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Show HN: TinyCity – A tiny city SIM for MicroPython (Thumby micro console)

142 points| inflam52 | 1 month ago |github.com

26 comments

order

allanrbo|1 month ago

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

inflam52|1 month ago

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

_joel|1 month ago

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

inflam52|1 month ago

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

gaudystead|1 month ago

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|1 month ago

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

JKCalhoun|1 month ago

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|1 month ago

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.

Tiberium|1 month ago

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|1 month ago

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.

bowlcutWiz|1 month ago

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

inflam52|1 month ago

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