Ideas worth spreading

How a video game might help us build better cities

1,524,266 views |

Karoliina Korppoo |

TED2017

• April 2017

With more than half of the world population living in cities, one thing is undeniable: we are an urban species. Part game, part urban planning sketching tool, "Cities: Skylines" encourages people to use their creativity and self-expression to rethink the cities of tomorrow. Designer Karoliina Korppoo takes us on a tour through some extraordinary places users have created, from futuristic fantasy cities to remarkably realistic landscapes. What does your dream city look like?

With more than half of the world population living in cities, one thing is undeniable: we are an urban species. Part game, part urban planning sketching tool, "Cities: Skylines" encourages people to use their creativity and self-expression to rethink the cities of tomorrow. Designer Karoliina Korppoo takes us on a tour through some extraordinary places users have created, from futuristic fantasy cities to remarkably realistic landscapes. What does your dream city look like?

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Play Cities: Skylines, a sandbox game about building cities that lets you create your kind of a city and make it run smoothly — or see what happens when you do all the wrong things.

About the speaker

Karoliina Korppoo

Karoliina Korppoo

See speaker profile

Inspired by classic city simulation games, Finnish designer Karoliina Korppoo and her fellow game developers at Colossal Order are infusing a venerable gaming genre with fresh perspectives.

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Cities: Skylines

Cities: Skylines is a sandbox game about building cities. Create your kind of a city and make it run smoothly, or see what happens when you do all the wrong things. The game is easy to learn and has lots of meaningful choices and interesting challenges. Skylines is meant for teen and adult players but is non-violent and only requires the player to be able to read, so it can be played with children as well.

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Yuttho on YouTube

Yuttho plays games and publishes videos of playing. He's interested in urban planning theories and applies them to Cities: Skylines cities he builds. See more of Astergea, the city of the future shown in the TED Talk, and Yuttho's other cities.

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ConflictNerd on YouTube

Check out the tiered city shown in the talk and many other interesting city layouts by ConflictNerd. ConflictNerd is a YouTuber who creates videos of many different games, including Cities: Skylines.

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Silvarret's Netherlands video

The full video of the Netherlands created by Silvarret, shown in the talk. Silvarret is a master of creating wonderful environments in games. The channel has videos giving hints and tips on how to play Planet Coaster and Cities: Skylines and videos of Silvarret's creations in those games. This particular video shows a very realistic Dutch city created in Skylines.

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Bartz Zheng's timelapse

See the full timelapse of Bartz Zheng's city as population goes from 0 to 238,000. The timelapse is a fast-forwarded video of how a city is built in Cities: Skylines. It shows the magic of how urban area spreads and how alive the cities in the game feel.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

Play Cities: Skylines, a sandbox game about building cities that lets you create your kind of a city and make it run smoothly — or see what happens when you do all the wrong things.