Create City
Description
Create City is a game in which the player builds cities and manages the financial and food resources needed to sustain them. It is a later version of Build City with improved graphics and additional missions.
This is a much simpler game than Sim City with which it will inevitably be compared. The player starts with a blank piece of ground onto which are placed roads, only when a road has been placed can the player can build houses. I in this game the first houses are tents but these upgrade into apartment blocks as the city grows. The more houses in the city then more people can live there however for the city to grow the player must create farms to feed them and public buildings such as schools, taverns and churches to nurture them. The creation of nearby public buildings is the trigger for tented accommodation to become an apartment block which in turn leads to more people living in the city.
Building structures costs money and public buildings incur a maintenance cost. The only way in which revenue can be raised is via a tax on the city's residents but if taxes are too high the city will not grow and people may actually leave. In some missions food and gold are provided by the king so the player does not necessarily have to raise taxes and feed their population, while in others the player must manage both resources to create a stable city economy.
The game has three modes of play.* There is the "Campaign Mode" in in which the player builds a single city and must achieve a set of mission objectives in the process - usually with limited time and/or resources. The Campaign Mode consists of five levels, the first of which is a two-part tutorial. Levels 2, 3 & 4 have three missions and part 5 has just two, the difficulty of the missions increases as the player progresses and they are dependant upon one another as in each level the player starts with a blank map in mission one and builds a city which is carried through to the later missions.
- There is a "Puzzle Mode" where the player is presented with a series of individual scenarios which must be managed, the game recommends that these are only attempted after the campaign mode has been completed,
- Finally there is the "Open Mode" where the player can build their city with no restrictions or objectives.
The game is entirely mouse controlled. It has its own in-game music which can be disabled, and the game speed can be adjusted. There is no Easy/Medium/Hard difficulty setting.
Screenshots
Credits (Windows version)
4 People
| Game made by |
|
| Music produced by |
|
| The game is published & distributed by |
|
Reviews
Players
Average score: 3.4 out of 5 (based on 1 ratings)
Deceptively simple but gets very hard very quickly
The Good
This game is about building and managing cities. When there's already a game that does that very well, Sim City (SC) and its successors set the standard in city building games so why, I wondered, would anyone want to make another?
Well I'm pleased I gave this game a try. While I struggled to get to grips with the original Sim City and some of its later incarnations but I found this game quite accessible. That's not intended as a slur on SC it's just that I'm not very good at games in this genre and usually dabble and give up after twenty or thirty minutes. So I approached Create City with the intention of playing it for half an hour or so and then documenting it for the database. Seven hours later, having missed my evening meal, I had to force myself to come to a stop because I'm stuck. I know I'm stuck because I've played the same mission half a dozen times and I can't get it right.
That for me is the mark of a good game, it's sucked me in without me realising and I want to play it to its completion. So for me this is as addictive as SC was 'back in the day'..
I keep comparing this with SC but it's probably fairer to compare this game with something like Theme Park World (TPW) in that the player places their own roads on a map and populates it with buildings. It is less complicated than either SC or TPW in that the map is smaller and there are fewer types of building, houses, churches, markets, taverns, doctors and schools. Also there's no traffic management to worry about and disasters are, at least up to the middle of level 4, few and far between.
The game's music is pretty and I enjoyed it for the first few hours but in the end I tired of it and switched it off. There are several tracks and the game has the option to play one continually or cycle through them all.
I know it's not uncommon to find an option which slows down the game play but that option is present in this game and it was very welcome because the game played a bit fast on a modern computer.
The Bad
The game is in five sections with section one being a tutorial. I've played all day in campaign mode, the game recommends completing this first because the puzzles are harder, and I'm stuck. I've never played a campaign mode on this kind of game before and I think that if I want to progress I'll have to go back to the beginning of level 4 and replay missions 4.1 and 4.2 so that the city I carry forward into the third mission, 4.3, is in better shape.
This makes the game very hard because the player does not just have to complete a mission but they must do so in such a way that their city is prepared for the next mission and, in the case of the first mission in a level, potentially the one after that.
This may be normal in games of this type but I find it a real pain.
When a mission is completed the 'Mission Completed' message is displayed very briefly before the game takes the player into the next mission. Given the time I spent in playing & replaying some of the harder missions I'd have preferred an opportunity to rest and have a cup of coffee but I felt compelled to play on. I could have chosen not to continue but the challenge had been presented, the gauntlet had been thrown down.
Other minor gripes, and they are minor, are
- The game froze for a second or two several times during today's session. This seemed to be at the end of one track and at the beginning of the next. Not a game breaker but frustrating when I was trying to place lots of buildings against the clock. This could be a compatibility issue with an older game and a modern pc.
- The game does not remember the players preferences. I turned the music off several times but when I restarted a game that option seemed to be forgotten whereas the choice to slow down the game play was sometimes remembered.
The Bottom Line
I'm not sure whether this is a good game in its own right or whether the original Sim City game it's based on is so good that even its imitators can't help but look good.
At the end of the day this just isn't my kind of game. So far I have enjoyed it and it has stolen half my weekend but I don't think it's so gripping that I'll be compelled to play it to its conclusion. However if you find the big titles in this genre are a bit overwhelming then I would recommend this as a simpler, but not necessarily easier, option.
Windows · by piltdown_man (253158) · 2012
Analytics
Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings and price history! (when applicable)
Related Games
Released 2010 on Windows, Xbox 360, Macintosh...
Released 2007 on Leapster
Released 2011 on Symbian, Macintosh, 2012 on Wii...
Released 2013 on Wii, Nintendo 3DS, Wii U
Released 2018 on Android, iPad, iPhone
Released 2019 on Windows, Quest, PlayStation 4
Released 1998 on Windows
Released 2007 on Nintendo DS
Released 2020 on iPhone, iPad, Macintosh
Identifiers +
Contribute
Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.
Contributors to this Entry
Game added by piltdown_man.
Game added December 3, 2012. Last modified August 15, 2023.