Transportation is a major factor for almost all city builders. Whether you are building a medieval city or your citizens lead oxen instead of cars, you need a road system that allows them to get around quickly and efficiently. But in a car-park capital, you have to satisfy not only the living people who live in your city, but also the perpetually greedy auto industry. That means building parking lots. Lots and lots.

How do you convince people that it is in their interest to build more roads, cars, and parking lots in their cities? Of course, with in-game propaganda, you could put up a huge sign proclaiming "YOU ❤️CARS". That way, it will be easier to deal with when they bulldoze your house and replace it with a huge parking lot; as the Steam page says, you are teaching them "car-dependent freedom."

In fact, real pro-car propaganda was one of the inspirations for Car Park Capital. We spoke with the game's creator, Hilko Janssen, who told us via a Reddit chat that along with isometric sim games like "Roller Coaster Tycoon," the 1954 General Motors production "Give Yourself the Green Light (Give Yourself the Green Light)," an automobile advertising video produced by General Motors in 1954, along with isometric sim games such as Roller Coaster Tycoon. This video can be seen on YouTube. As far as the eye can see, a glowing highway stretches from one lane to the next, and he says in an almost pious tone that as long as he is an automobile company, he has a beautiful future ahead of him.

In reality, massive road projects like the one proposed in this video have done nothing to solve traffic problems while uprooting entire neighborhoods and displacing thousands of residents, mostly people of color. Traffic usually worsened because these arterial roads made the city less walkable and thus required more cars: the whole strategy of GM.

"Before I saw that video, I had already built a parking simulator. But after watching "Give Yourself the Green Light," I realized that the game could also be developed in a more satirical way. [Citing a 1970s photo of Houston full of parking lots, Janssen said, "I still want to recreate that photo in a game and make people pay for cabs to get from the parking space to their actual destination."

People in your city don't just lay down and accept it. Said Janssen, "I want the citizens to get angry after a player destroys their house for more parking spaces." 'They'll attack the parking lots, drive-through restaurants, drive-in cinemas, etc., that the players originally built to satisfy the citizens and set up camp there.' It will be a constant battle between satisfying the auto industry and satisfying the people."

Janssen is from the Netherlands, where "there are literally more bicycles than people. He adds, "I think most people still own cars, but we are not an automobile-centric city, and in the '60s and '70s we tried to make our cities automobile-centric, like the U.S., and we had a lot of traffic congestion, and we had a lot of people who were not driving. Plans were made to destroy neighborhoods and fill canals with concrete to relieve traffic congestion. Fortunately, we have since changed our minds and made the city livable again."

According to Jansen, there is no release date or window yet for Car Park Capital, but they plan to begin playtesting "soon" to begin gathering feedback. Until then, you can check out the game on Steam.