We are hard at work on the next major version of Microlandia to make the game deeper and also expand the boundaries of what kind of cities can be built. It is also a step towards a game more focused on natural resources that can be extracted from the map and their trade-offs.
Hills and valleys
The map is no longer flat and has height: build neighborhoods on the hills, or a downtown in the valley. Also, new terraforming tools allow you to flatten, raise, or lower the terrain, and the new pond tool allows you to make beautiful pockets of water in your parks.
Larger maps, smaller grid
All scenarios are now twice the size. In addition, Salina is launching, the new scenario which is a large peninsula surrounded by the sea. Besides the larger maps, we have reduced the map grid from 20x20 meters to 10x10 meters. That means buildings, trees, and every other map element can be placed more precisely, to create more beautiful and detailed parks.
Complete energy model
In Microlandia 1.x, only industries required a power plant. Now every residential building, hospital, business, and basically the whole city goes into a blackout if you don't have energy. You can choose between coal, solar, wind, and nuclear plants, or the easy way: import energy from neighboring cities. And not only that, now you can also export your energy and make your city an energy production hub.
Environmental effects
Your factories, chemical plants, and coal plants pollute the air, which lowers your carbon footprint score and causes health problems for the population. Industrial zones are no longer just a NIMBYism problem. A new achievement, carbon neutrality, will be awarded only to players who run a completely sustainable city. In addition, the urban heat island effect is now simulated, where every segment of asphalt silently and slowly creates a greenhouse effect that can only be counteracted with parks and trees.
Trash and recycling
Every citizen produces trash and that is no longer swept under the rug: Landfills must be built to collect garbage. You will be able to optimize waste usage to the max with recycling, sorting plants, public policies, and even biogas power plants, or ignore it all and export your trash so another city takes care of the dirty work. You decide.
Skyscrapers
The tallest building in the game, and it is also the most striking. During the night, your city will be a light show when you build many skyscrapers. And we will also be adding more residential, commercial, and industrial building models that can be chosen or randomized so you build the city that has your vibe: cyberpunk or rural, brutalist or classic, or a mix of all.
Public beta coming soon
This is a big change that we are still balancing and designing. Not only does it have technical changes, but also new art, script, and music that we are producing with our collaborators. Therefore, we will be testing with a small number of players first, then there will be a public beta, and finally a release in October. If you are at Gamescom, you can play the Microlandia 2.0 preview at the Indie Arena Booth (Halle 10.2 F-010 E-019).