The entire city of San Francisco as a video game

(sf.thijs.gg)

80 points | by centrosphere 1 hour ago

22 comments

  • forthwall 1 hour ago
    Kinda funny game, though if you want a bit more fidelity, but less control, Microsoft Flight Simulator has a pretty good version of SF.

    Though as for games that use SF (but not 1:1) Watch Dogs 2 is a pretty good proxy, though my favorite video game interpretation of San Francisco is from GTA San Andreas (San Fierro)

    • HanClinto 15 minutes ago
      Very impressed with the Watch Dogs series of games for this purpose.

      We recently used Watch Dogs Legion to prep for a trip to London to get more familiar with the city. Set the game on peaceful mode and just walked around and did virtual sight-seeing instead of playing missions. It's a surprisingly good recreation of the city, and we really appreciated getting some familiarity with the place before we visited.

    • Apocryphon 13 minutes ago
      Not bad, though based on the screenshot Lake Merritt in Oakland looks not to scale.

      https://watchdogs.fandom.com/wiki/Category:Bay_Area

  • tuchsen 32 minutes ago
    Ah nice demo! I flew around SF for way too long just enjoying the sights. On my M3 Air using Chrome it eventually just turns into blobs and my character get stuck, takes about twenty minutes. I popped open the DevTools and the game loads in at like 400mb but after five or so minutes I'm at 2GB of memory consumption. I'd guess that you need to have your agent do a couple of passes for memory leaks. Very fun otherwise!
  • DonHopkins 1 minute ago
    What's the actual game? Try not to step in doo-doo?
  • recursive 39 minutes ago
    Loading information just goes forever.

    Console shows CORS violations and WebGL errors.

    Firefox on Windows. Recent ThinkPad provided by my employer.

  • josephjrobison 36 minutes ago
    Very amazing. And this is the worst it will ever be. We'll soon be exploring 4k versions of this and we can open every trash can in Tunis. Fascinating. Had a lot of fun (tedious tho) going out to Alcatraz and figuring out how to get in.
    • stronglikedan 27 minutes ago
      > Had a lot of fun (tedious tho) going out to Alcatraz

      Curious, did you use a vehicle/glider, or did you take the heel-toe express all the way there?

      • whycombinetor 21 minutes ago
        You can activate flying mode by double-jumping and crank the speed up with +.
  • aselimov3 18 minutes ago
    How do I turn the camera? Stuck with a single perspective.
    • aselimov3 12 minutes ago
      Mouse capture works in chrome but not safari for me
  • bengotow 23 minutes ago
    Ahh wow this is awesome! Is there a way to deep link to a lat/long?
  • tims33 23 minutes ago
    I was thinking of the game Outrun in the Red Ferrari driving around SF.
  • englishspot 1 hour ago
    my first experience with San Francisco in a video game was through the City Escape stage in Sonic Adventure 2. and I didn't even know then that it was San Francisco (I had never been there when I played the game). only realized this when I visited the city many years later.
    • cosmojg 59 minutes ago
      Haha, I know that stage by heart, and I've never been to San Francisco. I had no idea that's what it was modeled after!
  • fusslo 44 minutes ago
    man what happened to loading bars?

    I'm sitting here watching the block bounce in a circle and I have no idea if the game is actually loading or not. Tried turning off PopUpOff. Tried turning off adblock.

    as it turns out it just isn't loading (firefox on win 11, if that matters)

  • zuzululu 6 minutes ago
    where did you get the 3d map assets? also if one was serious about turning this into a game how would you go about it
  • nickandbro 56 minutes ago
    Crazy how they have GTA San Francisco before GTA 6
  • busymom0 18 minutes ago
    Will try on my Mac. On my iPhone, I got the spinner wheel for a while and my phone started getting hot, so I killed it.
  • aaroninsf 20 minutes ago
    Chrome on MacOS: largely unusable (over fiber); POV stuck and will not move except in a tiny area.

    I don't mind the lazy asset loading; I just can't go anywhere outside a couple blocks from the start position. M3 MBA.

  • arionhardison 20 minutes ago
    This is insanely awesome man; I turned the entire SF gov into an AI Gov. but this has really humbled me; great work dude.
  • selimthegrim 53 minutes ago
    <Cisco Heat cries in the corner>
  • okokwhatever 40 minutes ago
    what a beautiful city could be...
  • nicechianti 37 minutes ago
    [dead]
  • avelis 29 minutes ago
    The least amount of traffic I have seen in the city. /s
  • walrus01 1 hour ago
    I don't think it's really simulating San Francisco unless it has a public defecation feature.
    • jb12 55 minutes ago
      Woah dude careful, I think you're stuck in 2022!
    • nonethewiser 41 minutes ago
      Oh cmon man. Every city has its “lets just accept human feces on the sidewalk “ phase.