Design Map
A city builder, one parcel at a time.
Working notes for our small team.
Inspiration
Documents
So related docs are easy to spot, each doc below is tagged on two axes:
Tag key
Concrete archetypes with a goals, a verb set, and a relationship to the city.
Terraform and sketch roads in a dedicated survey mode, then subdivide blocks into parcels.
2D heightmap-based elevation model with contour visualization for road placement and site grading.
Sketch a rough polyline, pick a road class, tweak speed and lanes — the editor fits a curvature-bounded arc spline live.
Every right-of-way is a arc spline; roads and rail are bundles of one or more of them.
three.js with WebGPU for the 3D world, Lit + plain HTML/CSS for the GUI shell.
Road surfaces and markings are generated on the GPU from base colors, noise, and lane data — no baked textures.
Graph-based infrastructure networks: power, water, sewage, waste. Directional flow from supply to demand.
Zoning is the player’s macro lever; RCI-style supply/demand drives growth.
Readable, toylike-but-grounded look; one dynamic sun/sky, no baked lighting.
Buildings are generated per parcel from footprint, zone, and density — not hand-placed props.
A visible, sampled population of commuting agents under the macro economy layer.
Day/night, seasons and weather as shared drivers for lighting, materials and demand.
Council review, ballot measures, development hell, and a mayor whose favorability is a real number on the city HUD.
Shortlist and feel-brief for the game’s working title.