I wish there was a way to turn off Auto-Pause too. Sometimes I have it on to help me focus on reading something and taking notes by hand and its annoying to have to jog the mouse every minute just to keep it going

All these ideas reflect exactly what I was thinking! I would like it if all the people went back in their houses when you begin working and only come out in your breaks or when you're not focusing as then they wouldn't be distracting. I would love if it if it was gamified to the extent where I could choose what buildings to upgrade and have different rewards for different achievements (eg. 5 back to back 25 minute sessions earns you a gym) and maybe with progress bars for the 'health' and 'entertainment' value of your city so you can mentally see it getting better.

I saw this in another thread but they didn't link it to the game elements, I think it would be amazing if you could personalise the service more and put in time limits and name your actual goals and there could be distinct rewards for those - ie. for doing a goal quickly you get a playground or for achieving multiple goals in a day you recieve a school. And perhaps with a project with multiple stages to it you could construct an entire city gradually as you complete each step so that each new neighbourhood, town or city represents a completed project as you create a new world of all these interconnected places. (Eg. Writing an essay broken down into reading, planning, writing and editing. When you've done the reading - you get a library, when you've done the planning - you get a city council building, when you've done the writing - you get a cinema, when you've done the editing - you get an ice-rink). However, you can only interact with the city you've made during downtime.

I also think it helps if you can see the goals (in terms of what you want to achieve in reality and in the game world) so if you can see if you 'write dissertation' you will achieve a library which will make your inhabitants more intelligent. Or if you work diligently back to back 5 times without a break, the five houses you achieve turn into a hotel which means inhabitants from your other projects can come stay at your town and the hospitality bar will go up.

I would definitely be keen to if it was possible to inject more specificity and personalisation into the programme.