Exploratory thesis on a city simulation game, Ensa Nantes, 2023
In the course of my studies, I was led to devote myself to researching and writing a thesis on architecture in the broadest sense. Starting with a personal unrest, I decided to tackle an area that had not yet been studied to any great extent in my field: city simulation games.
SimCity comes immediately to mind, as it is the best-known city simulation game outside the gaming community, but its current rival Cities : Skylines released in 2015, has claimed all the limelight and established itself in the genre. Published by Paradox Interactive and developed by video game studio Colossal Order, Cities : Skylines has managed to make its mark while offering continuity in terms of gameplay and graphics. I myself have spent more than 1,000 hours playing games, most of them before I even started architecture school.
This dissertation looks at the game as an object of study, from its genealogy to its gameplay, its vision of urban morphology, architecture and landscape and its impact on the game's cohort of players.
The dissertation is publicly available here: https://dumas.ccsd.cnrs.fr/dumas-04092021v1