upvote
I'm really interested in how the landlord/land price logic works, as it would be key to building a realistic city where higher income earners live closer to CBD, etc. Are there slums and ghettos? Gentrification? The promo shows single detached houses seemingly quite close to city center.
reply
For reference, here's the original post:

Show HN: Microlandia, a brutally honest city builder (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46137953)

reply
That's brilliant. And 10,000 copies! Woot, look at you go! Very well done and I think it looks great. It gives me hope. I'll go make it 10,001.
reply
I like that it's non-serious and contains jokes throughout the user interfaces. Reminds me a little of Airline Tycoon's non-serious/joking nature, and Theme Hospital if going further back in time. It makes the game fun rather than a boring simulator some city planner would use for work.
reply
Congratulations on releasing a game! It’s beautiful, looks like a mix of voxel art games and sim city

When I get time I want to buy it and play it :)

Do you work on it full time or do you have a day job too?

reply
It's my main activity but I also work on other stuff to make ends meet.
reply
This reminds me of what "Hell Mod" did to Diablo I: Basically reinvented the game as it would have been if Blizzard hadn't been constrained by money or time, and knew what worked from their sequels.

Only to Sim City.

reply
I'm working on a game myself. Mind if I ask:

- How difficult was it to get on Steam and other vendors?

- Are there any artists you'd recommend working with? I need a 3D/Blender artist, especially.

reply
> How difficult was it to get on Steam and other vendors?

Not difficult at all. Pay the fee, get something going.

> Are there any artists you'd recommend working with? I need a 3D/Blender artist, especially.

My e-mail is on my profile, happy to send a few intros your way.

reply
Steam is simple - pay the $99 and follow the instructions.
reply
Depending on the kind of artist you want I might be able to recommend some people, have you done this before?

I'm saying this as a gamedev who's had some mixed experiences, not an expert at this at all, so happy to pass on any useful tips if it's helpful

Drop me an email if you want to discuss more, email in my profile

reply
Steam says its unavailable on Mac's with Apple Silicon processors, is that right?
reply
Only Apple Silicon is supported. It's unavailable for Intel, sadly.
reply
Man looks amazing, the detail level of the simulation seems to be in another level compared to sity skylines and co. If you need any help or just chat about this, reach out to contact (At) khorchani (dot)fr
reply
I've played a little bit of it so far, and really enjoyed it.
reply
Looks amazing! Might I ask what tool you're using to design the 3d models? Some kind of voxel editor, like MagicaVoxel?
reply
We use Goxel. https://goxel.xyz
reply
This looks awesome. I’m pumped to try it out.
reply
Great work! Game looks amazing. I'm curious. How many percent of people left a review on Steam?
reply
less than 2%
reply
[dead]
reply
"... new policies like universal basic income."

Is the engine honest enough to reality to demonstrate failure?

reply
OK, I'll bite - what would a failure of UBI look like?
reply
> OK, I'll bite - what would a failure of UBI look like?

Higher taxes for anyone earning over $100k

Higher cost of living, and lower quality of life for anyone earning below $60k

Politicians and corporations earn billions in profits on UBI distribution fees, and incentive spending/automatic deposit programs (contribute your UBI directly to health insurance and it’s tax exempt!)

reply
> Higher taxes for anyone earning over $100k

Not a failure. Society working as intended.

> [...] lower quality of life [...]

Agreed, that would be a failure, if it were to happen. How on earth could "giving people money" lead to a lower quality of life for them?

> Politicians and corporations earn billions in profits on UBI distribution fees

As opposed to the much higher fees accrued by the more-complex means-tested programs today?

reply
Correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding of the economy is that money is earned when someone creates value. Just "giving people money" without having the corresponding value be created increases demand for valuable things without increasing supply, leading to inflation and the costs of said things going up.
reply
Value is subjective and some value takes unknown time to create. So money is also given to people in that grey area.
reply
You're wrong. People have inherent value whether they "create value" or not. UBI is not about rewarding people for some economic contribution but rather provides everyone with a reasonable amount of money so they can survive (hopefully) and stay healthy and have a shot at the prerequisites for "freedom" to exist.

Money has been completely manufactured in financial markets already and doesn't seem to be screwing us over too badly. I hardly think UBI paid from taxing the largest economic surpluses and wealth in the history of the world will have a significant impact on inflation.

Any inflationary impact would happen if you print the money supply to pay UBI rather than using existing dollars in the supply.

You're also completely writing off the additional surpluses that people receiving UBI could provide if they're confident they can get by on a daily basis and also ensure they stayed healthy and working rather than spiraling any time one or two things go sideways.

reply
In, say, the Netherlands we already have something that's very close to free money. I know many, many folks perusing said mechanism(s). Sure, it's not UBI and there is some stigma involved but I think it's the closest you'll get. I won't be snarky about this, but let's just say I need some.. convincing this reliably addresses the primary obstacles in economically disadvantaged folks. In my experience our economic situation is downstream from other more urgent issues that we find hard to talk about. Culture, ethics, behavioral and cognitive differences, etc. Thorny, nasty things, but .. real and more importantly they don't respond to dollar bills. In fact, it may make it worse.

But anyway, I'm not too worried about inflation mainly because of the points you raised, but I am worried about resource constrained markets like housing. If nothing is done to stop this, and I don't know how, I'm sure they'll just raise the prices to completely cancel out any UBI you'll pass around. It's not just housing either, but that's an obvious one.

reply
So far in Croatia any kind of stimulus from the government just makes the market compensate. For example, an increase in public spending made the prices of goods and services more expensive and providing subsidies for first time home buyers caused prices of real estate to increase by that amount.
reply
> our economic situation is downstream from other more urgent issues that we find hard to talk about. Culture, ethics, behavioral and cognitive differences

I see it as exactly the opposite - culture, ethics, behavior differences etc are downstream of financial inequality. When people are financially insecure it becomes much harder to tolerate disagreement, and much easier to blame [insert whatever populist notion of enemy]. I think it would be easier to engage with people with opposing ideas, not seeing them as an existential threat, if you are not worried about housing, income or health insurance.

Cultural polarization is a deflection mechanism (both in the subconscious psychological sense as well as a politcal/propaganda technique) meant to mask the real deeper structural inequalities. It's the lie we tell ourselves and the powers that be tell us to prevent to change the direction of the "wealth redistribution" we've been witnessing for 20+ years.

reply
> How on earth could "giving people money" lead to a lower quality of life for them?

Prices will increase more than the UBI money you give them.

You saw what happened during COVID pandemic and UBI stimulus checks?

High cost of living today is precisely because of UBI.

reply
The real problem during the pandemic is most of the stimulus money went to the already wealthy. Higher cost of living is because we keep printing money, that money goes to banks, and inflation ends up being an implicit tax on the poor who aren't invested in the markets.

What I can definitely tell you is that the people that currently can't even afford basic things are somehow causing higher cost of living. The economy is not jacked up right now because we gave people laughably small amounts like a thousand dollars. The real problem is people like Sergei Brin spending 57 million dollars to fight a one-time 5% tax.

reply
Pandemic checks were from expanding the money supply IIRC rather than distributed taxes on the already very wealthy. These are very different mechanisms. What they did (expanding the money supply) drove inflation way more than the actual money in people’s pockets. Otherwise you’d have argue people shouldn’t get paid because it causes too much inflation.
reply
Government revenue doesn't keep up with expenditures.
reply
check the results from texas and illinois
reply
[flagged]
reply