inflam52•7h
Show HN: TinyCity – A tiny city SIM for MicroPython (Thumby micro console)github.com
18 comments
  • JKCalhoun•38m

    Is it using the 1.3-inch monochrome OLED display of the Arduboy or something smaller? (Guessing the 72 × 40 display of the Thumby?)

    • inflam52•30m

      This is for 72×40 display right now but I was also working on an interface layer to abstract Thumby specific functionality in order to play on potentially other platforms running MicroPython/Python. Going to try and add that in the next iteration.

  • _joel•4h

    I hope it "Reticulates Tiny Splines" (good work btw)

    • inflam52•4h

      Haha thanks! Definitely adding that during map generation in next release.

  • allanrbo•4h

    SIM=subscriber identity module. sim=simulator. :-)

    • inflam52•4h

      I originally had sim but HN autocorrected it. I tried to edit it back to what I had but can't seem to now.

  • gaudystead•4h

    I literally JUST bought a Thumby out of a vending machine this past weekend, so this post feels a bit serendipitous for me. Thanks for sharing, and I'll have to check this out!

    • inflam52•4h

      Congrats! Unplayable by most means but absolutely incredible how tiny it is so I love it.

  • Tiberium•4h

    Small bug: the sim seems to double count residential population for taxes, industrial pop gets ignored. The duplicate logic seems to exist in UI but it's correct there.

    Also I wonder if all the repetition could be reduced, or would it affect performance on MicroPython?

    https://github.com/chrisdiana/TinyCity/blob/88d07cf98f13bb73...

    • inflam52•4h

      Yeah great catch. So I mentioned this in the README but much of the mechanics were heavily inspired by jhhoward's MicroCity. This is the same way he calculated taxes and I figured to test it out to see how it worked in game. I really liked the flow of how his game played and seems like there are some pros/cons to that inbalance.

      Pros: - Makes residential population more valuable for taxes, which helps early‑game cash flow. - Encourages zoning residential since it has outsized budget impact. - Offsets the fact that residential growth can be more constrained by pollution/unemployment.

      Cons: - Skews the economy away from industrial/commercial impact. - Makes budget feel inconsistent with “total population.” - Can mask balance issues by injecting extra money, making difficulty tuning harder.

  • coldcity_again•3h

    Looks super cool, nice job!

  • hei-lima•4h

    Really cool!

  • bowlcutWiz•2h

    looks awesome! can't wait to try the online version :)

    • inflam52•2h

      Thanks I'll post when it's available. Still waiting on the PR to merge in their Arcade repo.

  • tinfoilhatter•6h

    Looks neat! Great job!