Advertising For The Megacorps: AdvertCity Released
A new life awaits you on the off-world colonies
"This story is dedicated to all those cyberpunks who fight against injustice and corruption every day of their lives." Every morning I stare in the mirror at those words, from Hideo Kojima's Snatcher, tattooed across my neck. That's my credo, man. However, if I were to sell out, I'd be invaluable to the megacorp advertising departments with my snappy copy [give over -ed.]. I might consider cyberpunk advertising tycoon game AdvertCity [official site] a 'what if?' scenario. I'm curious is all.
AdvertCity came out yesterday. Across meatspace and cyberspace, you get to plaster ads, build a reputation, beat the competition, influence the growth of the procedurally-generated city, and make a stack of creds. Selling out sounds cybergreat, cyberman.
I'll dive in for a look this weekend but here are developers VoxelStorm explaining how it works:
"The city will start out small and will grow based on how you choose to advertise. Make it grow by advertising for the housing and construction megacorps , make your money and keep them happy by selling music, booze and other... entertainments. As you gain reputation with the megacorps they'll give you access to an ever larger arsenal of advertising techniques with which to sway the masses."
Yep, yep, that'll do for me. I really dig the idea of the city having both cyberspace and physical layers and the interaction between the two. Good stuff, that. I'm also really into escalating the obnoxiousness of my adverts until the city's filled with neon billboards and blimps advertising (I hope) a new life awaiting you on the off-world colonies.
AdvertCity is £15 on Itch.io for Windows, Mac, and Linux. In the absence of anything newer, here's a trailer from an alpha build one year ago:
When the ruddy spammers show up to blast these comments, I will at least laugh at this.