The Day Everything Changed

I didn't sleep very well last night.

I've been thinking a lot about HAND IN HAND lately. Where it's going, how it's playing, and whether the cooperative city builder I've been working on is actually turning into the game I want it to be.

And there was something someone said during testing last week that I just couldn't get out of my head.

We had four of us playing together on the same map, building one shared city. Everybody could build wherever they wanted, use the same money, and work on whatever part of the city they felt like.

That's been the whole idea behind HAND IN HAND from the beginning.

But one of my friends made a comment that stuck with me.

He wished he could have built something, but somebody else had already done it.

At the time, it didn't seem like a particularly big deal.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized there might be something important in that one little comment.

The Problem With Sharing Everything

I started thinking about why people enjoy city builders in the first place.

One of the biggest things is having control.

You get a piece of land, make your own decisions, design your own roads, plan your neighbourhoods, and watch the city grow the way you want it to.

That's a huge part of the appeal.

And here I was, building a cooperative city builder where four people could jump into the same city and do whatever they wanted.

Which sounds great in theory.

But what happens when one player has a plan for a neighbourhood and somebody else builds something there first?

Or you want to develop an industrial area, but another player has already used the land?

Nobody is necessarily doing anything wrong. You're all just trying to play the game.

The problem is that city-builder players are used to having their own little world to control.

I still want HAND IN HAND to be cooperative. That's the entire reason I started making it.

But maybe having everybody share absolutely everything from the first minute isn't the best way to accomplish that.

And then, sitting at my computer and typing out ideas, something clicked.

What If Cooperation Happened in Stages?

What if everybody started independently?

Not in separate games. Not on different maps.

In the same region, but building their own towns.

We already have a region map measuring 144 × 144 tiles.

Instead of giving everyone access to the entire map right away, what if each player started with their own small piece of land?

I'm thinking a 12 × 12 tile starting area for each mayor.

That's your little town.

You can build your roads, zone your neighbourhoods, develop your industry, and make your own decisions.

And nobody else can come along and build over your plans.

You'd still be playing in the same region with your friends. You could see their towns growing around you.

But everybody would have their own space to work with.

I really like the sound of that.

Growing Beyond Your Borders

Of course, a 12 × 12 area isn't going to get you very far once your town starts growing.

So the next part of the idea is land ownership.

What if you could purchase additional parcels of land as your town develops?

Each parcel would also be 12 × 12 tiles, and it would have to connect to land you already own.

That way, towns would gradually expand outward across the shared region.

You'd have to think about where you wanted to grow.

Do you expand toward the river?

Do you purchase land for a new residential district?

Do you move toward another player's town?

And that's where the really interesting part comes in.

What Happens When Two Towns Meet?

Imagine Kevin and I are playing in the same region.

He's building his town on one side of the map, and I'm building mine somewhere nearby.

We're both growing, buying land, building roads, and developing our own little cities.

Eventually, our municipal borders touch.

What if that triggered an opportunity to merge our towns?

I'm thinking the game could put the decision to a vote.

Both mayors would have to agree.

If we both accept, our two towns become one larger municipality.

Our land combines, and now both of us have the freedom to build and manage that entire area together.

We're back to cooperative city building, but this time we've each had a chance to establish our own towns first.

And if a third or fourth mayor eventually joins the growing municipality, we could build something even bigger together.

That's the idea that's been running around in my head all night.

Build Independently. Then Build Together.

The more I think about this, the more interesting it seems.

Instead of forcing everybody to share everything right from the beginning, the game would give players two different experiences.

First, you'd have the familiar city-builder experience of starting from scratch, controlling your own land, and developing your own town.

Then, as your town grows and connects with others, you'd have the opportunity to become part of something larger.

A cooperative city built from the work of several independent mayors.

It feels like a much more natural way to bring the cooperative idea into a city builder.

And it also creates some interesting decisions that weren't really there before.

Where do you expand? Which other towns do you want to connect with? When is the right time to merge?

And what happens when two mayors have different ideas about how their newly combined city should develop?

There's a lot to explore here.

Now I Have to Build It

Of course, all of this sounds great while I'm sitting here thinking about it.

Actually making it work is another story.

The game was originally designed around everyone sharing the same city, so introducing separate land ownership, municipal boundaries, expansion, and voting is going to require some substantial changes.

I don't even know yet whether the idea will play as well as it sounds in my head.

But something about it feels right.

I'm going to spend the next few days experimenting with this new approach and see if I can get a working version together for testing.

Maybe it'll work.

Maybe it'll create a whole new collection of problems I haven't even thought about yet.

But I think I might be onto something.

HAND IN HAND started as an idea about building a city together.

Now I'm starting to wonder if the better game is about building our own towns first, and then bringing them together.

Let's see where this goes.