"All models are wrong, but some are useful" - George Box

In every version of Microlandia we think we understand the city, and every version proves we understood far less than we claimed. Citizens surprise us, systems revolt, the supposedly “minor” mechanic becomes the hinge for large and unforeseeable consequences. 

We are very proud and happy to number this version as 1.0, as a testament to this journey of modeling the myriad of intricacies that a live, breathing city is. 

However, we are far from done, we have ambitious plans for the next versions, with deeper simulation, more builds and more tools and features to manage, customize and interact with your cities. This is just the beginning!

 Also, we’re super excited because this is the first version that also gets a Steam release!  🥂🍾🚀

ℹ️  If you haven’t played yet, you can get the game on Steam starting Dec 3 10:00 (PST) or buy via Itch.io and automatically get your key valid for release day.

Everyone who already purchased Microlandia through Itch should receive a download key via email. And don't worry, we'll continue posting every update here.

Here's the changelog since the last minor release:

🌧️ Traffic, Revealed as the Imperfect Beast It Is

• Citizens now refuse to walk heroic distances, forcing mayors to confront the limits of human legs and the geometry of their own urban delusions.
• Road capacity was adjusted to a more realistic value, reducing gridlock in big cities.

📊 The Brutal Accounting of Lives

• Live stats now reveal two uncomfortable truths: citizens who lost their jobs by failing to arrive, and citizens who died or fled because health care failed them. Numbers that were always there, now made visible.
• Life expectancy is now introduced in the simulation, following OECD averages, citizens pass away more or less around that value.

💼 Labor Markets, Less Naive

• Workers already employed now search monthly for higher wages, as workers do in the real world, seeking upward escape.
• Recession event strikes harder, slicing company revenues in half for a year.
• Pandemic event also strikes harder, quadrupling hospital admissions for a year. You wished for realism; realism replies.

🏠 Housing, That Uncivil Arena

• Residential complex building was rebalanced: capacities and demand points tuned.
• High-net-worth citizens will rent only low-density housing, and along with the upper class get NIMBY vibes and avoid buildings with disapproval aura.
• Most of the time, the middle class population will depart the city when their rent exceeds one third of salary and no cheaper rent exists.
• The remaining classes take what the market begrudgingly offers, while still being filtered by the prejudices of landlords.

🏫⚛️ New Constructions, Monuments to Ambition

• A larger high school, educating up to 900 students, now is possible to build.
• The nuclear plan, a two-billion-dollar colossus boosts industrial firms by twenty percent.
• Transitional housing introduced, zero-cost refuge for those fallen into homelessness.
• New model variations for high-rises expand the skyline.
• Three new prize-buildings: the giant chessboard, the hotdog monument, and the lucky cat statue.

🚓 Security and Crime, Stripped of Illusion

• The new crime map feature shows in real time where crime is happening the most and wether the police is patrolling effectively.
• Police patrols AI improved, they adapt to what other stations are doing and covering different ground in patrols.

🌳 Happiness and Parks, Less Decorative

Park quality and happiness indicators have been rebuilt to be meaningful rather than ornamental.

🏚️ Homelessness, Modeled Without Consolation

Factors reworked using real research: 

•  Life expectancy of homeless population reduced by roughly fifteen years. 
• Healthcare needs multiplied sixfold. 
• Unsheltered citizens produce heavier police and waste burdens which can overwhelm services.

🖼️ A Better Looking, Less Predictable World

• High-rise visual variations added.
• Tilt-shift effect rebuilt using depth-of-field for a gentler view of chaos.
• 3D rendering optimized.
• More newspaper stories appear, supplying new narratives, each another attempt to explain why the city behaves as it does.

This is Microlandia 1.0

A reminder that the city, like the world, resists simplification; that improvements are not linear; that every mechanic is an ecosystem; and that you, the mayor, like every human, sees only the top of the iceberg.

If you want it stable, predictable, incremental, you want another game.

Microlandia is about everything that refuses to be tamed.