Archinect - News

SimCity's lasting impact on architects and city planners

2019-03-06T15:25:00-05:00

Along the way, the games have introduced millions of players to the joys and frustrations of zoning, street grids and infrastructure funding — and influenced a generation of people who plan cities for a living. For many urban and transit planners, architects, government officials and activists, “SimCity” was their first taste of running a city.

"It was the first time they realized that neighborhoods, towns and cities were things that were planned, and that it was someone's job to decide where streets, schools, bus stops and stores were supposed to go," writes Jessica Roy for the Los Angeles Times.

Happen to look for a real life urban planning opportunity? Check out our Archinect job board for available positions.

New computer game 'Occupy White Walls' gives players the chance to build and curate their own galleries

2018-12-18T15:49:00-05:00

A new video game is giving players the chance to be their own curator and gallery designer. Called 'Occupy White Walls,' the upcoming massively multiplayer online game—which is currently in free public alpha—allows you to build your own art space using modular architectural blocks.

Developed by London-based start-up StikiPixels, the game provides 1,462 architectural assets (with many more on the way) for you to create your own ambitious gallery. Players can pull from the vast catalogues of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC to fill their walls. And, for emerging artists, you can even upload your own work to put on display.

In an interview, CEO Yarden Yaroshevski described the game as a new type of MMO centered around creativity and self-expression."Different players will aim for different things; some will be all about in-game creativity – through building, designing and decorating their spaces – others will focus on discover...

Watch an urban planner play SimCity with real world commentary

2018-08-17T14:45:00-04:00

In this extended short, City Beautiful takes on the old school classic SimCity from the perspective of a professional planner 20 years later. Along the way, City Beautiful provides pertinent observations of game play versus reality.

Urban Design Ph.D student Dave Amos circles back around to the game that sparked his passion as a kid playing computer games. An advocate for sustainable living and diverse cities, Amos plays through the old school SimCity game providing relevant insights learned over the years in his career.

You can now play Tetris with Soviet-style housing blocks

2018-04-18T14:13:00-04:00

If you've been around the 'architecture-can-be-fun-too'-focused internet for a while, you may remember Sergej Hein's semi-viral gem of a video, Berlin Block Tetris, which was exactly that: an animated version of the video game classic using building blocks that resembled socialist-era residential high-rises.

Lithuanian designer Lukas Valiauga has now taken the idea to the next, interactive, level and created the mobile app Tower Block Game.

Tower Block Game by Lukas Valiauga

"This game is a playful tribute to a not so playful reality of monotonous and bleak cityscapes built out of same prefabricated concrete blocks," the app description explains. "Very specific for Eastern-Europe but evident everywhere else, too. These relic tower blocks usually mark failed social programmes and neighbourhoods planned as clumsy as some failed building block game… On that note, build and demolish one for yourself!"

Tower Block Game is available for Android from the Google Play store.

Not much of a gam...

This video game tests your ability to handle the retail madness of an American mall

2018-02-19T15:17:00-05:00

With the rise of online shopping, we have all been watching the dead mall epidemic for many years now. Addressing those left hanging on in today's world, Bloomberg now brings us the The American Mall Game: A 2018 Retail Challenge. Try your odds at managing a failing mall in this retro 90's computer game.

First you must choose a player—I chose Colton, who made his fortune selling his beanie babies collection at the height of its craze and wants to prove to his parents he's an adult. Next you will choose a strategy of either modernizing, creating an alternative mall, or cutting costs.

The American Mall Game: A 2018 Retail Challenge with an irritated shopper.

Your broker, wearing flashy 90's shades, gives you advice on how to save your dying mall. Navigate through stores like "Victoria's Conspiracy" and "Marcy's" while you get rid of rats, trash, and cyberpunk delinquents.

I was too busy clicking on shoppers to read their irritated comments and failed quickly. See how you fare in thi...

Kids play with virtual skyscrapers in new app

2016-08-04T19:08:00-04:00

"Spark a blackout, fix a pipe, or clog the toilets. Test your building’s engineering when dinosaurs invade, lightning strikes, or the earth quakes. Find out what keeps skyscrapers standing tall and people happy in them all." So says the description of the newly launched Skyscrapers by Tinybop, a game app for kids that allows users to essentially play in and around skyscrapers, like an urban-planning minded King Kong. Players can construct their own towers and then wreck havoc (or try to maintain order) with their creations. Here are a few screenshots of the game in action:

For more on games (it's Archinect's editorial theme this month):

And here's a video:

What SimCity 2000 teaches us about urban planning today

2016-06-15T13:58:00-04:00

Although the game was simulating an environment from 1989, urban planners these days still run into problems trying to get officials to think about their city in the long run. Climate change and sea level rise is a very crystalline example of the way city officials get in their own way and set themselves up for larger obstacles later on [...] Playing SimCity 2000 nowadays is a strange but wonderful way to realize what defines a city is not what it currently is, but what it could be.

More on simulations and gameplay for city planning: