“India Is Where America Was in the 1950s”: City Block Builder Developer on Building Los Angeles in Bengaluru

City Block Builder is an upcoming PC tycoon game from Bengaluru-based indie studio Tentworks. It recently made an appearance at PAX West 2021 and revealed that it would be available on Steam’s Early Access program from September 22. Prior to this, City Block Builder was showcased at Gamescom’s Awesome Indies category. It’s an intriguing and complicated genre for a game debut, particularly from a studio of untested talent. IGN India spoke to CEO Jayaditt Basani to find out more.

“We saw that PC games usually have a huge, bigger impact and much more engaged community,” says Basani of his decision to make a game on PC before explaining the appeal of the tycoon genre on the world stage. “People who play these games are lot more passionate and do a lot. These games have a bigger cult following. This is where I think we can really stand out and we can really make a difference… before we venture off into places like mobile games and stuff like that.”

On the topic of standing out, Basani points to the AI in use City Block Builder as one of its key selling points.To him, it’s what makes the game’s world of 1950s Los Angeles seem organic which took the studio over a year and a half to develop.

“Every single person in in the city has their own personality, have their own likes, dislikes, their own point of view,” he says. “So it’s not like other tycoon or management games where the developers have to write down exactly how they react to every interaction or every reaction. We basically made an AI system that would learn and react to the environment that the players built.”

The AI system at the heart of City Block Builder impacts gameplay too. It’s something that adds another dimension to the proceedings versus other efforts in the genre.

“You could be playing for an hour and go through 100,000 different NPC characters, each with their likes and dislikes,” he says. “So it’s not like other tycoon games where you figured out how to make money and that’s it.”

Building 1950s Los Angeles — in India

Another point of interest is the setting. City Block Builder is set in 1950s Los Angeles. We had to ask, what made this specific era and city the focal point of the game?

“Los Angeles in 1950s was the cultural centre of the world,” he says. “This is when fast food started. This is when the age of rock and roll started. So really, this is such an exciting era. We couldn’t ignore it.”

He also feels that this cultural renaissance is similar to what India is going through right now.

“India is America’s version of 1950s right now,” he says. “Because in India, we’re going through so much innovation, and so much culture, so much of our cultural boom right now.”

Plus, he feels the setting of 1950s America allows Tentworks to retell events that changed the world like the Roswell UFO crash-landing and the communist scare which reshaped political perceptions to this day.

“So it was such a strange but crazy time,” he says. I think it would really give us an opportunity to tell a lot of stories that I think people are really interested in.”

That said, don’t expect City Block Builders to venture out of the 1950s too much. It’s firmly set in that decade, though Tentworks could explore other eras post-release.

Breaking Unity and Ghosts

In terms of tech, the team decided to use Unity as its game engine. Though it wasn’t without its challenges.

“Unity usually simplifies development for games like racing and shooting,” he says. “They have a set of tools to make game development easy but nothing for this genre which is a niche of 50 million people by my estimates.”

This meant Tentworks had to heavily modify Unity to suit its needs.

“We really had to go into the engine and break so many parts of it,” he says. “That was one of the biggest challenges in the game. How the AI worked and reacted with our building system was challenging…that was one of the reasons why it takes a lot longer than to make to say, a first person shooter game.”

This wasn’t the only challenge. The other concern was to anticipate and prepare for player behaviour. When City Block Builder was playable during the Steam Game Festival, Basani noticed a peculiar style of play.

“It seemed that all the players after a while were wondering what will happen if they kept all the people in a building and simply delete the door to see how long it takes for them to starve to death,” he says. “There’s a little ghost that pops up to indicate they died. Players will intentionally break the game, but it’s good. We want the players to break the game. It helps us learn a lot more about the game and really go and fix those bugs.”

A Studio of Misfits

The team at Tentworks working on City Block Builder is relatively small, totalling at around 26. More than your average indie, and a whole lot less than most AAA games.

“We’re basically a bunch of misfits that came together and decided to make a game studio,” Basani says. He isn’t a developer by trade, rather he got his start in finance.

“My job was to help startups get funding,” he says. “And I did that for a while. Gaming was what I wanted to do since I was 10 years old. I put together a team and I basically designed the game. That’s pretty much it.”

What to Expect from City Block Builders Early Access Launch

The conversation shifts to what players can expect at launch. Basani tells us that the cinema business and fast food chain businesses will be “fully functional” complete with their own research trees along with a scenario mode.

“Every two weeks to three weeks, we’ll have a challenge or like a mini mission thing that you can do,” he says. “The players have something new to play all the time. So it’ll be probably themed around something special or some historical event in the game.”

In October, the fully-animated comic book-styled campaign story will be available. And much like other games in the genre, there aren’t any plans for controller support. Though Basani claims to be in talks with one of the major console manufacturers for an exclusive launch.

“We are talking of the one of the major console manufacturers to be one of their partners and be an exclusive sometime down the line next year,” he says. “I guess when the console version comes out, we will have to look on a controller anyway. So we’ll probably look at it, but it’s not on our priority list. Right now. We’re just focused on making a good game and building a great community around it.”

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