept
- The player takes control of the planning and design of a city. The combination of collecting and managing resources and city planning to create the best running system possible are the core elements of the game idea
Mechanics
- By constructing buildings for the extraction of raw materials, new or refined materials or goods can be produced, which in turn are needed for other buildings or for the inhabitants. The player follows personal preferences in design and growth of his city.
- On an initially undeveloped landscape, residential buildings and the necessary infrastructure such as electricity and water supply or roads can be built. Residential buildings are built on corresponding residential zones. Depending on the nature of the zone, larger buildings or even skyscrapers can be built.
- Examples:
- Creation of infrastructure (road construction, transport routes for goods)
- extraction and production of raw materials, building materials and other goods
- Meeting the needs of the inhabitants (health, safety, leisure, pollution reduction, food supply, consumer goods, etc.)
- trade with neighbouring cities
- Research and legislation
- Manage the city’s finances
- Achieving milestones unlocks access to new and higher-value buildings and technologies
- City Next combines resource management and value chains with infrastructure planning and construction of buildings.
- Free urban planning, no basic grid on which to build
- Freely plannable road layouts
- complex raw material system, which will be activated bit by bit
- Lively city, where movement is the order of the day and motor vehicles drive around
- complex financial system
features
Residents
- Up to several million inhabitants possible
- Residents demand resources and services
- 5 population classes
- higher classes of the population demand high-quality goods and services
- min. 20000 person models with animation can be displayed simultaneously in one scene
Resources
- 50 different resources
- Production of raw materials
- Forwarding companies transport goods to the companies
- Construction of production chains
Buildings
- min. 20000 buildings possible
- Freely placeable buildings
- Animation when placing new buildings
- Buildings have animations and particle effects after placement (e.g. smoke from chimneys)
- Buildings are constructed with an individual scaffold in each case
- Farms for vegetables, fruit, wheat… can have individual shapes
- 2 different building modes for farms
- Warehouses for raw materials, intermediate products and consumer goods
- Detailed building status, 3D view
- Demolish several buildings und farms simultaneously
- Buildings fall apart when they are demolished
- Buff buildings, which give bonuses to buildings in the vicinity (stackable according to research)
- Wind turbines react to wind changes (e.g. turning into the wind)
Vehicles
- Residents drive to work with their car (later local transport system)
- min. 5000 vehicles can be calculated.
- Vehicles search the fastest way to the destination (modified A* algorithm)
- Lane changes on multi-lane roads (e.g. overtaking slower vehicles)
Zones
- Define living and office zones. Buildings are placed on zones by the AI. Environmental conditions can influence which buildings can be placed on the zones.
- Designate zones (Animation)
- 5 zone steps
- larger buildings or skyscrapers are built on higher quality zones
- 2 different building modes for zones (draw, pipette)
- Waste stored in waste zones (Animation waste mountains)
Infrastructure
- Freely placeable streets and buildings (no grid)
- 4 different construction modes for roads (straight, bent, free, draw)
- Building roads with different numbers of lanes
- Bridges
- One-way streets
- Road crossings can take any shape
- Traffic islands are created at road crossings
- Upgrade and downgrade of streets
- Demolish several streets at once
- Traffic Management
- Purchase of transport vehicles,
- Transport vehicles supply companies with goods and collect produced goods
- Define transport vehicles with your own paint scheme
- Water supply (building water pipes), water towers and pumps
Environment
- Urban area has an extension of 14 x 14 km = 196 km^2
- Map has several resource occurrences
- The urban development area can be expanded by purchasing additional areas
- Environmental conditions improve or worsen the attractiveness of the city
- Trade with neighbouring cities
- +10000 Land animals and birds
- Aircraft and ship
- Terraforming (voxel, versatile tools e.g. tunnel digging)
Progress
- Region map (selection of a new city)
- Achievement of milestones and thus also access to newer buildings and technologies
- Research (new buildings, improvements, etc.)
- Passing laws (causing costs)
- Missions within a game
Effects
- Animated menus
- Day/night change
- Wind and weather effects
- When wind turns or changes its strength, grass reacts
Interface
- Many statistics give an overview of the city
- Filter menu shows, among other things, raw material deposits in the city area and services of e.g. fire brigade, hospitals, schools
- 3 camera modes (standard, free and photo)
- Tooltips (texts, videos)
- Tips appear during various actions
- Event notifications
- With the button „Pipette“ a building can be clicked and copied
- Particle system for menus (e.g. fireworks when reaching a milestone)
- Highlighting and description of objects when the mouse hovers over them
- Resources show small green or red arrows if the amount of resources is increasing or decreasing lately
- City, mayor, persons, streets, companies have individual names
- Renaming of names (city, mayor, persons, streets, companies)
- Tutorial (with text, symbols, voice output, videos and highlighting of controls)
- City Next easily translatable into other languages (.xml file plain text readable)
- Own language files can be added
- Extended option for individual game adjustments
- in addition to the options menu, the performance can be fine-tuned in the config file (all plain text readable)
- Font, font size, color can be changed in the continuous text (can be defined in the XML language files)
- Integrate images in continuous text (definable in XML language files)
- erweiterte Tipps während des Spiadvanced tips displayed during save game loading
Miscellaneous
- Adjustable difficulty level with 8 different parameters from beginner to pro for individual gaming experience
- 6 different game objectives (after reaching the game objectives, the game can be continued)
- Taking out a loan when money is tight
- Save and load city
- Exploring your own city by car
- Evacuate entire quarters
- Drawing soil textures
- Individual objects can be placed for the design of the city
- Photo mode
- Vegetation
- Underwater view
- Building Editor
- Vehicle Editor
- Road Editor
- Simply Modbar
Link Features-Liste EN
Link Features-Liste DE
Technical details
- Unreal Engine 4
- Programming languages: UE4 Blueprints and C++
- Multithread optimized simulation
- Path finding modified A* algorithm
- City Next is programmed data-driven. This means that all game parameters can be changed with XML files. No programming knowledge necessary
- XML files for language, buildings, vehicles, people, streets, notifications, names, laws, symbols, building menu, milestones, meshes, … (content may be modified by players)
- +1000% fast city collision class developed (multithread support, Unreal Engine 4 collisions are less suitable for many changing objects)
PLATFORMS
City Next is being developed for the PC. Other platforms are possible. Unreal Engine 4 supports all major consoles, Apple and Linux.
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