Heres a rundown of what happened between todays Metro Monday and the last one, which was also the first one. Firstly, this past Friday we launched the game! The Free Edition, which has been available on itch.io for years as a rolling developer preview of sorts, is now also on Steam serving as a demo. The Gold Edition is now also available on both itch.io and Steam for purchase. We want to thank everyone who has tried either edition of IsoMetro so far, and beyond that were especially appreciative of those who have decided to fork over their hard-earned cash for the Gold Edition. As far as the state of the game itself, weve rolled out a few updates since launch. Theres now a Main Menu, so instead of jumping straight into an empty world with a clunky message box asking you whether to spawn the starter level, there are instead buttons on the main menu to start a new city in a few different ways. Since the visuals of the Main Menu only require loading a small subset of assets such as trees, the overall game is able to launch a bit more quickly. The existing Pause Menu has also been visually improved. A bug with the tutorial wherein the first tutorial stage wouldnt highlight the UI buttons associated with it is resolved. A bug wherein the volume setting would be ignored initially after resetting the game loop (for example starting a new city) is also resolved. The assets for the Franks Furniture industrial building in the Gold Edition have been overhauled to be much more visually interesting. Two new tenement highrise buildings have been added (there are now three tenement highrises in total). Finally, we are gradually figuring out the ideal ways to use social media to not just broadcast the existence of IsoMetro but also to welcome bug reports, usability concerns, and feature requests. Even if youre reaching out about the Free Edition, we intend to take your feedback seriously. After all, both editions have plenty of code in common, so bugs in one are probably in the other. Bugs aside, suggestions for improving the IsoMetro experience are valuable to us even if were already aware of a potential improvement, duplicate suggestions still help us prioritize what we should work on next. For a full list of our socials, such as our Community Discord, check the IsoMetro site: https://isometro.live

The overall aesthetic of IsoMetro™ is a nod to city builder games from decades ago. Building on the base mechanics introduced by those original pioneers, IsoMetro™ leverages the vastly superior processing capabilities of today's "low end" hardware, to power a surprisingly nuanced and authentic economic simulation. Despite the nostalgic 90's visual aesthetic, it's not as simple as "big city, big buildings" -- economic effects are specific to every individual tile, encouraging you to think carefully about transit options and zoning policy if you want to see dense, vibrant city centers take shape.

Playing as the government, you can use your treasury funds to build public infrastructure such as utility facilities, transit networks, and civic service buildings. Meanwhile, buildings such as houses, shops, and factories will only be built in residential, commercial, and industrial zones respectively by the citizens themselves if you've met all their requirements. If your citizens can't get where they need to go, face utility shortages, are exposed to unacceptable levels of pollution, or are under-served in other ways, your infrastructure investments will go to waste. Meanwhile, a well-planned city will see healthy economic growth, and develop a positive cash flow from its tax base that can be used to invest in further expansion.

While building cities in IsoMetro™ is intended to be a comfortable, low-stress experience, the simulation also invites you to consider how the simplified concepts in the game world apply to the world we live in. Experiment with different transit options and zoning strategies to determine which approaches work better than others. Are roads and parking lots the way to go? Can you get away with not building even a single tile of road at all? Is a dense city core more profitable or is it better to have a metro area that sprawls far and wide?

IsoMetro™ brings you a balanced experience -- it can be thought-provoking if you choose to look closely at how your city works, but is also meant to be a satisfying and relaxing experience if you just want to watch your city evolve while you zone out to the varied music styles comprising the high-quality, 90-minute soundtrack.

• OS: Ubuntu 18.04 LTS
• Processor: Intel i3 2100Memory: 2048 MB RAM
• Memory: 2048 MB RAM
• Graphics: Software Rendering
• Storage: 200 MB available spaceAdditional Notes: Disk space requirement will increase with new content.

• OS: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
• Processor: AMD Ryzen 1200Memory: 8192 MB RAM
• Memory: 8192 MB RAM
• Graphics: Integrated Graphics
• Storage: 1000 MB available space