CITYplayer

Part of the TOOLS4CITIES suite, this uses serious gaming to let stakeholders interact with their neighbourhoods in fun and engaging ways to solve problems associated with environmental sustainability and urban livability.

Key project details

Research lead	Ursula Eicker Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Smart, Sustainable and Resilient Communities and Cities Founding co-director, Next-Generation Cities Institute
Researchers involved	Christopher Gibbs Senior advisor, Urban Simulation Platform & Gamification CITYlplayer lead Jiarui (Ray) Li Core software team
Timeline	Ongoing
Key words	#seriousgames #digitaltwins # HCI #UI #UX #interaction

Three Component Parts

An interactive city planning simulation interface. The screenshot shows a three-dimensional urban layout with various buildings. A sidebar titled 'SUSTAINABILITY' displays metrics like energy, water and waste with corresponding values.

Change your neighbourhood

Be a 'city planner' modifying buildings, transport, greenery, social spaces and more. See in realtime the effects on environmental sustainability and balance the trade-offs in pursuit of your perfect neighbourhood.

This is an image from a city-building simulation video game. The perspective is from a player character standing on a city street looking up towards towering skyscrapers under a partly cloudy sky.

Walk the streets

Experience the streets on foot, walking around with traffic and other pedestrians. Hear the sounds of the city any time of day or night, rain or shine. See issues of livability through the eyes of different person.

This is an image from a video game simulation displaying an interactive social space in an urban environment. The viewpoint shows a small park area with benches, lush green grass, and a statue on a pedestal. Text on the screen asks, 'WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THIS SOCIAL SPACE?'

Give feedback

Take photos of anywhere you choose and add your comments. Discover 'feedback points' where urban planners are interested in public opinions. Send your thoughts directly to the city. Surveys have never been this fun!

Model visualization

We are also prototyping ways to use this technology as an interactive 3D visualization tool for researchers. CITYplayer can connect to their simulations, models or data, and then in realtime see the results in powerful, insightful ways. For example, we could display side-by-side every building's plug load and occupancy, and watch how they change over the same time period, so getting spatio-temporal insights on the datasets at a neighbourhood scale.