Reminds me of that Factorio joke mod which adds bureaucracy-processing as a recipe tree. Assemblers start to shut down if you don't process paperwork fast enough. IIRC, it had biters following the player around in queues to give them complaint forms.
Here's the mod <a href="https://mods.factorio.com/mod/administratorio" rel="nofollow">https://mods.factorio.com/mod/administratorio</a>
That sounds so cute. I'm surprised something like this is even possible within Factorio.
Of course, there’s also Car Park Capital, a game for what the city actually wants<p><a href="https://www.ign.com/games/car-park-capital" rel="nofollow">https://www.ign.com/games/car-park-capital</a>
The best I got:<p>Discretionary Review (Developer): I built 4,147 homes in San Francisco, 2015 to 2031. Grade A, "Builder of Some Things". Survived all eight investor reviews. 16 hearings, 3 appeals, 4 lawsuits. The city needed 82,069.
We need one for HS2 where every time you try and build a small section of track, they demand a bat tunnel or a newt ramp or a fox power plant.
This was a good reality check about the bat tunnel controversy: <a href="https://www.bats.org.uk/news/2025/04/hs2-bat-tunnel-dangerous-spin-behind-deregulation" rel="nofollow">https://www.bats.org.uk/news/2025/04/hs2-bat-tunnel-dangerou...</a><p>Dunno, if you are dumb enough to try to build a high speed line through an area where endangered species are protected then yeah you’re going to have to avoid killing them.
It looks like a good idea. It didn’t need to cost £100 million.
How is this a good reality check? This is an AI generated article?
What a predictably one-sided take from... one of the sides.<p>Your link claims, technically correctly, that the bat tunnel was not forced by conservationists or wildlife protection laws. What it does not ever admit is that those laws forced <i>something</i> to happen, and that it was already known more than 10 years ago that the least expensive "something" was the bat tunnel.<p>Specifically your link says regarding the tunnel:<p>> HS2 Ltd, a government-owned company, proposed the structure. You can read what they have to say about it here (<a href="https://www.hs2.org.uk/building-hs2/environmental-sustainability/green-corridor/sheephouse-wood-bat-protection-structure/" rel="nofollow">https://www.hs2.org.uk/building-hs2/environmental-sustainabi...</a>).<p>That link says, under the section "Which other options did HS2 look at?":<p>> In 2021, a ‘first principles’ review was undertaken by the Department for Transport, DEFRA and Natural England, but did not identify any better solution that was able to both fulfil the requirements of the relevant legislation relating to species protection whilst also reducing cost.<p>> The most feasible engineering options were also subject to an additional independent design review by the consultants Arup, which concluded that the solution now being taken forward provided the best balance of value for money and risk mitigation, from the four viable options that were shortlisted.<p>> Choosing any of the other options would have opened-up the risk of legal challenge, delay and subsequent extra cost.<p>> Options considered included a bored tunnel beneath this area, a shallower ‘cut and cover’ tunnel and rerouting the railway away from the wood altogether. Consideration was even given to permanently slowing down trains as they run past the area.<p>Regarding my earlier "known 10 years ago" claim, it says:<p>> The need for the structure was identified by HS2 Ltd more than 10 years ago, following extensive surveying of bat populations by our own ecologists.<p>Finally, it also says:<p>> Despite the passing of the 2017 Act, HS2 Ltd still had to gain almost 8,500 environmental or planning consents along the 140-mile route from London to the West Midlands.<p><i>8500 consents.</i> Your link claims that other causes, like "underfunding" and "bad project management" are to blame for cost and time overruns, and that environmental consents are being used as a scapegoat. That would be easier to believe if that consent number was, say, two orders of magnitude smaller.
They picked the route. HS2 wanted the train to travel at 400km which seems not to be motivated by practicality. The whole project has been managed abysmally in so many dimensions. Most of the route is covered tunnels.<p>As one of your citations points out, they could have just slowed down briefly.<p>Are 8500 environment consents a lot for a 140 mile incredibly fast rail system? How much work does each consent require? Could the planning process have started earlier and mitigated the need to get so many environmental consents? Have environmental requirements caused as much delay and consternation as residents along the route have?
The UK should stop the genocide of badgers too
Very nearly half of HS2 - 64 miles - is in tunnels. This happened because the Conservative government was terrified of upsetting the Conservative voters along the route. The bat tunnel was nuts, but it's not that significant overall.
That is partly true but it's a downstream consequence of the ultimate cause. Those running and pushing the project in the early stages desperately wanted it to be a 400+kph route for "prestige" reasons.<p>If they hadn't been so focused on that, they could have built the new rails largely alongside the existing West Coast Main Line which would have been quicker, cheaper and much less controversial.<p>But because they wanted those very high speeds, the route had to be flatter and straighter than the existing WCML, which means many more tunnels, longer and more complex construction, more people objecting, inconvenienced etc and ultimately much more cost however you look at it.
Yeah it's more because they wanted the high speed trains to go super fast because bigger number is better, in reality it dramatically increases the impact of the track you build - corners have to be wider, gradients have to be avoided, and offsets (and the land you need to purchase for them) need to be bigger.
> <i>a bat tunnel or a newt ramp or a fox power plant</i><p>Source? (To be clear, not doubting you.)
<a href="https://martinrobbins.substack.com/p/i-visited-the-infamous-hs2-bat-tunnel" rel="nofollow">https://martinrobbins.substack.com/p/i-visited-the-infamous-...</a>
<a href="https://www.hs2.org.uk/sustainability/environmental-sustainability/green-corridor/sheephouse-wood-bat-protection-structure/" rel="nofollow">https://www.hs2.org.uk/sustainability/environmental-sustaina...</a><p>> The estimated cost of the structure is c. £95 million in 2019 prices. This can also be expressed as £114m in 2022 prices.
Bat tunnel is real, it cost millions. The others riffs on the theme I expect
Will the new California law Senate Bill (SB) 79 (the Abundant & Affordable Homes Near Transit Act) help? It came into effect this July.<p>One specific complaint: The BART station entrances at 16th/24th & Mission: Why not build huge apartment buildings (10/20/30 floors) on top of them? And since both locations are a pair of entrances, you can close one, then build. Then repeat with the other entrance. They seem like perfect locations. There must be a bunch more no brainer lots around the city like these.
My suspicion is San Francisco would love a Beijing-style <i>hukou</i> system. That lets it lock housing (and thus the built character of the city) and control immigration which in turn should result in stable housing prices provided units don't go out of use or residents don't have too many children.
Beijing has a substantially worse median price to income ratio, though
> <i>Beijing has a substantially worse median price to income ratio</i><p>As would, I’d think, San Francisco under a similar system.<p>It’s not a good solution. But for the preferences San Francisco’s residents seem to be expressing, it’s the only way. (Fortunately, it’s probably unconstitutional.)
That system leads to an oversupply of single men in rural areas and single women in big cities.
Agreed.<p>Open immigration for rest of the country from around the world but closed for their city from rest of the country is what these “progressives” seem to want by their actions.
Love the idea!<p>I started something similar as a meme game, but I'm just too busy to keep working on it: Data centre slumlord - <a href="https://binary-mirror.itch.io/data-centre-slumlord" rel="nofollow">https://binary-mirror.itch.io/data-centre-slumlord</a>
I would love to provide a version of this for my city. I think the council could do with a way to practice without destroying what we have.
Whoever made this, I love you and we should be friends.
It does have the blue angels flying over the city at one point
Damn I got rekt, crazy to read all the regulations and neighbors just dog walking me :'(
Took me back to sim farm. The aesthetics are awesome
Want to share the Code?
I would adapt it to the German situation and add to it - the first YIMBY Simulation
The Nuclear option is an interesting choice the game has locked up.
Popovers cannot be scrolled in mobile Safari without flipping the screen to landscape and back, and sometimes not even then. It tried to have an adaptive layout but didn’t nail it. Ask Claude to fix mobile scroll target handling?
I can't find it now, and I'm pretty sure it was featured on HN, but there was a board game like this where you had to cooperatively add housing to the Bay Area under all the constraints you have to operate under, and, when playing, we discovered that the only way to do it was to massively upzone some remote East Bay city.
I'm just jamming out to the music
I'm a unclear on what high "The Neighborhood" scores mean in the right panel before approving the project, is it good or bad?
This game is rigged by pigs at the trough.
You win by not playing…
The only way to beat this game is to not play.
Reminds me of tax forms. Good times.
what a throwback feel, nicely done
I play games like Civilization and we get these tech trees and policy trees and such. And I can never help but wonder what it would be like to play these when the people of the territory act like Americans. You try to incentivize future technology and they push back. You try and prioritize education and they push back. There is always division and infighting.<p>Regardless, I don't think it would actually make the game more fun.
Would you include the part where almost every technology you researched in the past made life worse or would they just hate technology for no reason in the game?
So, "If only you could talk to the monsters" but at the level of this genre?
I mean that's kinda how Civ works already. Some civs get bonuses for education & research, others in combat, etc, and focusing on the things incompatible with your civ will "punish" you.<p>It sounds like you just don't agree with how they've implemented America lol.
What would prioritizing education mean in Civilization? The game's model is fairly simple:<p>1. There are three resources: food, industrial production, and commercial activity;<p>2. As the player, you can divide commercial activity between three categories: research, state revenue, and local "luxuries", which in this context just means tax relief;<p>3. Scientific progress occurs when you've produced enough research to learn a new technology;<p>4. The only appearance of "education" anywhere in the game is that there is an expensive building called a "university" that increases local production of research. (The predecessor building with the same effect at a lower cost is the "library".)<p>On the other hand, "there is always division and infighting" is one of the most important and fundamental mechanics in the game; if your city grows beyond a quite small population cap, new citizens are automatically unhappy and will shut down the whole city unless pacified somehow.
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I imagined something more like a sim city clone where every time you try to put down a building or zone, it’s refused with a pop up message saying why. Let me prompt that out brb
how do you complete a tutorial when you cant mute this fucking music
Gah! Thanks for that, I didn't know there was music.
There is a button on the top right to turn off the music.
Davis, CA. lol
Some context, because it is definitely an insider joke.<p>Davis had a long and contentious civic debate on whether or not Target should be allowed to build a store in Davis, eventually Davis held a city wide vote on the matter, which did pass [1].<p>Davis voters reject Measure V, spiking plans to build Village Farms housing [2].<p>Just a couple of examples where growth that most cities would approve without thought became a city wide civic issue that the community actually voted on.<p>[1] <a href="https://localwiki.org/davis/Target/History" rel="nofollow">https://localwiki.org/davis/Target/History</a>
[2] <a href="https://www.abridged.org/news/davis-measure-v-election-update/" rel="nofollow">https://www.abridged.org/news/davis-measure-v-election-updat...</a>
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Regarding the comments about the jargon file...<p>Something definitely changed around the dot com crash. The channels I slummed around in of EFNet went from excited hacker archetypes to the same people doing jobs I was am in retrospect surprised about [0]<p>[0] - Im general, emulator devs working for bigger corporations. But most specifically one that wound up doing stuff around customs intrediction tech, major shift from their pre emulation work.
Money destroys everything it touches eventually.
Line at the end of the in-game "rulebook":<p><i>> Every rule, vote count and case in this game is drawn from the public record. Sources are in docs/research/ in the project folder. Neighborhood politics scores and the economics are simplified for play.</i><p>Nice, I'm happy to hear that, <i>Claude</i>. This kind of silly game is supposed to help you understand a complex issue in a fun way. But <i>this</i> is missing the plot entirely. Why is this so overwhelmingly complex? Why would I spend time learning this ugly, convoluted and verbose UI? Who is this for??<p>EDIT: I'll link to an example of what I think this game should have been: <a href="https://research.wmz.ninja/projects/phd/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://research.wmz.ninja/projects/phd/index.html</a><p>A game made with intent, that is easy to pick up, respects its player's time, and makes its point effectively.
This runs into the reality that the game maker knows who his target audience is, but you don't. If he wants to make a spreadsheet simulator or something targeted at people who like complex interfaces he can do that. I point at ASCII-UI Dwarf Fortress, one of the great games of this century, as evidence that a game does not need to be accessible to be true art.<p>It is frustrating to be excluded when a game developer builds a game that looks interesting but targets a niche you don't fit in.<p>Also those <a href="https://research.wmz.ninja/projects/phd/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://research.wmz.ninja/projects/phd/index.html</a> style games are a bit vapid. At any moment a person has more than a handful of choices and the simplification abstracts away the important ones, like ranking what ideas are important or changing strategies for idea generation in this one.
Except Dwarf Fortress is an actual game, and I've sunk a lot of hours in it. Same with the city builders TFA is trying to mimick.<p>> Also those <a href="https://research.wmz.ninja/projects/phd/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://research.wmz.ninja/projects/phd/index.html</a> style games are a bit vapid.<p>I agree, but please try to engage with what I'm saying. Both the PhD game and TFA are made with the goal of teaching an issue to a broader audience. Do you think TFA is an effective tool of communication? Don't you think its messaging could have been better conveyed had it been designed with more <i>intent</i>, less focused on piling on feature after feature for a game that isn't designed to be replayed more than once?<p>Both TFA and the PhD game should be considered "educational", people won't come back to those again and again because of how fun they are. They're designed to appear in HN feed, be played once, learn maybe a thing or two in an amusing way, <i>and never be opened again</i>. Do you understand now why I find this complexity so counter-productive? It's fine for a game to be complex, if it's designed for players that will sink hundreds of hours into them. It's not fine for a silly project to demand the same learning effort from its players.<p>> This runs into the reality that the game maker knows who his target audience is, but you don't.<p>Have you considered that TFA was vibe-coded, and maybe the "game maker" hasn't put much thought into who his target audience could be, like, at all, and just asked Claude to make a game about NIMBYism?
> <i>the PhD game and TFA are made with the goal of teaching</i><p>The PhD game came across as a blog post masquerading as a game. The city-building one was fun even if you ignore the lessons it's teaching. (You don't <i>have</i> to read the news articles. They're cleverly written, however, and so sort of fun to.)
> Both the PhD game and TFA are made with the goal of teaching an issue to a broader audience.<p>I mean, are? It looks like it might be trying to create a San Francisco housing simulator. Simulators aren't necessarily tools of education. That's why I picked DF as a comparison - it is a Moria siumulator, but it isn't supposed to educate its players on the nature of Tolkien. It is more about exploring a complex environment.<p>And the PhD game doesn't look like it is going to teach anyone anything. It reads to me like some guy blowing off steam without having much of substance to say. Which is also fine, it just isn't much of an educational journey.<p>You're implicitly assuming that you have determined the target audience and goal of the game. And while you might be accurate, you might also be inaccurate. There is a decent chance that the target audience is people who look at this and think "ooh, cool". It is great fun to criticise games but claiming that a game is in the wrong genre altogether is just a bit much for me today. If you don't like this genre that is cool, but the game maker might just be doing his own thing and having fun.<p>> Have you considered that TFA was vibe-coded, and maybe the "game maker" hasn't put much thought into who his target audience could be, like, at all, and just asked Claude to make a game about NIMBYism?<p>His target audience could be himself, in which case he's probably got a deep understanding of who they are and whether they enjoy the game.
> Why is this so overwhelmingly complex? Why would I spend time learning this ugly, convoluted and verbose UI?<p>My guess is that's the point - now you understand how San Francisco property developers feel.
> Who is this for??<p>Like most vibe coded projects, it is for the person who created it. And usually only them.
These people should, instead of posting the game, just post a video of them playing through the game, as most people have no interest in playing other’s slop but may just be curious to watch someone play and provide comedic value.
...I enjoyed playing it. It's silly. But it's in a similar category as "Papers, Please." It's not like it's stressful, there is just a bunch of random <i>diabolus ex nihilo</i> crap flying at you, which isn't particularly unusual in a game.
It's a throwaway joke about NIMBYism, not a triple-A blockbuster production.
I think that may be exactly the point.
No, I do not think fighting the UI is part of the point this game is trying to make. I'll give a good example of what such a game should be: <a href="https://research.wmz.ninja/projects/phd/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://research.wmz.ninja/projects/phd/index.html</a><p>There's no reason a "housing crisis" game couldn't have been done like that, with simple choices and immediate reactions. A game that respects the player's time, is easy to pick up and makes the point effectively.
Any simplification hides real problems and takes away from the point. Even your desire for simple choices and immediate reactions elides the fact that not every policy decision has visible short term effects. Some are only visibly beneficial or harmful in the long run, and may not end up that way depending on other decisions.
If the thesis of the game is that there's too much paperwork and regulatory burden, a simpler game would have to just <i>tell</i> the player "there's too much paperwork". This game--whether you liked it or not--is a lot more effective by <i>showing</i> you. You are the (simplified) bureaucrat, not a choose-your-own-adventure player being told that the bureaucracy is dense.<p>I really do think that complexity and UI obtuseness was implemented as commentary, not as a mistake.
Eh, your example is a different kind of game. Not into linear choose-your-own-adventure games myself. I think the UI of this one accurately models the many moving parts and forces in the process it's simulating, and I didn't have a problem picking it up though I skipped the tutorial. It has a sense of humor (read the speaker comments at meetings, and the news articles), and hits you with the real world outcome each development is based on. Made an impact on me.
"I didn't understand this, so I had an AI make this so that you couldn't understand it too"
> Why would I spend time learning this ugly, convoluted and verbose UI? Who is this for??<p>Tell me you never played the old TUI dwarf fortress without telling me.
Well, you should seek a better tell because I've played ASCII Dwarf Fortress quite a bit. Re-read my comments, I only have an issue with TFA's complexity, <i>in the context of it being a throwaway educational game</i>. It shouldn't require as much involvement from the player as it currently does. And certainly, it shouldn't even occur to people to compare it to Dwarf Fortress, which happened <i>twice</i> already.
You know, if an old city with a natural boundary doesn’t think you should build a bunch of profitable crap in it, maybe you could take the hint and stop acting like you’re bringing Jesus to them. San Francisco’s seen the conquistadors. In fact, many of the streets in the Sunset are named after them.
> <i>maybe you could take the hint</i><p>Locked supply. Affordable housing. Growing standards of living (or population). Pick two.<p>If you lock supply and want taxes and wages to grow, you're choosing unaffordable housing. That's San Francisco's current policy choice. Over decades, it filters the poor to San Francisco's "outer boroughs" or onto its streets.<p>For what it's worth, my friends who lived in San Francisco "took the hint" and moved out when they chose to have kids. They didn't sell their place, however, since the above policy mix together with California's property-tax system strongly disincentivizes that.
Ah, blue city progressivism: "Welcome to my country! Now get the fuck out of my city."<p>Also, note that these cities always happily welcome more offices and businesses. They just don't want to build the housing for those workers to actually <i>live</i> in.
That's of course an option too.<p>I haven't played OP's game but hopefully it accurately models the plummetting quality of life and rampant homelessness created by doing what you describe in the real world.
Or you could look at the massive number of homeless people and take the hint yourself
Reminds me of this: <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1259638112688304129" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1259638112688304129</a>
Yeah, how DARE people under 40 want somewhere to live!
I mean, stopping housing construction hasn’t stopped the new money from pushing out the old soul. Given the US enshrines the free movement of people in the Constitution, it’s make room or have someone outbid you for yours.
let me guess, homeowner in SF?