My passion for management games goes back, in my memories, to 1989 with Sim City. I was a kid, fascinated by the idea of being able to build a city from scratch, watch it breathe, expand, and sometimes be reduced to nothing. Since then, I’ve never stopped.

I went from Theme Park to Rollercoaster Tycoon, Transport Tycoon, CitiesXL, Planet Coaster, Transport Fever… In short, everything that allowed me to create rich, living worlds. What I love are the details: people going to work, transport lines crossing each other, neighborhoods slowly coming to life. That’s where the magic happens.

Then Cities: Skylines arrived in 2015, and that… changed everything. I discovered the power of custom assets. A real revelation.
I realized that with a few well-designed buildings, a familiar façade, a bit of well-placed greenery, you could give a neighborhood a soul. Not just a functional city, but a city with something to tell. And naturally, I wanted to create my own.

In real life, my name is Chris, a graphic designer based in Bordeaux. But in the world of Cities: Skylines, I’m mostly known as Gruny, and I started making assets in 2018, with three cubes and a flat roof. Nothing crazy. Simple little shops, easy to place with MoveIt. But to my great surprise, the community loved them. Other creators gave me tips, I learned, I improved. And above all, I had an absolute blast seeing my creations appear in players’ cities.

Since then, my assets have evolved a lot with a strong focus on suburban environments and a clearly defined French touch. I’ve gained in technique, in standards, in attention to detail, with the reward of seeing my creations come to life in the hands of players from all over the world.

Today, I’m lucky enough to collaborate more directly with Iceflake Studios and Paradox Interactive. I took part in the French and Dutch regional packs side by side with Rev0, Geze, Feinbold and Jerenable, and I created the Leisure Venues pack.

These projects allowed me to truly grasp the complexity of Cities: Skylines 2, to understand how it works under the hood, and to push the level of detail even further.

My goal, deep down, hasn’t changed: to create assets that allow us to build cities that feel like us, vibrant and human, where every single detail matters.