Did you love SimCity and/or other games like it? Ever wanted to REALLY run your dream virtual city instead of just building it and watching it go? Then Virtual City Playground might be just the game you’re looking for!
I recently discovered this free game for the iPhone (though it’s also available through iPad, Google Play, Mac, Kindle, and what looks like a Web game in the future), and I’ve become pretty addicted to it already. It’s got all the road-building, city-planning fun of my old favorite SimCity, except it’s a little more involved and detailed–which is definitely a good thing!
Basic Gameplay
Instead of building huge zones like SimCity has you build, Virtual City Playground has you build actual buildings, like houses, factories, shopping malls, monuments, etc. Building roads and buildings takes energy, though, and you start out with a set amount of Energy Points. When you’ve run out of energy, you’ll have to wait a few minutes for your Energy to regenerate (takes about 4 minutes to get 1 point back).
Constructing roads functions about the same as it does in other city-building games–you lay out the roads bit by bit with your mouse/fingertip. In this game, though, you’ve got to make sure you have a road leading to your building before you build it. And if you find out you’ve placed a building wrong, don’t worry; buildings can be moved around easily, and it only costs 1 Energy to do so.
The main part of the game is building factories (a few at a time) and linking them together with delivery trucks, so that they can use each other’s raw materials to make products–that realism is one of the coolest things about this game. You also need to build houses so that people can come live in your city. Route a few dumpster trucks around to take care of garbage, set up a public transport system with some Buses and Bus Stations, and you’ve got a city in no time!
As you level up in the game through building, routing roads, and upgrading buildings, you’ll get access to more types of factories and buildings. Keep track of the game’s various City Goals to accomplish, which will appear on the left side of the game window. You’ll have some long-term goals (like building very expensive monuments) and some short-term goals (like shipping so many products to the Shopping Mall, or transporting so many passengers to public places). Be prepared for your city to grow very very fast once you start completing goals!
The Difference Between City Coins and Invest Points
You start out with a set number of City Coins to help build your city, buy trucks and buses, etc.; you also start out with a few Invest Points. Invest Points are specialized rewards which can be bought with real money, or can be earned through accomplishing certain game goals.
Invest Points can be tempting to use, especially if you want a goal finished RIGHT NOW, but don’t give in. Instead, save up Invest Points for really important things, like buying more city territory and leveling out the land (because you can’t build anything on hills).
Two of the best ways I’ve found to gain Invest Points:
- Log into the game every day; you’ll get an Invest Point every day until you’ve logged in for 5 consecutive days…and on the fifth day, you’ll be rewarded with 5 more Invest Points!
- Link your Facebook account so that you can post “goal completed!” announcements–some of these completion announcements reward you with yet another Invest Point when you post to Facebook. Look for the Invest Points icon beside the Facebook “Post” button on the “Goal Completed” announcement to see whether posting is worth your while.
Side Note: Your Citizens’ Happiness and the Environment
Image Credit: apprecap.wordpress.com
Aside from your regular city-building concerns, the game also tracks your citizens’ Happiness score and Environment score. After playing this game for a while, I would recommend you not worry too much about your Environment and Happiness scores at first–I’m currently around Lv 23 and am just now starting to see numerical scores without a negative sign out front. LOL!
Happiness and Environment scores do not detract much at all from your gameplay; they are just informational, though some City Goals do give you rewards for having at or above a particular level of Happiness, etc.
Summary
This game is great for gamers like me who play long-term achievement games; I find this to be a very rewarding, relaxing game to play, and it allows me to exercise my creativity at city planning, too. Check it out and see how your own dream city can grow!