Metropolis 1998
A downloadable game for Windows
This is an alpha build of the game (05/22/2026) meant for receiving player feedback. There is now a game loop and challenge of satisfying your citizens' needs.
This is the full game, limited by the map size. Everything you see in the game is unlockable (depending on your city's population).
Metropolis 1998 is a city builder and management game currently in mid development. Watch your citizens live their lives inside their homes, and outside. Features real time traffic, granular business demand, and more!
Join the Discord! https://discord.gg/b5sPWvq2Eq
Payment is not expected nor required! This is not a real game yet. Payment does not guarantee a completed game in the future (though that is 100% my goal. Im working full time on this game). If you understand the risks and want to support the project, then please add whatever amount you feel comfortable paying for.
Note: Patches do not update on your computer. You will have to redownload the updated version here.
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2287430/Metropolis_1998/
Download
Click download now to get access to the following files:
Development log
- Metropolis 1998 is now in Alpha!2 days ago
- Alpha is coming to itch soon! And a YouTube Lets Play24 days ago
- Crash -> Corrupted Zip FileJun 14, 2025
- Patch Crash Fix(06/12/2025)Jun 12, 2025
- Major QOL Update - v0.8.5 [BIG MAPS]May 25, 2025
- Minor Update v0.8.4Mar 07, 2025
- Minor Update - 2025-03-06Mar 07, 2025
- Patch update (3/3/2025)Mar 03, 2025
Comments
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I like what I see at first, but I can't progress through the tutorial. I'm at "Place a driveway up to the zone edge to connect to the road" and I do not understand what I'm expected to do. I have a short street coming in from the highway and a house next to that. The end of the street highlights in red during this phase, and I've zoned and placed driveway all around the end of the street, beside the street, and that's it. I can't seem to satisfy this condition, no matter how much driveway I place or where I place it.
Demo runs perfectly under Linux/Wine64. Glad to hear that it is written in C++ without too much dependencies. Using a modified SFML was a great choice. Good work. Thanks!
beatiful game reminds of openttd and theotown but needs better performance for old weak pcs
Vai ter legendas em português do Brasil?
Cool. This looks like RollerCoaster Tycoon, but a City Builder, so my agingass is in.
This game looks sick! I'm looking forward to playing it and see how to develops. What engine is used to make it?
Custom C++ engine
is there a way to save blueprints?
Yes, open any blueprint menu and click the second icon in the GUI with the building types. Then click on the building
WHAT?! A city builder that let’s you customize the interior of each building like in the sims? LESGOOOOOOOOOOO >:D
:)
Always working on the game to improve it :). Im using my own engine
So amazing!!! You match the style so well to aesthetics of the games made by Chriss Sawyer.
no public transit?
Public transit is coming after early access launch
Hello,
Sorry to bother you, but would you mind if I also download the descriptions and reference images&videos of the game to my personal archive? It helps me manage my files.
The game just crashed when i try to create a new world.
This does not happen in a couple version ago.
Im not able to replicate this. Did you download the newest version and launch as is? Or did you copy over an older save file or other files? Not all files are backwards compatible. What was the older version you used?
The last version that i played was the Major update on 3rd March.
Since i dont really have a world worth saving yet, i just delete the entire folder and installed the newest version, and now this happen.
O_O This is strange. I tried downloading the game from itch, and it crashed just like yours did. Then I uploaded a fresh copy, downloaded it, and it still crashes.
Yet when I run the game from the same folder I am uploading to itch, it works fine.
I've never encountered this before. Gonna try to figure this out
Thanks for reporting this! I tried using a different zip program (winrar) and it solved the issue. The fixed download is now live on itch
we need more sandbox games in this style, i love transport tycoon and rollercoaster tycoon
I can't see any of what I'm trying to do. The entire city is just black. However, I can see the UI - text boxes, the menu, etc. I just can't see my city.
I've tried turning on Potato mode, too, just in case that was the issue. Nothing changed.
Currently the game does not work on mobile CPUs. Search for your CPU's "vertical segment" on it's manufacturer product page. At the moment this isn't something I can fix immediately.
e: Alternatively, you can try updating your graphics driver. Sometimes that helps cause there's a hardware bug with some intel CPUs
It was in fact the graphics driver - turns out that it had shut itself off a few months ago and I just hadn't noticed until I tried to run a (different) game that specifically brought up an error over the issue. Thanks!
Thanks for the update! I didnt know it was possible to check for bad drivers. Gonna see if I can do this too!
It it helps with figuring that out, I believe the game I played runs on something similar to Unreal Engine, which checks for GPU and drivers due to having several issues running on certain GPUs and its related drivers.
Nicely done, why don't you try uploading the game to Steam? Otherwise, great work!
It's already up on Steam :). Thanks!
Ou i see , added to the wishlist. I would consider to add steam button link into your page, didnt know that the game is actuly already on steam as a demo .
Thanks
Hey sorry about that! Could you possibly email me the save file? My email address is in the games opening screen. Save file is located in /Data/Saves/save.db
Bigger map is coming soon to itch. Everything else will be coming over time as the game further develops :)
why microsoft defender says it has a viru
Sometimes smaller games (including mine) get flagged as a false positive. Sorry for the fright! It's a pretty common problem for indie developers. You can search online for many examples.
desculpe! I'll be adding localization closer to launch. Sorry you could not understand.
Ambitious! I like how this would be the first game to actually achieve the old Maxis promise of building a city and building homes for your sims down to the room. Interesting demo so far!
Thank you!
Nice game I really enjoy playing this game, will you release this game on mobile in the future?
Thanks! At the moment I have no plans for mobile, but it's not impossible.
You should promote this now that EA released the Sims 1 remaster, people will be looking for something nostalgic like this!
Thanks for the heads up!
words cannot express how much this game has inspired me to work on my own projects
:) <3
Very cool. I especially like the 13MB filesize.
Thank you! One of the fun side effects of writing your own engine
This is incredibly faithful to the look and feel of the likes of TTD, RCT and old Simcity games... and it is amazing that you did this as it is not in any way an easy genre to create a functioning game in much less one that has a consistent style with this nostalgic charm.
Definitely following you now as your skill is clear. And the game itself shows early indications of a really fun design. I know it is not finished but there is a ton of promise visible already.
Not going to say my dev or asset pack stuff is in line with what you're doing aesthetically but my profile is here if you want to know a bit more about who just commented :) : matthornb.itch.io
<3
love this game to bits already, cannot wait for release!
Thank you!
Oh, this looks insanely cute. Wishlisted it on Steam and am following you and this project. I'll definitely be trying it out. Love cozy city builders! Can't wait to try this out tonight. It looks incredible!
Belated thank you!!
This is amazing! I love decorating in OpenTTD and this hits all those highpoints and more. Very fun and beautiful pixel graphics.
Thank you!
3 minutes in and I already love it. One thing I'd love though: Ctrl-Z! It would be very nice to have when editing things. :)
Thank you! I'll see if I can implement Ctrl-Z, but it's a notoriously difficult problem and I may not be able to!
Wonderful! Even just a quick undo placement sort of feature would be nice :) also it would be cool to have hot keys for like pretty much every action, a bit like Factorio has. Completely different game, I know, but the amount of hot keys for different situations is incredibly useful.
Can Not Start A New Gam
Hey, sorry about that. I've had a few reports of this happening and they all had the same issue: old (or mobile) CPU and no GPU.
Can you try updating the graphics firmware for the CPU? It might solve the problem
I Fiiggured It Uo
look awesome !
Thank you!
Cool game but, please, disable random colored walls when im try to copy previous floor
For sure. I'll be adding options like that in the near future
So much fun, messed around with this for a little bit and I can already tell the absolute hold this game could have on my life! I took a look at your roadmap and man I can't wait for there to be public transport, would love to try and recreate a 15-minute city inside the game.
Thank you! <3 <3
it hangs after i press "new game", is it my computers issue?
Hmm, first time I've heard that happening. What OS are you using?
Can you try forcing the game to run on your GPU? The game might be using CPU integrated graphics, and I discovered there's an Intel bug related to that.
Edit: new build forces GPU use
At this time are there people? Because none are in my metropolis.
There are people! Did you delete the road running through the map? Currently that's how people move in
i am ENAMORED with this, it's so cute! there's little guys doing little guy things! I'm so excited to see where this project goes
Thank you so much! <3
Downloaded the demo from steam and i can't wait for it to release in full. Cityskylines and rollercoaster tycoon mashed together in such a good way
Thank you!
Just cool 5/5
Played the Steam demo. Lovely graphics and concept! It combines city building with interior designing, which many players will potentially appreciate. Perhaps I'm just making an amateur mistake but I can't figure out how to get other zones.
Games take a while to load. Cars when turning will sometimes clip through streetlights but it does not detract from the game too much. I did experience a bug which is that sometimes clicking one building preset will cause any other building preset to be placed as the first preset you clicked. E.g., I clicked 'Gas Station', and then 'Pet Shop' - then the pet shops placed resulted in gas stations. This problem went away when I reloaded the UI widget.
If I were to list some things I'd like to see, it would be more outdoor building options! I wanted to build a parking lot but couldn't.
I'd like to see this project succeed. Keep up the nice work.
Hey afteryesterday, thanks for your feedback! I appreciate it.
I have fixed the blueprint bug you mentioned above. It will now warn if no blueprint is available (which was why the previous selection remained).
I just added parking lots to this build :)
Thanks!
Loving the game so far. At this phase it's more of a toy but I see great potential. I had a few thoughts and bugs as I played - I'll share them here. I'm a Windows 10 user with a dedicated gaming PC with mid-high specs.
THOUGHTS:
-Found the UI to be cute and functional, but I wish there were a more complete border or color swap depending on the build state I'm in (zoning, furniture, nudging) so I know which state I have selected.
-Found laying out rooms easy, but re-working their size or adding walls to create two adjoining rooms of the same type felt a little wonky and unintuitive. I wanted to click within an office to create another office, but instead you have to delete one tile and start the new office in a tile which is not already an office.
-I really love the furniture assets in the game and hope that you have plans for modders to add their own objects/designs, or a way to edit or create furniture in the game! I spent my hour with the game thinking of all sorts of specific junk I would decorate with to make each property feel unique. As a dabbling sprite artist I felt inspired and wanted to jump right into making my own little fax machines, lava lamps, and milk crates :)
BUGS:
-Some behaviors with Alt will create ghosts of furniture which are not interactable items.
-Experienced a crash on attempting to load a saved game after quitting to desktop and relaunching game.
-Experienced a crash deleting a road intersected with the start road.
I've been waiting for a game like this forever, so I'll be watching this one closely!
Thank you so much for this feedback! All of it is solid. I'll look into into the first two bugs. Third one is fixed for the next release.
Your suggestions are great too, will work on making the UI a bit more obvious, and will think of a way to add some suboptions for room placement.
I plan on working with modders and adding in-game object creation/editing :)