The University of calgary
school of architecture, planning and landscape presents
CITY GAME-A-THON
part of BDCI: LAUNCHPAD
MADE POSSIBLE IN PART BY PARADOX INTERACTIVE
“The game is a single-player open-ended city-building simulation. Players engage in urban planning by controlling zoning, road placement, taxation, public services, and public transportation of an area. They also work to manage various elements of the city, including its budget, health, employment, traffic, and pollution levels.”
City Game-A-Thon
ABOUT EVENT
The City Game-A-Thon is structured as an intensive and team-based design charette occurring inside a video game. Following in the footsteps of events like hackathons or make-a-thons [i], the City Game-A-Thon will challenge students to deploy transdisciplinary thinking, team work, and design strategy towards the creation of a fictional city. The City Game-A-Thon is sponsored in part by Paradox Interactive.
Participating students will receive a free license, via Steam, for Cities: Skylines.
About City: Skylines
Cities: Skylines is a modern take on the classic city simulation genre. The game introduces new game play elements to realize the thrill and hardships of creating and maintaining a real city whilst expanding on some well-established tropes of the city building experience. From the makers of the Cities in Motion franchise, the game boasts a fully realized transport system. It also includes the ability to mod the game to suit your play style as a fine counter balance to the layered and challenging simulation. You're only limited by your imagination, so take control and reach for the sky!
[i] Joshua Vermillion and Alberto de Salvatierra, “Physical Computing, Prototyping, and Participatory Pedagogies: Make-A-Thon as Interdisciplinary Catalyst for Bottom-Up Social Change,” in eCAADe + SIGraDi 2019 Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1, Porto, Portugal, 2019, pp. 359-366.
Why cities?
“As the dominant logic for the assembly of territory, authority and rights—the nation-state—experiences a historic unsettling, the city is re-emerging as the crucial site for the mediation of society [ii]. The city is a collaborative endeavor, and it must be approached with nothing less than transdisciplinary strategies to ensure its longevity—particularly in the context of the various dislocations and destabilizations occurring worldwide.”
[ii]. Saskia Sassen, “Beyond Differences of Race, Religion, Class: Making Urban Subjects,” in Mohsen Mostafavi (ed), Ethics of the Urban: The City and the Spaces of the Political, Lars Müller Publishers (Zurich), 2017, pp. 35-46.
Brief
The City Game-A-Thon will take place in two phases: Phase I (Wednesday to Friday) and Phase II (Friday to Sunday).
Phase I: Testing + Exploration
During Phase I, members of each team will work to individually/collectively prototype and build a maximum 1-tile city with a minimum population of 15-18K through normal game progression (i.e., no unlimited builds). Each team must produce a number of cities equivalent to the number of players with a laptop or computer within each team (e.g., 4 players x 3 computers = 3 city designs). Each city design must be different and take place in a different terrain. Use any and all resources at your disposal to inform your design and research thereof: books, magazines, YouTube videos and tutorials, design archives and/or websites, personal experience (such as that inspired by travel, for example), or general design sense.
Members of a team without a laptop can still participate. Those without a laptop will be required to submit hand-drawn or digital plan drawings of a city adhering to the measurements equivalent to a “1-tile” city in Cities: Skylines. Keep track of design references and precedents as they will be important in Phase II.
As each team designs their cities, optimization of the following 17 metrics is key (also a preparation for Phase II):
Electricity availability
Water + Sewage availability
Landfill usage + Garbage Processing Status
Education capacity (elementary, high school, University, Public Library)
Citizen Happiness (Residential, Commercial, Office, Industrial)
Healthcare availability + Average Health
Deathcare availability
Child health + Elder health
Average Traffic Flow
Presence of Public Transport
Average Ground and Drinking Water Pollution
Average Noise Pollution
Fire Hazard
Crime Rate
Unemployment
Average Land Value
City Attractiveness + Weekly Tourist Visits
Phase I will be evaluated for completion and functions primarily as a gradated step before Phase II. Phase I is due Friday, September 06 at 9:30am.
Phase II: Refinement
During Phase II, using a multiplayer mod, each team will collectively develop a single design for a maximum 2-tile city with a minimum population of 22-36K through normal game progression (i.e., no unlimited builds). City designs will be given 3 scores: effectiveness (measured from the 17 Cities: Skylines metrics listed above), aesthetics (is it beautiful?), and creativity (how did you push the design of your city in innovative directions?). Team members without a laptop are required to submit hand-drawn or digital plan drawings of your city that additionally explain or elaborate on the design strategies employed.
Each team will be asked to submit 9-10 plan view screenshots at each important step of in-game city development:
Little Hamlet (460),
Worthy Village (900),
Tiny Town (1.4K),
Boom Town (2.6K),
Busy Town (5.5K),
Big Town (8K),
Small City (11K),
Big City (18K),
Grand City (22K), and
Capital City (36K).
Each team will also be asked to submit screenshots verifying the achievement of the 17 Cities: Skylines metrics listed above.
Lastly, each team will be asked to submit perspective screenshots of the best moments in the city.
ADDITIONAL RULES
Other than the multiplayer mod (or those approved by the TA Team), mods are not allowed. Any team found using other mods will be disqualified.
For-purchase DLCs (other than the free ones offered by Cities: Skylines) are also not allowed.
Assets available through Steam Wokshop are allowed only if they are free to download and open for everyone to use.
Cities: Skylines Gameplay Tutorials
Schedule
*Note: Unless otherwise stated, all BDCI: Launchpad events will take place in the BDCI 1st Year Studio [PF 2130]. All events in dark green will provide food.
BDCI students (‘27) after a holiday gift exchange on Pajama Day (PF, Calgary, 2023).
About the CITY INNOVATION STUDENT ASSOCIATION (CISA)
The City Innovation Student Association (CISA) is SAPL’s undergraduate student group tasked with representing the academic and extracurricular interests of BDCI students. Helmed by SAPL’s Student Union (SU) Representative and an Executive Team of BDCI students and BDCI Class Representatives, CISA is responsible for organizing various BDCI social events both in and outside the classroom. Whether it is a group visit to a Karaoke Bar, an in-studio Movie Night, or Pajama Day, CISA events compliment SAPL’s collegiate experience by fostering community, connection and wellness.
For more information on how to join CISA and participate in undergraduate student governance at SAPL, all new BDCI students are invited to a Fall 2024 Info Session on Thursday, September 5 at 10:30am in PF 2130 as part of BDCI: Launchpad.
City Game-A-Thon Registration
*All participating students must register through the University of Calgary’s Active Living portal below.
As part of the registration process, participants are invited to complete a waiver. All players must complete the online waiver. Waivers must be completed for every sport and every semester. Waiver access is via your Active Living profile. Paper or electronic copies will not be accepted unless provided by the event Coordinator.
A “No Waiver, No Play” policy will be stricly enforced.
Prizes
The top four teams will be awarded the following prizes:
RUNNER-UP
A package containing:
four (x4) SAPL-branded Rockit Shine water bottles;
four (x4) SAPL-branded notebooks;
four (x4) SAPL-branded USBs;
four (x4) SAPL-branded lanyards; and,
four (x4) SAPL-branded pencils.
THIRD PLACE
A package containing:
everything in the Runner Up package;
four (x4) Toshiba Canvio Gaming 1TB external hard drives;
four (x4) Anker Portable Chargers (20,000 mAh);
four (x4) Moleskine Classic Notebooks, Black, Soft Cover, Large (5” x 8.25”);
SECOND PLACE
A package containing:
everything in the Third Place package;
$120 SAPL printing credit ($30 per person); and,
four (x4) copies of City Science: Performance Follows Form by Ramon Gras and Jeremy Burke.
FIRST PLACE
A package containing:
everything in the Second Place package; and,
a team dinner in Downtown Calgary with the ADU, UPS and the BDCI F24 Y1 Coordinator.
Why BDCI?
Drive city building innovation. Students learn design-thinking skills to create and prototype across a range of scales.
Engage with studio-based learning. Students learn to develop viable design solutions, taught and mentored by faculty and industry professionals.
Take on real-world projects. Students work individually and in groups on real-world projects, both in the classroom and at SAPL’s research labs.
Utilize advanced tools. Students gain technical literacy in 3D modelling, rendering, visualization, parametric and graphic design programs, as well as advanced digital fabrication tools, to communicate their designs.