Learning from Pocket City

It's been long since I decided to play a game on my mobile phone. The reason - every time I start playing games, I get addicted to them. I got myopia playing video games in childhood. Getting back to the point, I decided to play game to understand if it can simulate my brain and get me to use the rusty parts of the brain.

The game works on a very simple concept. You are the mayor of a city. You are given a small townhouse and some money. You have to build the infrastructure, facilities, demarcate zones, run the economy of the city. While it may sound complicated, it starts with simple steps and has levels where as you gain experience, you move up the levels. New levels unlock new buildings, features, resources, capabilities and/ or money. The app nicely uses a prompt section called quest - which work like simple tasks and as you complete them, you get rewarded. You need to keep a look at supply and demand for different resources and how the population is faring.

While, I enjoyed it thoroughly and few hours spent over 2 days, I reached from Level 1 to level 45 with a decently growing city, I was pulled out of my deep involvement by my wife. Thank her for that. Having played the game, I started thinking, if there is something I could take away as learning.

So, here are my pearls of wisdom:

1. Roads are pretty important. They provide access to any building and also supply of electricity and water. You need to lay them first. What are roads in our life? This is the basic infrastructure on which you would build superstructures. I would like to think it as your health and capabilities. If you are healthy and fine, you can do more awesome things.
2. Resources are required to run the city. There are two basic resources - power and water. Each power plant or water pump can supply to few blocks around it. This could be labour and capital in classic microeconomics context. You later also have to deal with food, lumber and minerals essentially basic raw materials which can help you create enterprises.
3. There is an assistant who suggests what new can be done. We need advisers or counsels who are able to cover our blind spots and enable us to succeed. Get your Donna.
4. You need to plan for future. The zones can cover 1 or 2 unit width. If you create a zone of 3 unit width, the 3rd unit won't have access to road and would be unusable. This requires you to create a road giving it access or demolishing the unit or leaving it unused. Many a times we start on projects which go into limbo. We need to use our resources more thoughtfully.
5. You buy a single piece of land, the price alongside rises. If you can, try and purchase in bulk so that you get a good deal.
6. Interestingly, towards the higher levels, ability to store and manage cash became a bottleneck which means I needed to create more banks. It becomes important to not let your accounting or admin capabilities constrain you from growing your kitty.
7. There are natural disasters. While, you can prepare for them. Mostly, they will come unannounced and you have to survive them.
8. There were fires and you need the firefighters be available and reachable to douse the fires. Who are the firefighters in your life or business?
9. There are thugs and you need equipped police with quick access to identify and nab the troublemakers. It's important to control nuisance and ensure there is order. Too much freedom can let the troublemakers impinge on freedom of others.
10. What you planned and created for Level 10 won't suffice in level 30. You need to upgrade which essentially means putting in fresh investments and doing the old stuff better so that it can provide a higher return.
11. While small mountains look good, they stop your road from getting built or forcing you to take too may bends. You need dynamite to smash them and pave your way. You need to know what needs to preserved and what needs to give way for your success.
12. There was a lumber unit where trees were chopped while on the other hand, I was also planting trees near industrial zone to curb pollution. Sometimes, resources are wrongly allocated and you need to replace them from a site and move to another site.

There are perhaps a lot more I can talk about but aren't these points worthy of some ponder. Let me know if you have played the game. How do you look at the resemblance of different aspects of the game with real life and workplaces? Did you have a different thought while playing the game? Any other game, you found fascinating and worth learning at the same time?