Show HN: TinyCity – A tiny city SIM for MicroPython (Thumby micro console)
119 points
12 hours ago
| 10 comments
| github.com
| HN
_joel
10 hours ago
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I hope it "Reticulates Tiny Splines" (good work btw)
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inflam52
10 hours ago
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Haha thanks! Definitely adding that during map generation in next release.
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JKCalhoun
6 hours ago
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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
6 hours ago
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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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gaudystead
9 hours ago
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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
9 hours ago
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Congrats! Unplayable by most means but absolutely incredible how tiny it is so I love it.
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allanrbo
10 hours ago
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SIM=subscriber identity module. sim=simulator. :-)
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inflam52
10 hours ago
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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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Tiberium
10 hours ago
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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
9 hours ago
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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
8 hours ago
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Looks super cool, nice job!
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inflam52
7 hours ago
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Thanks!
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hei-lima
10 hours ago
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Really cool!
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inflam52
9 hours ago
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Thank you!
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mcsolid
4 hours ago
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very cool!
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bowlcutWiz
8 hours ago
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looks awesome! can't wait to try the online version :)
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inflam52
8 hours ago
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Thanks I'll post when it's available. Still waiting on the PR to merge in their Arcade repo.
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tinfoilhatter
11 hours ago
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Looks neat! Great job!
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inflam52
11 hours ago
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Thank you!
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