The Case of Cities: Skylines Versions—Affordances in Urban Planning Education

Studies on city-building games as educational tools show positive results in addressing different learning objectives, but also identify a missing link to reality, as they are mostly computer-based. Given the differences between existing games and their capabilities, the exact function of these games in an urban planning curriculum is unclear. The city-building game Cities: Skylines currently has three different versions (Digital, Tabletop, VR). Through an affordance analysis of the game’s three versions, this study analyses how the versions afford four primary knowledge dimensions, and in doing so identifies different educational applications for each version of Cities: Skylines in different planning disciplines. The results show that: (a) the board game is strong in fostering player participation and critical thinking more suited for the social and health studies, public policy, and citizen participation domains of urban planning; (b) the digital version functions as moddable simulator, ensuring familiarity with existing systems and monitoring their effects, useful in logistics and transportation planning; (c) the VR form viscerally involves players in the simulated processes, applicable in design-focused segments of urban planning, such as sustainable design theory, housing, and land-use management. The results of this study can help urban planning educators identify possible uses for different versions of Cities: Skylines.