Car Park Capital is a new game where you ruin walkable cities

Have you ever wondered how urban infrastructure (particularly in America) got so terrible? Video game designer Hilko Janssen clearly has, and that's why he created Car Park Capital.

Inspired by games like RollerCoaster Tycoon and Sim City, Car Park Capital puts the player in the shows of a shameless real estate mogul who's desperate to extract value from an otherwise pleasant walkable community in the form of a brand new parking lot. In order to earn the passive income that you need to live, however, you're going to need to make life miserable for everyone else.

So how to convince the town to go along with your scheme? Propaganda, baby. You just need to make them think like you're doing them a favor.

No, really that's the setup for the game. Here's the official blurb:

The car industry needs you to design and build the greatest car parks that simple town life hasn't seen before. Introduce the need for car commuting and turn neighborhoods into car parks! Use propaganda to convince people to pay you for it. Fight people that see through your oily business.

Janssen — who is from the Netherlands — also spoke with PC Gamer, where he went a bit more in-depth on the origins of the game:

In fact, real pro-car propaganda was one of the inspirations for Car Park Capital…[specifically] a video called "Give Yourself the Green Light," a pro-car propaganda film created by General Motors in 1954. You can see it here on YouTube, where it speaks in almost reverent tones about lane after lane of gleaming highways stretching as far as the eye can see—a beautiful future as long as you're a car company.

[…]

The people of your city won't just roll over and take it, though. "I want citizens to become angry after the player destroys their homes for more parking space," Janssen said. "They will attack and encamp in the parking garages, drive-through restaurants and drive-in cinemas that the player originally built to keep the people satisfied. It will be a constant battle between keeping the automotive industry *and* the people satisfied."

This is sick, and twisted, and I love it.

Car Park Capital [Hilkojj Interactive / Steam]

In this satirical city builder, your goal is to convert walkable cities into parking lots and use propaganda to convince everyone it's what they want [Christopher Livingston / PC Gamer]