After finishing my City Life review I decided to follow up the developer Monte Cristo with a couple of questions about the game.

The interview was conducted with (Takes a deep breath) City Life Project Manager and Lead Game Designer Renaud Boclet and it gives an interesting insight into the developement of this highly rated city building simulation game. One point I would like to instantly bring to attention is that to play your mp3 files, rather than the games somewhat repetitive music you can place your mp3 files into the City Life installation folder. Why not just note that feature down in the manual?

Secondly, the thing that most people will want to know about is the future of City Life. Well, I can reveal that currently the developers focus remains on supporting City Life, however, a Delux Edition is on the way with "50% more buildings". What about a City Life 2? Well don't rule it out. The developers are looking to expand on the idea that "people are different and belong to social groups" that was introduced in this game.

There's the main points out of the way, now on with the interview. Having got an average of 77% from most reviewers and gamers I asked developers to reflect on the success of the game. Renaud Boclet was quite proud of the impressive 3d engine that allows you to create "the most beautiful cities". 

Monte Cristo are not just taking in the praise but also the critisisms such as the lack of building variety. In responce they have created the design toolset. When I asked about the design toolset, Renaud stated that this and other tools provided by the team allow the community to create your own unique experience with the powerful City Life engine at your disposal. No doubt many gamers will be looking into these tools to further their experience.

As with all our Gengaming interviews we provide developers a chance to raise a point that they want to bring to the attention of everyone. Here Monte Cristo discussed the social and economic system, the effect of it on the city and how far you, as the player, are able to control riots and other situations.

The trick to this game is that there are a number of different cultures. Some don't get along too well with the other. But, they can't live without each other so they have to live together. "Your mission, as the mayor to this happy melting pot" says Renaud "is to minimise social tension between the various groups." So how do you go about doing this? Well theres loads of ways: "one of them consists of making sure all citizen needs are satisfied, because happy citizens do not enter conflict". Sound easy? Nop! Its expensive, different groups have different needs and it only gets worse as the city grows! The other way to deal with disturbances is with SWAT teams.

"There are many ways to handle social tension in the game, and I will not detail them all... but my personal favorite is probably providing education & a social ladder allowing citizens to progress".

Thats our interview, hopefully you will have picked up some tips and useful info. To read the full interview click read more. Many thanks to Renaud Boclet for answering our questions and hopefully the questions of the community.

1) City Life has been out for a while now and surely you must have read through some of the impressive reviews and gave yourself a pat on the back. What is your opinion on the success of the game and what have you taken away from the various reviews and comments from gamers?

Basically, City Life has an average rating of 77% both from reviewers & gamers alike (http://www.gamespot.com/pc/strategy/citylife/index.html?q=city%20life), which is actually quite close to the 78% success GenGaming evaluated for the game! There is of course some criticism, some sadly linked to the fact that we did not boast some of the game's features enough.

For instance, the music is sometimes deemed a bit repetitive… something that can be easily circumvented once you know you can freely replace the game’s music with your own mp3 files! And this is done simply by dragging and dropping your mp3 music files in the C:\Program Files\Monte Cristo\City Life\music\YourProfileName folder (default installation).

Also, some players would like to see additional buildings delivered for the game. This is something we want to address by allowing the community to create new buildings for the game, and by delivering additional buildings ourselves.

On the game difficulty in general, some find City Life easy when others think it’s really challenging, with an approximately 50-50 split between the two opinions. I guess that means it’s a matter of experience in the game’s genre, and probably also of how large a city one is satisfied with. It is true that the game does get harder as the cities grow bigger. Other than that, there seem to be a global agreement on the fact that you really can create the most beautiful cities with the game. All in all, I think it’s fair to say that most critics acknowledge the fact that City Life is respectful of the ground rules of the “city builder” genre. Also, most critics seem to appreciate the fact that we tried to have something of our own with the notion of “cultural differentiation” in the game (i.e. the fact that citizens are visibly different and have different expectations). We are as a team very glad for this generous feedback, because this was our goal from the start: remain true to what builder is, and add something good to it.

2) Some fans have commented at the lack of detail in the game. For example you do not have to build power lines or subway rail tracks it is done automatically. Can you describe to us why you felt that these details where not necessary?

Pretty much like all creations I guess, developing a game is about making choices. In the FPS genre, all games do not have the same features, and there’s no reason it should be different in the builder genre. Even though we’re obviously huge fans of Maxis’ SimCity, we did not want to be copycats. It was our analysis that building power lines for instance is SimCity, but does not necessarily have to be in all builder games. Actually, it was a feedback we had from numerous SC players during the development that many found building power lines somewhat tedious. I’m sure many like it as well. But in City Life, there are many new concerns that the player has to manage, especially with the sociological aspect of the game. Our position was that since the activity rate of SimCity is perfect, if we added activities on one side we should remove some on another side to keep things balanced.

3) It has been noticed that there remain a few little bugs in the game can we expect a patch in the near future?

Well, I will quote the Grandmaster here, M. Will Wright (from http://videogames.aol.com/videogame/the-sims-2/552/game-news?articleID=88754): “this is kind of a natural result of any complexities of software...that you can't fully test it”. We honestly did our best efforts to make City Life bug-free. I am very sorry for any bugs encountered in the game despite our debugging work. It should be noted that I feel 100% safe saying the game is stable, works on the very wide spectrum of personal computers and operating systems stated on the game box. And I want to say for the team that I’m very glad that City Life has been saluted by quite a few as a technological prowess. Being able to go from satellite view to walking the streets of your city really is something the technical team should be proud of. Concerning the problems encountered by an unfortunate minority of players, rest assured we take them in consideration. On the two problems you mention, the one you point a link to for instance is a localization problem, and it has occurred in spite of numerous proof-readings of the game content. We will check to see if we can reproduce the fire problem you mention, and how it could be solved (this one has never been mentioned to me before). We have already made available three bonus packs and a patch to the game’s editor. We are committed to a continued support on this game. Players are amazing, you are builders, and managers, spending time to create something you envision... and we feel that makes us really close, because that’s what we do as game developers. We have been really excited by the cities created with the game, and more often than not we’ve been surprised

4) The design tool set is potentially a great move for the City Life merchandise. Can you please describe to us some of the features of design tool set, why it was introduced and was it always planned to be released?

You can edit everything in City Life. You can create new maps in any of the five regions of the game, and you can decide anything there from topology to victory conditions. With the exporter & importer, you can create new buildings for the game. In the game editor you have access to all the parameters the game design team used to balance the game. Modders please look to your official City Life website for manuals on how to do all of these operations, as this is where we are delivering them. In fact, I will go as far as saying that someone who would invest the time and effort to become knowledgeable in the tools we have delivered and are delivering would hold the key to a state-of-the-art engine allowing him/her to create his very own unique city builder.

5) Ask yourself a question and answer it! (This is something we do with all our interviews gives developers a good chance to talk about something they want to bring to the attention of gamers!)

Can you explain the social and economic system? How does it affect your city? Are you, as the player, able to control riots and other situations that arise, or does the computer control them?

In City Life, citizens are divided between six urban cultures, from the self-proclaimed “elite” to the “have nots”, thru the busy “suits”, the fashion-inclined “radical chics”, the hard-working “blue collars” and the rebellious “fringes”. I think it’s important to say that these urban cultures have nothing to do with religion or ethnicity, but are a symbolization of life-style and social status. And plus, it’s a game and it’s meant to be fun ;).

Members of these cultures have different needs. They also have relationships to each other. For instance, the Fringes do not get along well with the Suits, and vice-versa. Another example would be that the Suits are very attracted to Elite neighborhoods. It’s your job as mayor to plan the city well in order to maintain peace. Problem is - they can’t live together in peace and harmony, but then also need each other, because as the saying goes: “it takes all kinds to make a world”. And in City Life, this means that to get balanced cities, you will need members of all the different cultures. For instance, police stations will be efficient only if they can recruit Blue Collars. And its the Fringes’ jobs to entertain the rest of the population.

Your mission, as the mayor to this happy melting pot, is to minimize social tension between the various groups. And there are many ways to deal with social tension in City Life. One of them consists of making sure all citizen needs are satisfied, because happy citizens do not enter conflict with one another. It is when the citizens’ needs are frustrated that they turn to their neighbors to find a scapegoat. Preventing conflict by providing everything to everyone is financially very challenging, because you will have as mayor to provide a wide range of city services to satisfy everyone. This is all the more true considering that different urban cultures have different wants & needs - and it gets worst as the city grows. Citizens’ expectations grow when the village you started with becomes a thriving metropolis. Another way to deal with conflict is to take a tough & rough approach to it. Police forces can controls neighborhood disturbances, and the SWAT teams can brutally stop even the most severe conflicts. But this kind of policy is not necessarily something that will make you the beloved mayor you could be. And it’s also an approach that may work locally, but will fail if several districts start rioting.

There are many ways to handle social tension in the game, and I will not detail them all because it’s part of the pleasure of the game to discover them, but my personal favorite is probably providing education & a social ladder allowing citizens to progress to the richer culture… again, if everybody’s well, you won’t get much tension.

6) Is there a City Life 2 on the horizon? What sort of new features can we expect if there is?

For now, we’re mostly working on supporting City Life. We are also in the process of making a Deluxe Edition for City Life, which will contain extra content, including 50% more buildings than in the original game. Since it can take around two years to make a video game, we are in parallel starting to research a new concept for our next title. Nothing is really defined there yet, only that we want to retain the idea that people are different and belong to social groups. We also want to push this idea further.

So far, we’re mostly gathering feedback on what was a frustration for players and what was good in City Life. This feedback will definitely be essential to our conception. So, please feel free to join us on the official City Life Web site, speak your mind, and be sure your opinions will be read and taken into account! In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the game J thanks for your interest in what we do!