A proper flashback to my job! If this wasn't too boring for you, I'd be up for a follow up video using the full unlocked game to do a full network with no restrictions. Let me know if that's something you'd want to see by liking the video and this comment

Matt, first I'd like to say I'm extremely humbled that you took the time to play our game. Watching your video it was clear the passion you had for the engineering. I also wanted to address all of the comments here. We are overwhelmed by the amount of positive comments. This project is a passion project. We want to bring engineering thinking to more students. The game was developed to target college and some highschool students. We are a small team (currently 3 people) and we've have poured a couple years of our lives into this game as well as more than a decade of civil engineering software development that came before us. We aimed to make our calculations rigorous and real but try and keep it simple. I will happily respond to any questions people have here but I also want to share just a few details. 1. I have read a few comments about the asking of personal information. This was a necessity due to a scholarship program in which engineering students in both highschool and college competed for scholarships. We don't sell any information, it was just a legal thing we had to collect. I'm going to investigate a better path forward related to this. Along these lines, the purchase process is the same as our B2B software and I understand its not what people are used to with games. It was just something we compromised on due to time. 2. There are currently 3 levels in the game. Each adds on to the previous one with new features or complexities. We plan on adding more in the future. 3. These maps started as TINs in CAD. We wrote a pipeline for pulling them into the game engine. We are planning a future release that will allow the users to do the same. Bring your own data. 4. The price. This price was set due to the nature of the game. Its a 'serious game' meant for teaching. I would like to release a steam version but we're not sure what that would look like. The game does teach you how to think like an engineer. There is a lot of trial and error while you search for the best solution. 5. The teaching could be better. Because the game was developed in a contest sense we removed some of the hand holding features. However the scope has changed and we are looking to add better 'teaching' elements. There seem to be a lot of people here that are interested in this stuff. I'd be curious to hear what your thoughts are on the best way to teach different aspects. Finally I wanted to share there are some colleges that will be using the game to teach hydrology as well as it being used in another competition that I can go into detail about right now. This is just the beginning of what we want to do and I'm just over the moon with all the comments here. So thank you Matt for your video, I truly enjoyed watching it and to all of you that tried the demo, I hope you found joy in it. I know that I was completely naive to the world of storm water drainage and hydrology before this project. Now I can't go anywhere without seeing the drains and pondering the thought in their design. I tell people that the veil has been lifted from my eyes as I have learned more and more about all the disciplines and effort that go into the infrastructure that so many take for granted. The world is much more interesting than we think.

I'd ping the devs of this game for a sponsor segment. How better to showcase how accurate your game is than have an actual expect in the field put it through its paces?

As a drainage engineer myself this game is how I see the industry evolving in the future. Soon the days of CAD drawings will be gone and software like this game will allow you to fly around a 3D render of a Lidar survey placing manholes and designing drainage exactly how this game plays, hats off to the developer !!! Also great to hear someone speak the language of drainage 😂

My favorite thing about videos like this is that it feels like a 25 minute long "Story Time with Matt," which is just fantastic.

It's nice to see a game where Matt can really jump into his zone, nerd out, and just be Matt. 😊

Hey Matt! I know you probably won’t see this but I can’t say how happy I am to finally see a video on this game! Funny enough, I actually won $12,000 for having the second best design in this game 😅 We use Carlson software so we saw this game shortly after it was released, since I am a senior planning on going into Civil Engineering. I played it a bit, then they announced their scholarship competition, where the top 5 scores in the country would win 10k, and the best in each state won 2k. I spent hours upon hours working on finding the most cost effective design, and ended up getting second out of all the entries. The game is super realistic and is a really good way for someone who’s interested in civil or anything concerning hydrology to dive in. The devs are great guys and spent loads of time working on this game, and I hope someday soon it’ll grow and they get the recognition they deserve for this amazing simulator!

As a former telecom engineer, this was a delight to watch! Fun fact; our manhole and conduit runs also acted as unofficial drainage system. Water would enter through manhole lids, or sometimes even just open conduit holes. There was one location where the hydrostatic pressure was always so high you could slide the lid off using a lid remover. A previous engineer installed the hole where all the local drainage pooled. *eyeroll*

This is the first time Matt has convinced me that he's actually an engineer😅. I was smiling away seeing his excitement in explaining each and every thing he's doing, felt like he giving us a lecture. There was a lot of passion. Loved it.💛

RCE is the only person on earth who can make a drainage simulator interesting

I don't usually comment on videos, but this video/game was really interesting. Most of the time with gaming KZfaqrs we get videos of them playing video games (obviously) but this video actually felt like a passion, and not a job, if that makes sense. It was really interesting learning about how this stuff works, from you, since you've actually done it before and it felt genuine in how you talked about it. Kudos! For what it's worth, I would 100% watch a series on this game if you were to purchase the full version.

As an infrastructure nerd, I found this to be quite enjoyable. It’s nice to see Matt flex his engineering expertise!

Dude, spend the $150. It’s fun watching you nerd out over this stuff

If it had been anyone else, I may have found it boring. Because you spoke with so much passion, and you knew what you were talking about, I loved it.

What's really cool about this simulation is we're seeing real-time design and testing. It just boggles my mind, considering all the pencil and paper math I had to do back in college to figure out ONE FRICKEN BEAM in a building for my structures class. I could only imagine how structures would be now in college with my old professor--him giving us a homework assignment and some Chad is running it through what's essentially an "edutainment video game" to get the answers.

Bro, this is NOT boring !! I'm a software eng. and I enjoyed this very much. Please buy the game and continue on doing this.

Please do more of this. I'd like to see you finish a more challenging mission in this game. It's really enjoyable watching a professional doing their job in a video game. And also, you need to make those 150$ worth.....

I wasn't an engineer but I was a contractor who installed quite a bit of drainage, this is not only entertaining but also educational. It's cool to see the smart side of it, where as I was just reading a blueprint, digging holes and throwing in pipe. 😂

I need to show this game to my township. A place was built just down the road from me, and apparently it's building code to have a culvert under every driveway... so they dug a hole on basically flat, level ground to put it in. There's now trapped water where it would have naturally just flowed slightly south along natural contours and drained into a marsh. It's very perplexing to look at the perpetual puddle that never needed to exist. just a pit on either side of the driveway with a half-metre diameter pipe connecting them.

If you'd asked me yesterday whether I had any interest in hydroengineering, I'd have said no, but this was oddly fascinating. And Matt nerding out was adorable; perhaps that's what brought the fun. Plus it's just satisfying, taking something that's a huge mess and making it all tidy. By all means, do more!

This was quite enjoyable. I think the two biggest things that make this video such a joy is that: 1. You are in your happy place, which makes us viewers happy. 2. It seems that meaningful progress is made when you play this game. Keep going! This is truly good gameplay.

As a former construction worker, I found this very interesting and I was able to accurately guess where you would put the drains. I live in Phoenix Arizona and my location the water slopes into a nearby wash. But about 10-15 years ago we had a storm here that the water backed up and the manholes where pushed out of the way. It turned out that over many years, trash collected causing floods all over the city. A big one was on the I-10 freeway that runs through downtown. The construction site I was working at at the time had the elevator (or a lift to you, lol) hole in the ground for the cables and what not, was flooded and turned into a small pool. Wish I had taken a picture of it.

This video was the most like my work that you have ever done. That's honestly a great programme. In my area, we have had four 1 in 50 year storms in the past 41 years. It's been great. Large storms are getting much more frequent, so everyone is now clambering for my people with our skills, it's fantastic. I've found the cheapest way to help with the surcharge of water when going from higher grade pipes to low grade, is to install an attenuation tank / retarder, which can cater to the max loading of the water. This also helps massively with sedimentation. I would love to see a series on this. I enjoy this more than polybridge and as much as timberborners.

Engineer asking"where does rain water go?" Random dude: "Into the earth"

As a person who did storm/sanitary/potable installations for industrial buildings to parking lots to subdivisions, this is so cool to see. Could be a great tool for estimators and engineer students to see their work practically

I had a few years of CAD in university, so this brings me back to learning Revit. But we never went into the details, so I found this really interesting! Funny enough one of the few things I remember is that those rocks downstream of the headwall are called a riprap lol. The other thing I learned from living in the Phoenix area for many years is that drains are basically useless if you don't clear the debris away regularly. They basically have flooded streets over there every time it rains hard because it's so dry most of the year.

That was a very long Story Time With Matt.

Land surveyor here - for something like this, if it was part of a large subdivision we would probably perform a Mobile LiDAR survey (with the unit mounted on the back of a truck with a high-precision GPS unit). It's a really fast way to do long roadway work - though higher-precision applications would require we do a lot of work beforehand to establish ground control points for the LiDAR to be rectified with. If it's just this cul-de-sac, we'd perform a traditional topographic survey with a field crew instead.

The fact that half of the video is about Matt explaining the entire game shows that he was really enjoyed this and really wanted to used his engineer knowledge he had. And I see this game is not just a "game", it's like a simulator for piping engineer, which is really cool

Been working as a ventilation and water/drainage engineer for about 6 years, but only for indoors where connecting my blueprints to other Matt's here that fixing the outside. Was very interesting to see what I have connected my blueprints too. Would truly love to see more of this. Was this kind of Matt that made me start following your channel after all :D

As someone who has been working on/with hydrology and hydraulic simulation tools for research purposes, and has been pushing for more usability/accessibility in the toolkits out there in order to get more people using them, this is incredibly surreal to see as a video game. Admittedly it's much easier to calculate and simulate surface waterflow and drainage with simple flow rate equations than accurate flow and pressure water simulation inside the pipes tied to pumps and consumer outlet demands (and god help you if you want to add transient flow equations for valve open/close and pump activation), but I'll keep my fingers crossed that one of the lads at Carlson decides to carry the development forward to more in-depth hydraulic systems simulation in the future-- would be extremely convenient for getting people trained to have a gamified and drag-and-drop user interface for this kinda work. But I think Carlson only really does drainage work, so sadly I doubt they'll do the work for me there 🥲 May not be the most thrilling or goofy type of "game" out there, but I enjoy seeing you at work with this kinda stuff! It's more complicated and open-ended in solutions than a lot of vidya, by definition, but I like that kind of problem-solving and real-world-applicable stuff! It's cool to learn things about how the world around you works, and if it's made into a game it's even better

I think I need to see more videos of a civil engineer doing civil engineering! Part of why I like your videos is your background knowledge on engineering (your USP) and seeing you nerd out on the details is part of the enjoyment. More please!

This what I call Real Civil Engineering!

ey look at that engineering, I loved learning about rain. all this info and best practices, you find the low points, you take into consideration how much water goes in the lowpoint using coefficients for different surfaces, you take into account not only the road but also all the things surrounding the road, you get data from flying drones, and based on that data, together with calculations and possibly simulation you find the best places to put these things. (and the smallest details like how deep does the pipe go, because if its less than 1.2 meters it cars are gonna damage it over time if it's not) you plan ahead for giant ass storms that may only happen once every 50 years. It's remarkable to see the complexity of the world i live in, through the eyes of a hydrology engineer.

Carlson should get you a lics for this, it'll be the best advertising they'll ever get. Also, I can only speak for me, but I would watch you play every scenario in the full version! Plus maybe we'd get to see some strongest shape drainage solutions.

RCE: "I did this for 10 years of my life" Me: ...no wonder he's a youtuber now...

It's actually quite cheap for professional software, probably because it is more of a game still.

Nothing against your funny silly videos but this kind of stuff is what got me hooked on your channel initially and I love to see it. If I can feel like I'm learning something, I'm way more likely to pay attention instead of screwing around on my phone while I listen.

Love this game demo. As a plumbing designer for an engineering company in the US, I deal with rain water in regards to roof drainage. I would be geeking out too playing this game.

Way more interesting than i thought. I would watch a series with it. Maybe you could make an "Education Series" where you explain or demonstrate some of the engineering principals? Anyway nice vid.

I love this more technical video PLEASE do more stuff like this!

I LOVED learning all this. I’m a total nerd for knowledge in general, but ever since you’ve talked about your old/day job in Infra and the bridge games, I’ve had an eye towards engineering as a possible career. I’ve been interested in mechanics because I love to work with my hands and figure out how things operate, and I always assumed engineering was more behind a desk, conceptual inventing than anything manual. It’s cool to see how it’s more calculations and problem solving (with more field work than I thought) than inventing or anything corporate! And this is all thanks to you putting these videos out there! Which has the bonus of hosting other engineers comments on their experience and knowledge!!

As an electrical engineer myself, I love the idea behind this sim game, but only as a game since I doubt it's use as a tool for education. While this is a great way to showcase the fundamental engineering principles of hydrodynamics, I can personally attest that most of that 10 years spent in engineering school is spent learning how to do the calculations and analysis that the sim just provides you. That's where the real respect for engineers comes from, but it's still tons of fun to mess around and almost anyone can use that information once the calculations are solved. I mean, I don't claim to be a geometry solving genius, but i love working in CAD!

These types of videos are the best from RCE!! I love watching him gush about the things he knows. He’s clearly enjoying himself and that shows!

I need to play this since I'm in uni to be a civil engineer

Definitely something I would've never given a second glance to if not for your channel along with your passion, knowledge and excellent explanations. While things like flow rates and pipe sizes aren't exclusive to city planning, it definitely was nice to hear you going over things and hearing you give quick nods to "this needs to be a certain way because of these factors" while also explaining why you were changing them later as you ran into problems with the simulation. I've never worked with Hydrology outside of smaller projects like installing single home underfloor plumbing based on recommended numbers so this gave me a pleasant look into the complexities of larger scale projects along with more understanding into why certain floodings happen in certain areas of my city and what could/should be done to combat them but also as to why they might not be undertaken as you were making changes which impacted everything downstream. I'd be very interested in seeing a larger scale approach and comparisons about making a "minimal viable solution" into "optimal solution" type deals from the full game to give an even further understanding about the problems surrounding upgrading existing systems but I also just liked the passion and insight you provided to the video. Best of luck and I hope we see a second part.

Hey RCE, tradesman welder here, I watched til the end, rather interesting as I never get to see this side of construction. Honestly, whether or not this is a game, well is Farming Simulator a game or a job simulator? I think the distinction is shrinking as the simulators get closer and closer to reality. People who've played Microsoft Flight Simulator have landed planes in an emergency. I think it's a game if you find it fun but also a training tool if you can learn from it, but I don't think they're mutually exclusive. Great content for a niche audience for sure, probably not something to focus your channel on but videos here and there are greatly appreciated and variety helps prevent the bridge builder/city skylines content burnout. But do what you enjoy, I'm sure a lot of us here enjoy these videos because you get joy from making them and we get to join in on the fun. 👍

I love the educational videos, they remind us that you weren't always an architect. I remember back in the days of Infra when every day was a school day. PS: I have seen some curb inlets in the more rural parts of the UK.

Novel program. I think I'd call it more like a simulation than a game, but the main thing holding it back from being full on simulation software is not being able to set up the environment. Otherwise there are enough knobs, buttons, and variables to change that I wouldn't really call it a game. I am an engineer though, so I find it fun to watch someone "play" this that knows what they are doing so I can learn about it in a more relaxed and entertaining way.

Was an amazing video, actually watched the whole thing! I would also message the team behind the program itself. See if they'll sponsor a segment of a video of it for a product key. You're passion when speaking about the whole thing and the genuine joy you expressed are probably bringing in an untold amount of interest in an important, if not most over looked, engineering in our modern society. (Shout out to Electrical and Software Engineers who keep this world turning almost as much, as well as all the other specialties of Civil Engineers.)

Thats really cool about the types of drainage basins in UK and US. In canada, we use both kinds together, like a drainage grate, and right above the grate is a curb inlet

This is definitely a puzzle game. Like any of the factory puzzlers, you're trying to solve a problem while maximizing a score (minimizing cost), and that's a game loop right there. Carson could tweak this a bit, make it a bit more accessible to the average player, and have a playable game on their hands. Make a series of levels that start easy and get harder, with a leaderboard for cheapest solution, and suddenly we'll have youtubers trying to outdo each other. Or Carson could work with Colossal Order and get realistic drainage costs added to building road networks in Cities: Skylines.

There's a KZfaq channel called Gate City Foundation and Drainage that does small scale waterworks projects regularly. If you like this stuff, watching some practical application for groundwater removal (gutters, swales, french drains, etc) is quite fun.

Matt, I think you're underestimating how massively nerdy your viewers are. Tbh, if you recorded yourself doing drainage calculations on a spreadsheet for a full hour, I'd probably watch that whole video. There's something super entertaining about watching an expert do a thing really well, regardless of what the thing is.

I'm a geologist who works closely with hydro engineers. This was awesome! I think you know what you have to do.

Cf of asphalt depends on if the asphalt is closed or open. In the Netherlands we have ZOAB which means very open asphalt which has a much lower Cf...

Influent line size vs effluent line size factors a lot. Im looking forward to seeing more of this simulator. Hopefully the devs will give you a full version key to explore. Im dealing with a similar problem IRL where i live. One of our sewer treatment facilities has an 8" influent line with a 4" effluent line. Im currently having to demonstrate basic math principles on pipe volume (or surface area of a circle) to city officials to explain why it needs replacement to justify them spending the money.

As someone who works drainage adjacent in earth works this was legit fascinating thanks for playing this on channel

I would definitely watch a full series of this.

I feel like this is an episode I’ve been wanting for a while. Probably since Matt played Infra. I love learning things from people really knowledgeable or passionate about things so niche.

Man, I've been following you for a long time and I really enjoy your videos. I'm a land surveyor and this game totally got me. I completely understand your preoccupation with your past field. Contour lines and triangular mesh is something for my soul. Greetings from the Czech Republic. Sorry for the translator :)

i really like listen to people being passionate about a topic, even if that topic doesnt initially seems too interesting to me (not the case here, i'm a nerd for technology and engineering). i'd definitely enjoy watching you "play" this while nerding out about it and maybe telling some funny/interesting stories from "back in the days" :)

This was super refreshing to watch. I know that's these more realistic videos don't do as well on KZfaq so they get put on Patreon instead but they've always been my favourites. Part of the reason why I started watching your videos in the first place. Hope we get so see a few more of these 🤞🤞

This is absolutley not boring, I'd love to see more of that honestly.

Literally the day that i finished my urban stormwater management exam, RCE upload an urban stormwater game. What are the odds 😂😂😂😂😂

17:58 Plastic pipes may be cheaper but the leach micro plastics and chemicals into the water that travels through them, and require shipments of vinyl chloride (the stuff that spilled in East Palestine OH last year) to manufacture, so in reality the costs of plastic are far higher, but it's just that many of the costs aren't reflected in the bills charged by the contractors putting the pipes in.

It is eerily soothing. No monsters, no combat, no sci fi storytime... Just a close to reality simulation of an interesting job. If anything this game highlights how much there is to consider with drainage systems, making this topic more interesting... So if you are down - I guess I am not the only one who would enjoy this.

You absolutely need to play more of this game. As an engineer myself (structural) I love watching the process.

1:16 That is literally the rule in the Netherlands now: No drainage when anything new is built. Since it'll 'encourage local storage' as the wise policy makers put it. The succes level during heavy rains is currently somewhere between 'Golly, that's a lot of flooding' and 'Your insurance premiums are probably going to go up'.

This is so cool! Please get the full version and show us more, its so interesting.

Since I’m a electrician, this is exactly why I love watching RCE because we both would have to think about real life situations. Watching this video honestly the best. Want more 👌

Not boring at all, actually pretty educational. 10/10 would watch the whole series.

We need the full game

Ngl, I really enjoyed watching this, none of it was boring, was actually quite interesting and you could teach a lot of viewers with this bit of software. Being a drainage engineer yourself you could actually make improvements for the Devs that they need to do and could help them alot and teach your viewers at the same time.

I find games like this very interesting as i used to be a CAD drafter/ designer in my younger days (Autocad, Microstation) and i worked in different drafting fields, Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, Structural, HVAC, etc.

Easily the best video I've seen on the channel! (Along with the followup vid.) It's always great hearing someone expound on their expertise in an accessible manner.

I found this quite interesting. I did directional boring and all other types of pipe installations working for a natural gas company so I found this interesting and fascinating. Always wondered how they came up with how and why to drain the way they did and how hard it was for me to drill around drainage. All in all cool would watch. 😂

Reminds me when you played Infra, same kinda vibe!

I found that really interesting Matt, as much as I enjoy a nice Beaver video, I think I actually learned a few things from this one. Definitely contact the devs to see if they want a sponsored video, even if you just get a copy of the full game it would give you a chance to play with your pipes whenever you want!

I come from a chemical engineering background and have been watching a bunch of your videos. Finished the entire video cuz it was really interesting to hear what you did for your day job! 😄 Hearing all of that, seeing formulas and the Manning's constant brought flashbacks of similar stuff I learned back in uni

This game looks really fun. I would watch more videos about drainage

Keep playing Matt! Seeing someone play a game with a focus on their expertise makes for very interesting videos!

I honestly enjoyed your enjoyment (and breakdown) of drainage systems. This was actually really interesting to watch and listen to.

I definitely would like to see more of this. It's actually quite nice listening to you explain everything.

Enjoyed this video quite a bit! I expected a "Story Time with Matt" in there, but whadda ya gonna do? I'd certainly watch more of this if you did happen upon the full version. All that said, yeah, this is CBT (computer based training), but it's still enjoyable!

we need more of this

As a mechanical design engineer, I'm loving this. Would love to see more of these technical acurate/simulation games

As a CAD civil/structural designer, this game is cool as hell. Had to learn all this recently to design a perc pond, cheers matt

Love your vids matt. Keep up the good work!!

👇one hour club 👇one day club 👇one week club 👇one month club 👇one year club 👇one decade club 👇one century club 👇one millennium club

I love all gamified engineering tools, back in high school pre-engineering class we built balsa wood bridges in a competition for best weight:weight held ratio. We used a gameified bridge simulator to come up with the blueprints and check where the compressive forces were greatest.

Hey Matt, it was pretty satisfying seeing you map out the low points and near immediately getting validated as the simulation marked those points for you. It's almost like you know what you're doing 😂It was fun to watch you simulate your old profession. It always interesting seeing how various different aspects of infrastructure are made. I did HVAC for some time, and like any other aspects of construction, It really gives you appreciation for the considerations that goes into making everything.

-10,000 points. Skipped "Call before you dig."

Fun fact if u say "fun fact" people wil read it

I am so down to see more of this love seeing you explore your actual life experience!

Most educational RCE video ever

Day 36 (I think) of asking RCE to play Creeper World. It's a series of RTS game about fighting floods and managing resources. There's also loads of community content. CW3 and CW4 are both really good choices. CW4 has a custom Colony map that's very highly rated (number 6 highest-rated custom map) called The Wave, where you have to prepare for and fight off a huge tsunami. It's very challenging, but also quite fun.

I always love when you actually talk about the engineering-side of things and this video is no different! I'd LOVE to see you play more!

I may not be an engineer, but as someone who works in entertainment, this was very fun to watch! Plus it has the added bonus of being educational.

I absolutely want to see more of this! This was so fun to watch!!!