Organizations & Partners
Simulacra Cities: Lāna'i 2023
Working Together on Lāna'i
This does something real today. Its deeper value may take a generation to show.Simulacra Cities is building a 1:1 digital model of Lāna'i using real-world data. It's not a game in the traditional sense, it's meant to be a tool for preservation, education, and planning that just happens to run on a simulation engine.This page is for organizations, schools, agencies, and community groups who might want to be part of that. We're not selling a finished product here. We're looking for guidance, collaboration, and in some cases financial support to help this project reach its full potential.
What We're Looking For
Accuracy & Guidance
You know Lāna'i better than a satellite photo ever could. If your organization has historical records, old photographs, oral histories, or just firsthand knowledge of the island, we'd welcome the chance to make this project more accurate. Sometimes that's a quick conversation. Sometimes it's an ongoing back and forth. Either works.
Collaboration
We're open to working directly with organizations toward specific goals. That could be a demo for your team, a shared educational use case, or a look at how the simulation might support planning conversations or community outreach
Funding
There are two real costs behind this project, and we want to be upfront about both.The first is the cost of completing the full vision. A handful of the island's most recognizable landmarks deserve better than generic building assets, and getting those right means commissioning a professional 3D artist. That's the largest single expense ahead.The second is the time behind the project itself. This has largely been a solo, self-funded effort so far, and support here goes directly toward the many hours I've put into researching, building, and refining this project.Support toward either of these helps keep the project moving.
Ways to Get Involved
Landmark Sponsorship
Fund the creation of a specific, custom-modeled site (a building, park, or landmark) and get credit as its sponsor in the project's public listing and on this site, similar to an underwriting credit. Funds raised this way go directly toward commissioning the artist work for that landmark.
Project Support
For those who'd rather support the project as a whole rather than a single landmark. This funding goes toward the time and resources needed to keep the project moving forward, from research and data work to the tools required to build it.
Collaborator
No funding required. Share historical materials, local knowledge, or expert review, and get credited as a project collaborator. This is one of the more valuable ways to help, and it costs nothing but time.
Educational Partner
For schools and educators. We're happy to walk your team through a guided demo or talk through how the simulation's infrastructure and land-use systems could fit into a lesson plan or unit. For instructors who want to go further, several systems, including power generation and water infrastructure, can be tuned to more closely reflect real-world figures, turning a general overview into a more precise example for a specific lesson.
Community Supporter
For individuals or small organizations who want to support the project directly without a longer conversation, we also welcome contributions through Ko-fi and Patreon.
A Note on Sponsorship & Credit
Any organizational support gets credited clearly and kept separate from the simulation itself. We don't embed advertising or promotional content inside the model. Landmark descriptions stay factual and grounded in the site's actual history. Sponsor recognition shows up in the project's public mod listing and on this site, not as an ad inside the game.(This project is independently developed and isn't affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any brand, or company referenced or depicted within it, except where a partnership is explicitly noted above.)
A Note on Accuracy
We take the accuracy of this project seriously, and that means being honest about what the simulation actually gets right, and where it's a reasonable approximation rather than a precise match to real life.Road networks, terrain, and building placement are built from real GIS and satellite data, and things like traffic congestion tend to emerge in similar locations to the real world, since that's driven mostly by road capacity and network layout, not by how realistically individual drivers behave.Other systems, like public transit ridership, are a much rougher approximation. The simulation engine's underlying behavior model wasn't built to match real-world transit numbers, and getting closer to that would take further tuning beyond what a straightforward recreation offers.We think this kind of honesty matters more than an easy claim that everything is "realistic." A partner or collaborator should know exactly what they can rely on this project for, and where it's a stylized approximation standing in for something more complex.This same principle applies to scale. A small town like Lāna'i can realistically be modeled with a high level of custom detail throughout. A project the size of O'ahu is a different order of magnitude, both in the resources it takes to build and in what the game engine itself can reasonably handle at that scale. For a project like that, full custom detail will be prioritized for the most significant, most recognizable landmarks, with the broader landscape built to a high standard of real-world accuracy in terrain, roads, and zoning, using more generic assets rather than custom models everywhere.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a cost to work with you?
Not necessarily. A lot of what we're hoping for, historical input, feedback, educational partnerships, doesn't cost anything. Funding matters most for the larger landmark commissions and for supporting the ongoing time this project takes. We'd rather talk through scope and options directly than post a fixed price here.
Will the completed map cost anything to access?
No. The map will be released for free through Paradox Mods, the official platform for Cities: Skylines II community content. Any support goes toward developing the project, not toward gating the final result.
What does "custom-modeled" mean?
Right now, most of the map uses standard building assets placed in their correct real-world locations. A small number of especially significant sites can be rebuilt as accurate, custom 3D models. That takes more time and money, which is why we're seeking sponsorship specifically for these landmarks.
We're a small organization with limited resources. Can we still be involved?
Yes! Some of the most valuable contributions cost nothing but time and knowledge. If you have historical materials, corrections, or local insight to share, we'd love to hear from you regardless of your budget.
Get in Touch
We'd love to hear from you, whether you have a correction to offer, a question about the project, or interest in a deeper partnership.Email UsSimulacra Cities is a digital art studio building living digital reflections of real-world places using simulation engines. Learn more about the project at simulacra.city.