| ▲ | Show HN: TinyCity – A tiny city SIM for MicroPython (Thumby micro console)(github.com) |
| 105 points by inflam52 8 hours ago | 18 comments |
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| ▲ | JKCalhoun 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Is it using the 1.3-inch monochrome OLED display of the Arduboy or something smaller? (Guessing the 72 × 40 display of the Thumby?) |
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| ▲ | inflam52 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | 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. |
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| ▲ | _joel 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I hope it "Reticulates Tiny Splines" (good work btw) |
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| ▲ | inflam52 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Haha thanks! Definitely adding that during map generation in next release. |
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| ▲ | allanrbo 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| SIM=subscriber identity module.
sim=simulator. :-) |
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| ▲ | inflam52 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | I originally had sim but HN autocorrected it. I tried to edit it back to what I had but can't seem to now. |
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| ▲ | gaudystead 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| 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! |
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| ▲ | inflam52 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Congrats! Unplayable by most means but absolutely incredible how tiny it is so I love it. |
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| ▲ | Tiberium 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| 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... |
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| ▲ | inflam52 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | 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. |
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| ▲ | coldcity_again 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Looks super cool, nice job! |
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| ▲ | hei-lima 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Really cool! |
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| ▲ | bowlcutWiz 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| looks awesome! can't wait to try the online version :) |
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| ▲ | inflam52 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Thanks I'll post when it's available. Still waiting on the PR to merge in their Arcade repo. |
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| ▲ | tinfoilhatter 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Looks neat! Great job! |
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