City MSX brings SimCity style city building to the MSX2

City building on an MSX2 sounds like a tight fit. City MSX goes for it anyway. Developed by BigFive, this new strategy game takes the basic structure of classic SimCity and rebuilds it around MSX2 hardware, complete with zoning, roads, railways, taxes, public services, disasters and a 32×32 city map. It’s small by modern standards, of course. Yet City MSX isn’t trying to compete on scale. Its focus sits squarely on fitting a recognisable city simulation into a machine with very different limits from a current PC. The game is built in C with MSXgl, drawing on resources from Micropolis, the open-source branch of Will Wright’s original city simulation.

SimCity, cut down for MSX2

The basic routine will be familiar to anyone who has spent time with an early SimCity release. You place residential, commercial and industrial zones, connect areas with roads or rail, supply electricity, collect taxes and fund city services. Development grows from those systems rather than from a scripted campaign.

The 32×32 map changes how much room you have to work with. Roads eat into space. Rail takes more. Water and forest areas shape each generated map, so a neat grid isn’t always practical. A badly placed transport route can leave less room for later development, and each zone has to fit into a city with fairly hard physical limits.

There’s an annual budget, too. Tax rates can be adjusted, and money can be assigned to police, fire services and transport infrastructure. Larger facilities include stadiums, airports and seaports. Three difficulty settings change the pressure on the player without altering the basic structure of the simulation.

The city talks through maps and numbers

City MSX gives players several overlays for reading what’s happening beneath the buildings. Electricity coverage, pollution, crime, land value and traffic can each be checked separately. It’s the familiar city-builder idea of turning a map into a set of problems you can inspect, rather than asking players to rely on visible growth alone.

This matters on a small map. Space runs out quickly, so an area with poor land value or heavy traffic can’t always be solved by spreading development elsewhere. The player has to work within a limited grid, move spending around and decide which problem deserves attention first.

Disasters can interrupt the routine. Fires, floods, earthquakes and tornadoes can damage developed areas, forcing repairs and new spending. They’re part of the simulation rather than a separate mode, bringing sudden changes to a city which might otherwise be ticking along predictably.

Eight scenarios sit beside random maps

A fresh city isn’t the only option. City MSX includes eight scenarios adapted from Micropolis, each providing a set situation instead of an empty map. These scenarios give the game a more directed structure for players who want a defined problem rather than an open-ended build.

Random map generation covers the other side of the package. Terrain varies from one city to the next, with water and forest placement changing where development can spread. It keeps the 32×32 format from becoming a fixed puzzle, since each map asks for a slightly different use of the same tools.

Built for real MSX2 hardware

City MSX is a native MSX2 game, not a modern PC release wearing an MSX visual filter. It uses SCREEN 7 graphics and requires an MSX2 with 128 KB of VRAM, plus support for a 256 KB ROM. Keyboard control is supported on compatible hardware, and emulation offers another route for running it.

Sound comes through PSG effects, and the interface is in English. Save support is present through DOS2 or Nextor files where available, with persistent ASCII16SRAM2 storage offered as another option.

Those details matter here since the technical target shapes the game itself. A 32×32 map isn’t simply a stylistic choice. It gives the simulation a size suited to MSX2 memory and display limits, and the interface has been built around the same constraints.

From SimCity to Micropolis to City MSX

City MSX traces its design roots to the original SimCity, created by Will Wright and first released in 1989. SimCity stood apart from many games of its period by focusing on systems rather than a fixed sequence of stages. Players zoned land, built transport links, raised taxes, funded services and watched the city react.

A Unix version of the original simulation was later developed by Don Hopkins. Its code eventually appeared in open-source form under the Micropolis name. City MSX uses material from Micropolis and adapts the idea for MSX2 hardware, bringing the core zoning, budgeting and infrastructure loop into a much smaller technical frame.

The current version remains in development. Its main structure is already in place: build, connect, fund, inspect and repair. City MSX takes a familiar city-management model and compresses it into a 32×32 simulation made for the MSX2.

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