Real-world maps are helping developers make games about trains and farms

I feel a strange feeling of pressure because I prepared my first way for the bus City bus manager. I would like to get things right for public transport users in this city, perhaps because it is the city in which I already live. City bus manager Openstreetmap data (OSM) is used to fill its maps, so I can see all the familiar streets and front attention points. These are my neighbors, who want, like me, an effective transit service. I want to be able to provide them – even if it is just in simulation.

City bus manager It is part of a small group of Sims Management that uses the OSM database created by the community to make the entire world prepare their games. Another example Global farmerand Nimby barsAnd Logistics: Earth. In these games, players can build farms, railways or delivery networks around the world, using data on real fields, settlements and infrastructure to inform their decisions.

When the idea of ​​using OSM was raised for the first time in PEDEPE, the studio is behind City bus manager“We had no idea if it was technically possible,” says Niklas Bolster, co -founder of the studio. But as soon as it was established, the license granted them access to a whole world of streets, buildings and even real bus stations. These do more than just forming the game world. It is also used for play items such as passenger behavior simulation. “Schools generate traffic in the morning on the week, while the night life areas such as bars and clubs tend to attract more passengers in the evening on weekends,” Polester says.

Usually Polster says, people are attracted to play City bus manager In their local areas. (This seems to be confirmed by looking at YouTube’s gameplay, as creators often begin to say that they will dive into their city or town.) Global farmer Developer Thira byte. When they offered the game in Gamescom in 2024, he wanted “every one visitor” to enter their postal code and look at their home.

Feldman says there is a specific imagination about the ability to convert a well -known space. In addition to your home or city, marketing Global farmer It is proposed to use famous tourist sites, such as Buckingham Palace, as a start for your new agricultural life. “[Players creating their] “Special stories about those places can be more influential than purely fictional environments,” says Feldman.

There is an enjoyable thing about its nature about controlling a place you see every day or place very creative. On not

The quality of public transportation – or its absence – is another major political issue in which I live. Local buses are currently nationalizing again after what South Yorkshire Oliver Cobard may call a “failed experience” in privatization. Perhaps for this reason, although these may be pixels on the screen, I want to do it correctly. This feeling that many players seem to be experienced. “Our dispute community is full of players who are enthusiastic about public transport,” says Polester. “We have heard stories about the players who have become interested in public transport as a profession thanks to the game.”

Of course, gaming developers who use OSM data are still making games, instead of microscopic simulation. The real world is not always a well -balanced design space. “In the smaller cities and villages, the roads can be unprecedented with realistic numbers,” Polester says. City bus manager It compensates for this by giving players more financial support, which is a clear and useful part of the game’s design. But when it comes to treating games as a direct representation of the world, it raises some complexity. For example, according to Polester, some players communicate with their local transportation agencies with data collected from playing in their local areas – despite the fact that the game is not actually designed as loyal to the real world, even if it is its map.

Another challenge is that OSM data is not always completely reliable. Polster explains that there can be missing errors or data that breaks very specific areas in the game, which requires PEDEPE to find and repair problems manually. But OSM is also a program that runs the volunteers, which means that players can correct data in the source. “Many of our players contribute directly to Openstreetmap”, if they find errors in their local area, says Polester, which improves the data set for everyone, regardless of what they use, “says Bolster.

Data density is also a special problem for Global farmer Developers, who found that OSM has a lot of information about roads more than field systems. There are many areas where the individual field borders are not set, which makes “a total gray areas where the play was not in fact cannot happen.” The developers compensated for this by creating a map editor, where players can copy satellite images from other sources to correct data, but this means that those who do not want to build their maps are limited to places where OSM is detailed data or where other players share their creativity.

SIMS management often has a feeling of realism, and OSM data is a useful tool in this tool box. Players are also allowed to control the environments they know well and can contact them. But it is not an ideal recreation for the world, and even if that, this is not always what games need. According to Vildman, the movement of these factors “can be very frustrated”.

However, just like players, developers are attracted to the idea of ​​lack of clarity of the lines between the places they know and the places they simulate. “It is also very rewarding whenever you can find a solution and get great results related to the real world,” says Feldman.