Australian Bureau of Statistics Takes On SimCity With Run That Town

Post by trog @ 03:16pm 10/06/13 | 11 Comments

Australia's home of delicious numeric data, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, has released a new iPhone game called Run that Town.

Have you ever thought your local area could be run better? Well, why don’t we put you in charge? Run That Town is a strategy game with a twist - it lets you take control of any neighbourhood in Australia. Use real Census data to discover who’s who in your area, and make decisions that will sway popular opinion in your favour. What kind of leader will you be? Will you be showered with praise, or chased out of town by an angry mob?

• Play with any Australian postal area
• Every game is created using real Census data, making it unique to your neighbourhood
• Choose from hundreds of projects for your town - from the practical to the preposterous
• Consult the locals to make popular decisions
• Read about your exploits in the infamous local paper

You can download Run that Town now from the iOS AppStore (I guess they don't have statistics on how many people have Android phones, because there's no version for that platform yet). Check out the game trailer below for a look at the action.

iphone simcity australia abs run that town

Latest Comments

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Whoop
Posted 03:27pm 10/6/13

man if I could play this I'd run this town with an iron fist. stupid non androidy games

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crazymorton
Posted 03:50pm 10/6/13

iPhone version only. I like these sort of things on a bigger screen.

Can one of you techies tell me why some stuff is made this way?

Is it really hard to make a tablet version?

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Phooks
Posted 04:18pm 10/6/13

It's really fun, not similar to Simcity at all though. It has some pretty tough decisions, it freaking sucked when I rejected the proposal for a new bike path in my own area. Considering I'm a person that bikes through every day I really felt that ping of hatred, but the motorists were against it and they outnumbered the cyclists 20:1

It's weird getting used to how fast paced it is, but it has good humour in parts. My first year I was number 8 suburb and the guy said "Congratu--whatever!" in some weird english accent.

recommend++

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blaze0041
Posted 04:29pm 10/6/13

^ Shaun Micallef does the voiceovers for the game, and it adds a nice little charm to it.

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Mosfx
Posted 04:41pm 10/6/13

Maybe the ABS should look into the percentage of Android phones in the population now and make this game available on the play store *_*

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qmass
Posted 07:59pm 10/6/13

Is this just harvesting statistics on the way we think?

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Focumba
Posted 08:12pm 10/6/13

If I see a sudden boom of skate parks in my post code the answer is yes!

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Reverend Evil�
Posted 09:14pm 10/6/13

man if I could play this I'd run this town with an iron fist

The same way you make love, hey?

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Brulath
Posted 12:13am 11/6/13

Cool idea, but the statistics don't seem to play into it that much - the only time I've noticed a less-than-random outcome to a decision was when I went against the motorists twice; don't fight the motorists. The rest of the time the public is utterly capricious... which might be what this was meant to simulate.

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natslovR
Posted 10:41am 11/6/13

I'm told this is fun. So much so that my wife has stopped playing Candy Crush, for now anyway.

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HeardY
Posted 06:30pm 11/6/13

so our tax paying money is going towards making games for the ABS of all people?

strewth!!

also android already

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