--- title: Pushing the limits in Simulating a City, One Page at a Time description: Stone Librande, lead designer on SimCity (2013), chronicles his experiment of using one-page design documents exclusively throughout the entire... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/pushing-the-limits-in-simulating-a-city-one-page-at-a-time-ylchhntl2 twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Pushing the limits in Simulating a City, One Page at a Time | daily.dev og:description: Stone Librande, lead designer on SimCity (2013), chronicles his experiment of using one-page design documents exclusively throughout the entire... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/pushing-the-limits-in-simulating-a-city-one-page-at-a-time-ylchhntl2 og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/YlchHNtL2.png og:image:alt: Pushing the limits in Simulating a City, One Page at a Time og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Pushing the limits in Simulating a City, One Page at a Time **[Game Developer](https://daily.dev/sources/gamedeveloper)** · 6 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Stone Librande, lead designer on SimCity (2013), chronicles his experiment of using one-page design documents exclusively throughout the entire three-and-a-half-year production cycle. Originally conceived as a replacement for verbose design bibles, the one-page methodology uses concise visual diagrams printed and displayed prominently to communicate ideas across teams and gain buy-in. Librande pushed the approach to its limits, discovering both its strengths — early identification of flawed systems like multiplayer trading mechanics — and its boundaries, eventually needing wall-sized displays and hybrid spreadsheet/diagram hybrids for complex data. Despite the challenges, postmortems confirmed the diagrams remained valid references years later, validating the approach as a strong organizational foundation for large game projects. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### What is the one-page design methodology in game development and how does it work? One-page design is a documentation approach where complex design ideas are distilled into a single printed page using diagrams and visuals rather than lengthy text. The page is displayed prominently in the workspace to build team buy-in and communicate a core idea clearly and concisely. Refinement is intensive, but the result becomes a durable reference — on SimCity (2013), some diagrams remained valid references three and a half years after creation. _Game designers refining their documentation workflows track approaches like this on daily.dev._ ### Did Stone Librande's one-page design process work for all of SimCity 2013 production? It worked further than expected but not without limits. One-page designs successfully caught flawed systems early, such as overly complex multiplayer trading mechanics, saving resources. However, some systems required hybrid spreadsheet/diagram formats, and displays eventually scaled to cover entire walls. Despite these adaptations, postmortems confirmed the diagrams were still actively referenced years after production ended. _Developers building complex systems find design process retrospectives like this worth following on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - ['The goal of design is to efficiently communicate ideas'](https://daily.dev/posts/the-goal-of-design-is-to-efficiently-communicate-ideas--fxcj61pui) · Game Developer · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Designing Large-Scale Mobile Game Cities: Production & Worldbuilding](https://daily.dev/posts/designing-large-scale-mobile-game-cities-production-worldbuilding-tee1yxmfs) · 80 LEVEL · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Building from the Sand Up: Notes from a One-Man Orchestra](https://daily.dev/posts/building-from-the-sand-up-notes-from-a-one-man-orchestra-1zsxytidx) · Medium · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#game-development](https://daily.dev/tags/game-development), [#game-design](https://daily.dev/tags/game-design) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/pushing-the-limits-in-simulating-a-city-one-page-at-a-time-ylchhntl2) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Pushing the limits in Simulating a City, One Page at a Time","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/pushing-the-limits-in-simulating-a-city-one-page-at-a-time-ylchhntl2","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/pushing-the-limits-in-simulating-a-city-one-page-at-a-time-ylchhntl2"},"datePublished":"2026-08-07T17:29:47.006Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T07:17:36.154Z","description":"Stone Librande, lead designer on SimCity (2013), chronicles his experiment of using one-page design documents exclusively throughout the entire...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/f045c4916df69e62c897b10e4fd24f13?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/f045c4916df69e62c897b10e4fd24f13?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Game Developer","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Game Developer","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/t_logo,f_auto/v1/logos/5fbb7418db8746769a45f55309bbdf13","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/gamedeveloper"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/pushing-the-limits-in-simulating-a-city-one-page-at-a-time-ylchhntl2","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"game-development,game-design","timeRequired":"PT6M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Game Developer","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/gamedeveloper"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Pushing the limits in Simulating a City, One Page at a Time"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/pushing-the-limits-in-simulating-a-city-one-page-at-a-time-ylchhntl2#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"What is the one-page design methodology in game development and how does it work?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"One-page design is a documentation approach where complex design ideas are distilled into a single printed page using diagrams and visuals rather than lengthy text. The page is displayed prominently in the workspace to build team buy-in and communicate a core idea clearly and concisely. Refinement is intensive, but the result becomes a durable reference — on SimCity (2013), some diagrams remained valid references three and a half years after creation. Game designers refining their documentation workflows track approaches like this on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Did Stone Librande's one-page design process work for all of SimCity 2013 production?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"It worked further than expected but not without limits. One-page designs successfully caught flawed systems early, such as overly complex multiplayer trading mechanics, saving resources. However, some systems required hybrid spreadsheet/diagram formats, and displays eventually scaled to cover entire walls. Despite these adaptations, postmortems confirmed the diagrams were still actively referenced years after production ended. Developers building complex systems find design process retrospectives like this worth following on daily.dev."}}]} ```