The Attractions of Little Cities

We spoke to Purple Yonder Co-Founder, Kelly Howard, about the Little Cities Attractions update and how community feedback inspired a whole new way to play on Quest and Quest 2!

Little Cities remains the most loved city creator in VR, and we’re honestly so blown away by the reception to our humble little creation. Throughout development, we’ve encouraged an open dialogue with our community, with plenty of your amazing ideas being brought into the game – such as natural disasters. Since launch, we have continued to support the game with patches and updates, including Hand Tracking support which arrived back in June.

A key request from the community was for us to add fresh ways to style and personalise cities, to enable players to really put their personal stamp on their creation. This led us to the idea of Attractions, but the idea quickly developed beyond being merely cosmetic. That’s why we’re particularly excited to bring this newest addition to our players, as the Attractions update brings a whole roster of new content and enhanced replayability to Little Cities.

These new Attractions are one tile size wide, meaning you no longer need to worry about those pesky small pieces of land being left undeveloped as your city grows. Placing Attractions in your city, you’ll notice our brand-new Style Rating system. This creates a whole new layer to the game, with each island now able to be levelled up and graded – celebrating not just your city’s scale, but sense of style! We feel this fresh and fun dynamic fits so well within the Little Cities environment, providing players with new ways to really use their imagination.

Of course, we wanted to make sure we complimented the truly cozy and relaxed feel that Little Cities is best known and loved for. That’s why the Style Rating System is entirely optional, meaning Attractions can be used simply as a cosmetic enhancement to your city if you wish. We want you to play your way.

In the new Attractions update, each city (aside from the tutorial island) has a maximum Style Rating of five stars, which is viewable when looking at your in-game watch. When you build Attractions, you earn style points that will increase your city’s Style Rating. You can lay Attractions anywhere in the level, we didn’t want to restrict player enjoyment with strict rules (but you might earn some bonus points for creative thinking) - For example, when deck chairs are placed by the beach, you’ll earn additional style points! As you achieve each new star, more Attractions will become available to you, opening up even more creative possibilities.

However, it isn’t all about packing every square foot of your island creation. You will need to uncover secret Attraction and building pairings if you hope to max out your Style Rating. Going beyond the original, cosmetic-focused idea, meant that you're empowered to experiment with Attractions and find their perfect place within the city. It’s also a great reason to revisit those old save files and cities and bring them a new lease of life – and maybe even max out the Style Rating across all of your cities! 

There are over 30 new Attractions which we can’t wait for you to discover. My personal favourite is the “dog buddha” statue. It’s definitely a unique and fun item as Filip, the artist responsible for all of the beautiful new Attractions in the game, modelled his own dog, Monty, for it! We also have a feline surprise in-game, so as an animal lover myself, I really appreciate these two items. We can’t wait to hear what your favourites are.

Little Cities was a big undertaking for our little indie team, and we’ve poured our hearts into it. So the comments and feedback we’ve received from players, press and creators alike mean absolutely everything to us and we want to thank our community for your continued love and support!

Plus, with Winter fast approaching, our team at Purple Yonder are working on a new update that we know players will love…but that’s all we’re saying for now!

To celebrate the launch of the Attractions update, and to showcase our community’s creativity in Little Cities, we’re hosting an extra special competition where you could be in with a chance of getting your very own Attraction added to the game! All you need to do to enter is create a city with the new Attractions that express your style and personality, take a screenshot, and send it to us.

Enter the competition by sharing a screenshot of your city using #PrettyLittleCities on Twitter and Instagram, or by posting it into the #🏢-little-cities channel on our official Discord (http://discord.gg/ndreams). Full details on how to enter can be found here.

Little Cities is available on the Meta Quest and Meta Quest 2.