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City Block Builder devs on crafting an immersive 1950s-era building simulator

The developers at Tentworks shared how City Block Builder was created to offer a building sim in which the world evolves around your business.

TJ Denzer

January 19, 2022 8:35 AM

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In the world of building sims, the focus is almost always entirely on the business you create with little nudges here and there from NPCs. Tentworks Interactive’s City Block Builder is meant to go a bit beyond that. A 1950s-era building and business sim, City Block Builder features a world around your business that requires you to adapt and evolve your business as you progress. We recently sat down with Tentworks CEO and Creative Director Jayaditt Basani and Chief Marketing Officer Rishi Shah to talk about how this idea came to life.

Shah and Basani saw the 1950s as a rather unique and appealing time period in which to set a building and business simulator. Much of the world had just come out of a massive war (WW2) and it was a time of social transition and transformation. For these reasons, they felt it would provide City Block Builder with a solid backdrop for the game’s progression.

In particular, the team wanted to avoid issues in business tycoon games where players get to a point and there’s little else to do or respond to. In City Block Builder, you don’t just run one business for the entire game, but rather build up to multiple businesses at the same time. Meanwhile, the outside world changes and is full of NPCs with their own tastes and interests.

One example given is how you might build up a theater and it may start in black and white, but as color theater emerges, trends change and you have to improve upon your business to meet the demands of your visitors. In this way City Block Builder is crafted to offer a wealth of micro- and macro-management that keeps players on their toes and aims to engage them regularly in both an extensive business tycoon system and an immersive world in which your businesses reside.

City Block Builder is planned for an Early Access Steam release soon and more details on a final release date will come after that. Be sure to wishlist the game to stay up to date on details. Want more videos like this? Be sure to check out both our Shacknews and GamerHubTV YouTube channels for all of our latest interviews, reviews, gameplay, and further video features on the latest games, technology, and toys.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.