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Creating Dataviz Using the Video Game ‘Townscaper’
Visualizing the price of Bitcoin, inflation, and Facebook’s stock price using cute wee little buildings
(Want to try my tool that turns data into a Townscaper town? It’s here!)
I’m a big fan of Townscaper, the gorgeous little indie video game.
I’m not quite sure it’s a “game,” mind you. There’s no way to win or lose. All you do is create Mediterranean-looking villas against a watery backdrop — calmly placing building by building into place, each time producing a “plink” noise that palpably renews the soul.
So it’s more like a creative toy, or a piece of extremely odd architectural software. There are moments of surprise and delight, as when a building attaches at an unexpected angle, or a flock of birds appears on a roof. But mostly it’s just a dreamy zone-out experience — architecture as meditation.
A few days ago, I was placing houses in a long row, with varying heights. And when I looked at the jagged result, I thought:
Hey, that looks like a bar chart!
That made me wonder, hmmm, could I use Townscaper as a dataviz tool? Could I write code that takes data and turns it into a row of buildings?
