City Levels: The Most Underrated Biome

What makes city levels so awesome? Kat has the answer.

Twitter: @pixel_a_day
Tumblr: @katfrompixeladay

Special thanks to Tom of the channel Static Canvas for providing his voice: @Buliaros18-Static-Canvas

All footage from Super Mario Odyssey, The Pedestrian and Paradise Killer capped by me, aside from some trailer footage

Music used in this video:
Tostarena: Ruins - Naoto Kubo
Jump Up, Super Star! - Naoto Kubo
Metropolis IntMusic - Mat Clark
New Donk City - Naoto Kubo
Rush Hour - Logan Hayes
Katamari on the Swing - Yuu Miyake and Yoshito Yano
Go! Go! Style - Barry Topping (Epoch)
Clocking In - Logan Hayes
Lemegton Bop - Barry Topping (Epoch)
Leaving - Barry Topping (Epoch)
Headlights on the Shore - Barry Topping (Epoch)
Moon - Logan Hayes
Czar Louie’s Reigna - Logan Hayes

[OhNoBohNo]

*"Ya like jazz?" intensifies*

[cupofoats]

Sometimes you can tell when something is a passion project. This was a wonderful video, thank you.

[iwouldprefernotto]

City levels x Baudelaire x the Situationists - this couldn’t be more up my street (appropriately!). You even squeezed in a derive of your own!

In terms of city levels music, I always think of Spring Yard Zone in the original Sonic.

[therealsunnyk]

So I was watching this video of Digital Foundry who found out about a hacked NVidia driver to enable AI-based HDR to older games and they thought "hey, I know exactly the older games to try this on", including Doom 3 and a Half Life HDR demo (of all things). I thought to myself "This is what I love about DF. They can look at a piece of technology even through a window slit and really understand and apply it through the lens of the technical history of the medium".

When I watch your stuff, I get that same vibe but with culture, like "this is what I love about Pixel a day. She can get a sliver of an idea and use her cultural understanding and game history to draw together a theme which I would never have noticed". Really great work.

[glenngriffon]

As a kid of small towns and a child of overprotective parents who kept her away from cities i can tell you that for me personally, cities are gorgeous. Especially at night.
The first time I was left on my own in Houston I left my hotel around 1am and just went for a walk, looking at the lit up skyscrapers and empty streets and people working their night-jobs.
My favorite thing to do in GTA4 is to just go for a drive for the entire day and night. Never getting into trouble, obeying traffic. I like to get on google maps street view and "walk" around various cities. It's the best.

In some games i have spent actual hours of real time staring at a distant city on the skybox. My first time in Casino Night Zone in Sonic 2, i died from the timer because i was looking at the background city.

[eyebrowowl]

Watching this video made me feel like I went on a dérive walk myself. You brilliantly captured the gleeful essence of these games and the unique energy city life provides. Thanks for the impeccable vibes and for all the effort into bringing this project to life.

[aelamf]

Never really thought about cities as a biome, really cool perspective incredible video

[Barely_Here]

city = jazz will always be my favorite video game genre

[pixeljurnee]

I don't think I've ever consciously realized how jazzy the music is in music levels. There really is a different energy in these environments that has a special familiar yet exciting draw. I love exploring regular aspects of life in new and unexpected ways. I'm going to be making a new playlist for my walks now using the songs from this video. Thanks so much!

[miguerfaustin]

Fantastic depiction of cities. I lived in Melbourne in 2020 and I absolutely loved it. My dream is someday to come back and live there. The aimless strolling around, the dazzling vistas... Not many videogames capture that. Great video as usual!

[unit--nsjh]

Yeah, daytime city levels definitely have the vibe of a day off, when you just go out to wander around and maybe do an errand or two but at an hour when normally you'd be at work. It's always a very nice feeling and I cherish those moments 🙂

[kaduku]

I'm so happy I've found your channel. I love listening to people talk about stuff in games that I don't really think about that often. Thanks for changing the way I think about stuff

[HugoBDesigner]

Another fantastic video! I was especially happy with your presentation of The Pedestrian, a game I felt that very deeply and personally understood what it meant to live in a city.

I actually unwittingly had a dérive when I was a teenager. I wanted to explore a specific location of my hometown, but without really taking on a map or cab or anything of the like. So I grabbed a backpack, water, a cap, and went walking. I left home around the morning and just walked through the city. I tried reaching that specific place I wanted visually, but it led me to walk practically the entirety of my small-ish town. I strolled through the rich folks' district, the city center, the greenish areas of town, the poorer neighborhoods. I explored places I didn't even know existed, saw life and activity everywhere. At the end of the day, as night fell, I took a bus to go back home. It was an adventure I still remember very fondly of. I didn't have a smartphone at the time (they weren't too popular back then), but I did write a diary of the things I found noteworthy. The kids playing in the streets; the adults going to and from work near the town hall. The similar-looking houses of the very remote low-income neighborhood, the vibrant colors of the street art, the calm but never-ending buzz of the city life. It gave me a life-long lasting impression that I am indeed part of something greater than myself, something alive. That there is always more to a city than meets the eye: more than just the tourist attractions, the luxurious suburbs, the artificial gardens of the city hall, the downtown shops.

If I may, I'd like to quote that old diary of mine (with some slight grammar and spelling improvements):
"I am now on what I hope will be my last stop. It is 5:35 PM. The sun has already set, and the full moon has taken its place. I've followed the road after the bus station, then climbed up a hill in the middle of nowhere, only to find myself back into civilization. However, from there, I managed to find the path that I believe leads to the mountain.
"After following the railroad, I reached another dead-end, and got stuck again. I am now about to return through where I came from, and probably take a bus home. It's been quite an adventure regardless. I was almost attacked by dogs, haha! [...] Some people are passing by in bicycles; I wonder what they're thinking when they see me sitting on top of a rock, by myself, in the middle of the woods, writing in this notebook. The time to end today's adventure has come, but the adventure as a whole is just getting started."

[SamS-zuup]

City Levels are "jazz, the good kind" (thats a joke and not a slight but just a reference to how very improvizational experimental jazz is a very acquired taste and I haven't experienced it to know if I love it/hate it, definitely not live, but I'm glad it exists)

[pimscrypt]

Well damn, we already have one of the best video essays of the year!

Love the point of how putting on music elevates our experience of walking through city. It's something I've been very much aware of for most of my life, but it's also something I've taken for granted. I've never really reflected on how music can encourage me to change the way I *interact* with a city. Like taking paths I normally wouldn't.

[jadefae]

This sure is the first time I've seen streets I recognise in a video essay. I love this city it's so pretty. I want to make a game set in Melbourne some day. Perhaps especially after I move country. A retrospective game about a city I once lived in would be lovely I think. I love walking around all the weird side streets in Melbourne and going into buildings I have no reason for. Me and my friend found a rooftop carpark that was empty last week, and we marveled at the unique view of the buildings surrounding us. Some taller, some shorter. A few months before that, we found a way onto actual rooftops near chinatown, we were stepping over radiators and pipes and stuff, it was really cool. Maybe a tad dangerous, but we were being safe.

[ForeverMasterless]

I spent my childhood in a rural Louisiana town that had more trees than people. When I was around 13 I moved to Chicago, where I still live 20 years later. I constantly feel pulled in both directions. I don't feel 100% happy in a cabin in the woods but I also don't feel 100% happy here in the big city. Every year when warm summer smells fill the air my brain gets pelted with sense memories of my Louisiana childhood.

The game Flower really spoke to me and it wasn't until I saw this quote by Jenova Chen that I realized why: ""Flower is an interactive poem exploring the tension between urban and nature." The vibrant green valley filled with wind turbines is beautiful in a way I can't even describe.

[HanmaHeiro]

You are not alone having cried at that moment in mario Odyssey. It was like a life long celebration culminating at that moment 21:30

[jadefae]

I'm gonna write a second comment too cus why not. This is the night time comment.

Back in 2022 I had a bad habit of walking home at 1AM, alone, as a young woman, while drunk. I had a friend who's no longer a friend who i'd go out drinking with, and when the last tram departed without me I would just walk home instead. Very dangerous, so I've stopped, but nothing bad ever happened to me, which has lent these memories a nostalgic beauty. I truly adore the city at night. I like to imagine that light pollution is actually the skyline stealing the stars. They skewer them upon their spires, so that the twinkling happens here on earth all around us. I love the way the lights reflect off of the river, or puddles, or windows. The wary fear I would feel while alone at night during these walks paired with the more fresh night time air made me feel alive. It felt like the whole city was there just for me to observe quietly.

Wonderful video. I liked it a lot.

[Roughling]

I'm really impressed how you both go way further than I expected from the title *and* completely stayed on topic still. That's hard! Almost as hard as recording yourself talking in public, that'd take a lot out of me.
Great video as usual!