So, a few months ago I posted a topic showcasing some parts of my city. Now, I am nearing the end of its creation (finally) and thought I would showcase a few parts of the city. Please note that I am working on ads to throw up around the city it just takes time because I need to find people willing to draw that stuff.
Thanks for checking out my post!
Edit 1: lacks ANY sort of claustrophobia within the city, MASSIVE mark against a cyberpunk feel as it really takes away from that claustrophobic feeling of cyberpunk dystopias and also could be used to hide unimpressive sized cities and lack of background (combined with smaller stores on the ground floor and street vendors would help a lot with the lack of size as i think most people would extrapolate). Also a claustrophobic feel gives a feeling that the individual person is reduced in signifiicance, which helps a lot with the cyberpunk dystopia feel where peoples’ lives are reduced to numbers that get manipulated for best return in a Cyberpunk dystopia, or most dystopias for that manner.)
Edit 2: A clean enviroment with wide streets isnt completely awful for a business district, but those buildings should be VERY tall and basically block out the sun. Less wealthy areas also shouldn’t get a lot of sun either but the buildings should be somewhat shorter but closer in (streets should be somewhat narrower)
Edit 3: Really REALLY need to look at more real life examples, this is too utopic. Also formatting differences. Also for the game I am assuming youre making this for, the title image works although it looks really really generic. Not sure about the somewhat corny line on the title image but in a way gives a slight charm more in line with some retro games. However, why is HEAT in all caps? Are we turning into shaped charges? Also spelling mistake (instant doom for your game, feels unprofessional and clashes greatly with the slightly more mature style)
Edit 4: for using ads, reuse ads. Advertisements are oftentimes repeated, because they are advertisements and ad campaigns do sometimes only do a single time large stunt but usually print or photo or especially video ads are repeated. Also could help establish a company or set of companies as feeling more omnipresent. Also add cameras if you want to go the surveillance route (which is a really big topic of debate in real life which mind you real life technological developments inspired cyberpunk dystopias)
Edit 5: (I should cut down on the amount of edits) You probably should think of the city maybe like 100 years in the past (maybe more depending on where you’re located), unless you’re either using a real life city or basing your city on a real life city in which you better know a lot about that area or give some explanation on why and how the culture has shifted. Given you set your city in the west coast, this might be a bit hard to do, especially given you seem to be from Atlanta so maybe base your setting more on that?
TLDR:
Lacks any sort of roughness for cyberpunk
Not dense enough
No reason why the short buildings are short, most dense cities don’t have short buildings (besides historical or cultural buildings) because land in cities is expensive.
City streets are way too large in general.
Feels far too much like the business district of a city, everything feels way too clean especially for a cyberpunk dystopia
Needs more signs and diversity in signs (have all the diversity but use it as a means of signalling things, wealthier areas and buildings (and probably those that are on large buildings and are relatively high up should be clean and either video boards or very clean neon versus those that are lower down which should be non-powered or older neon signs, alongside some very small graffiti like literal sheets of paper with printouts, see wheatpasting for more details)
Feels too clean even for a business district to feel lived-in as opposed to just a model
sorry the TLDR is long theres a lot of issues.
Class:
Feels too centered on the higher end, maybe add a few middle class options, maybe something more like ghost in the shell (based around 1980/90s Hong Kong) because currently it feels far far far too clean, almost like it was built and immediately abandoned instead of being lived in, and for being cyberpunk theres a severe lack of the -punk part. THis is probably due to a lack of any sort of rough edges and an overconflation of cyberpunk with futuristic cities. Generic futuristic cities are probably very smooth as opposed to having a bunch of rough edges which is the whole “punk” part of cyberpunk.
Japan-Town (and or other enclaves)
Having a dedicated japan town could be good, but i would caution against putting random Japan-towns as you have to make some credible argument for why this enclave exists, generally its just immigration exists but it suffers for the common issue of being overly clean and lacks any feeling of lived-in-ness. Also, maybe add some more [Nation]-towns or little [Nation], maybe like a hispanic (for this TAKE A SPECIFIC GROUP DO NOT GROUP ALL OF THEM INTO A SINGLE UNIT THESE ARE SIGNIFICANTLY DIFFERENT CULTURES didnt choose a specific bc too lazy).
Lack of visual diversity:
Excessive use of very clean looking neon signs also contributes to a feeling of overly generic futuristic city, some different sign designs, namely either older neon-signs or paper/cloth signs, would give diversity to the eyes and also make it feel more lived in. Also add some small posters to give some sort of lived in feeling, like theres people who live in this city that aren’t super wealthy.
Issues with roads and building layouts:
Buildings have a good diversity of heights which is good but the streets feel far too empty and also far too clean, being too wide for say a new york city (where a very rigid grid system was used) style city but also lacking any sort of twisting and turning other cities have. Also really wide streets combined with a lack of any verticality to the roads (such as over/underpasses) make the city feel very empty which feels not-cyberpunky and not like youre living in this compact city. Basically the roads detract from the layout.
Buildings do feature good diversity of heights but severely lack in height in general, which I would actually consider worse for a cyberpunk city as these cities are supposed to be extremely dense. Again, look at real life examples (Hong Kong, NYC, Shanghai) which have a lot of diversity with heights but also generally the larger buildings tend to be taller. Alongside this a lot of the shorter buildings are just as wide as the taller buildings which for a dense city do not work.
Reference images of what I am thinking about:
Non-electirc signs in Hong Kong
Edit 1 images:
Taipei at night
Hey, thanks for the advice! I’ll try and implement some of these features, im just wary of the part count as im currently sitting at 125k. Also if I were to base this off of Atlanta it would be a burning pit of despair where nothing functions correctly. Thanks again!
Side note: Heat is sometimes used to describe how wanted you are by feds based on what crimes you may have done, similar to stars in gta
I have all this written down but the Japan town exists due to the large amount of Japanese workers that came to the city due the company Kingusu (which just translates to kings) establishing a headquarters in the city
This cyberpunk and futuristic city looks VERY GOOD! Nice job on it! How long did it take to build? Will you use it for anything? It’s very big and detailed!
currently its taken me about 3 1/2 months to build, I do have a plan for it with some elements of that done, I just need to finish the map
underground city areas (slums with closely packed buildings) would be nice as there will always be a good and a bad part of a city.
really late response, but yeah i forgot about technical limitations (maybe try and use more meshes with more loose physics tolerances, especially if players are not supposed to go to places)
Also burning pit of despair where nothing functions correctly? add in some strong corporations and a false sense of hope and you’ve got a decent setting
like idk an evil coca-cola
I have a good lineup for some terrible corporations and other then in the missions I cannot really think of a way to explain why they’re so evil through world building
The building all look the same.
Maybe try changing some up into different shapes.
I explored Blade Runner, Fifth Element and CyberPunk; they all have unique building shapes.
So does Brutalist Architecture.
