CTY-1

Experimental. CTY-1 is new: built and tested in the simulator and in the emulator here, not yet on a real FM-1. Install it at your own risk; HYP-1, or M-VAVE's own firmware, goes back on the same way.

CTY-1 turns the M-VAVE FM-1 into a small city that builds itself and plays a generative chiptune. Every time you switch it on it founds a new town on new land: forest, desert, alpine valley, volcano isles, plains, beach or river lands, each with its own look, weather, disaster and sound. Week by week it grows: homes, shops, offices and factories, farms at the edge, parks and landmarks, avenues, roundabouts and a beltway, until it's a huge city of towers. Every car on its roads, every building that opens, every storm, fire and siren is a note, played on NES, Game Boy or SID voices.

The city

It grows

From a town at a crossroads to a suburb, a city and a huge city: blocks grow larger outward, avenues get planted medians, roundabouts and cul-de-sacs, bridges cross the river and a causeway the bay, and a beltway opens round it.

Zones

Homes, shops and offices, and factories try to keep to their own districts, with some mixing. Rent and jobs set the balance; old lots are redeveloped, farms give way at the edge. A school, a hospital, a fire station and the police open as it needs them.

Life

Cars drive real routes between homes and work; people walk, stroll the parks and stop to talk in speech bubbles. Houses by the water get docks, and boats come out: rowboats on the ponds, barges on the rivers, ferries and cargo ships at sea. Day and night, four seasons, rain, storms, fog and snow, and birds overhead.

Incidents

Lightning (out of rain, storms and snow) starts a fire and the fire station sends a truck, lights flashing; left too long, a fire spreads. An earthquake shakes the screen and gates the music. A robbery brings the police, a crash an ambulance. Festivals with fireworks and meteor showers. A blackout, likelier in a storm, puts the whole town in the dark and winds every instrument down, then brings them back one at a time. And, very rarely, a UFO.

The music

The cars are the playheads: each road and building they pass is a rhythm and a bell. The bed of drums, bass and pad grows busier with the city; its mood picks the mode, the night closes the filter, rain and fog lengthen the echo, sirens wail in key.

You play

The keys play a lead in the city's scale. Call any incident or the weather from the black keys, ride along with a car, or leave it: after a minute it takes the whole screen and follows the traffic, the lights playing along. EDIT founds a new city whenever you like. And SEL + EDIT is a secret: take the fire truck, the police car or the ambulance out on calls yourself.

Seven biomes

Seven CTY-1 cities, one in each biome: forest, desert, alpine, volcano isles, plains, beach and river lands.

Each switch-on founds a new city, in a biome drawn by luck, always starting as a town (EDIT draws another without switching off). The same city grows in each, and the same events happen, but each looks, storms and sounds its own way: the desert's mesas, cacti and dust storms over a drone in Hijaz; the mountains' snowy peaks, blizzards and bells; the isles' palms, turquoise shallows and smoking volcano, with a clave and a steel-drum wave; the plains' golden grass and boom-chick; the beach's surf backbeat; the river lands' shakers and floods.

The FM-1 as the volcano erupts and lava runs down into the town. — **The biome's own disaster:** a wildfire, a dust devil, an avalanche, an eruption, a tornado, a tsunami or a flood. Its own look and sound; more in its weather.

The FM-1 showing a desert city among red mesas. — **The desert:** sand, mesas and cacti; the SID over a drone, a hand drum, Hijaz.

Its own specials

The last special of each biome, in a huge city: a biodome, a rocket launch site, an observatory, a cruise port, an airport, a theme park, a hydro plant.

Each land unlocks three of its own as the town becomes a suburb, a city and a huge city: a lumber mill, a ranger tower and a biodome in the forest; a solar farm, an oasis resort and, last, a rocket launch site in the desert; a ski lodge, a cable car and an observatory up high; a fishing harbor, a beach resort and a cruise port on the isles; grain silos, a county fair and an airport on the plains; a lighthouse, a boardwalk pier and a theme park at the beach; a watermill, a riverboat dock and a hydro plant in the river lands. Each has its moment on its own clock, with its own sound: the lumber mill's saw, the ranger tower's bell, the ski jumper's yodel, the lighthouse's foghorn, the coaster's screams, the riverboat's steam whistle. The last puts on a show every few minutes: the rocket lifts off, the plane takes off, the cruise ship sails, the others light up with fireworks. The town hall's bells ring the hours.

The FM-1 as a rocket lifts off from the desert city's launch site on a column of smoke. — **Lift-off:** the desert's rocket counts down and climbs on its smoke, the music's rumble rising with it.

The town hall at each stage: a brick hall, a portico and clock tower, a copper dome over a plaza, a capitol. — **The town hall** stands by the crossroads from the founding, with a fire station, police and a hospital, and grows grander with the town.

Disasters

Seven CTY-1 screens: a wildfire, a dust devil, an avalanche, an eruption, a tornado, a tsunami and a flood.

Weather

Seven CTY-1 screens of each biome's storm: a thunderstorm, a dust storm, a blizzard, a typhoon, a tropical storm.

The FM-1 as lightning strikes a city building and it catches fire. — **Incidents:** the camera goes to them and stays until they're over. Black keys call each one.

The FM-1 showing the city at night, its windows and streetlights lit. — **Night:** windows, streetlights and headlights; the music darkens to it.

What happens

Eight CTY-1 screens: lightning and fire, an earthquake, a robbery, a car crash, a UFO, a festival, a blackout, the night.

A secret

The FM-1 playing First Responder: close over the roofs, a fire truck on the road, a yellow arrow pointing the way to a fire. — **First responder:** hold SEL and press EDIT. Pick the fire truck, the police car or the ambulance; it drives itself, white keys 1 and 2 turn it at the next junction.

Two CTY-1 screens: picking a ride, then on a call with the arrow and the distance. — One call after another: follow the arrow and get there before the building burns down, the robber gets away or the wreck is towed. Three missed and the shift's over.

Ways to look

Four CTY-1 screens: the zones, the land value, the whole city, riding along with a car.

Six CTY-1 screens in its themes: Asphalt, Neon, Blueprint, Sunset, Terminal, Mono.

Six themes for the frame on the Display page; the city keeps its own colours.

To your DAW

The FM-1 on MIDI clock: EXT and the tempo in the header, the Setup page with Sync on Clock. — **MIDI clock in:** START plays from step one, STOP rests it, and the city's music follows the clock.

The FM-1 on the MIDI out page. — **MIDI out:** each chip channel's notes on its own channel, the drums mapped to a kit, and the city as CCs: mood, brightness, rush, daylight, rain and its stage.

Screens

The boot screen: a pixel red panda on the RedtailWorks name — Switching on

The second boot screen: CTY-1 in big pixel letters over a skyline lighting up — …then CTY-1

The idle view: the city on the whole screen — Idle view

Credits

CTY-1 is a fork of AMB-1 by Charles Vestal, by way of HYP-1, ECO-1 and GRAV-1. The platform (USB, update loader, storage, installer) is Felucca by Leo Kuroshita (@kurogedelic), Hügelton Instruments. Screen font: Barlow Semi Condensed (SIL OFL). GPL-3.0. M-VAVE and FM-1 are trademarks of their owners; CTY-1 is not affiliated with M-VAVE.

To go back to the official firmware, use the installer's "Back to the stock firmware", or M-VAVE's updater, M-UPGRADE. Installing firmware is at your own risk.