Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins of popular gaming-oriented webcomic Penny Arcade! have gotten the idea that Spore fans are rather passionate about the game-to-be. Holkins (Tycho) is ambivalent about the game, and Krahulik (Gabe) apparently “actively hates” it. We can expect more commentary from them in an upcoming Penny Arcade podcast.
Posts by thetorpedodog
Feb
19
Jan
13
Apparently coming off the release of SimCity for OLPC (One Laptop Per Child), Don Hopkins’ port of SimCity for Unix has been released as free, open-source software. To avoid copyright issues with EA, the game has been renamed “Micropolis“.
For those of you who are into that type of thing, the Micropolis OLPC activity source includes the original(ish) C source of the game. Bil Simser says there’s some “pretty craptastic code”, but you also have to consider the time when it was written: everything had to fit into 640 KB of memory (probably less than .01% of what your computer has today!) and it had to be as fast as possible.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t run on Windows (yet), but the graphics are completely separated from the simulation (something that makes me happy as a software engineer), so it should be only a matter of time (in my estimation) before you can find Windows Micropolis, or Micropolis in lots of other interesting places. (via Slashdot)
Jul
28
We’ve gotten mostly finished with our move, so everyone should now be able to post in the forums. As it turned out, our temporary forum survived the move and the sage wisdom found therein may be preserved for future generations. Enjoy a new, improved, and slightly faster Simphoni!
Forumer The Monkeys Uncle has gone trawling the Internet for the latest SimCity Societies news coming from E3. He finds:
- Kotaku’s SimCity Societies Impressions is a “quick summary of what SCS is so far.” It describes how the new development model is different than previous SimCity releases, and how the type of city you see depends on what you build. They are hopeful: “It looks like this game has some great potential for both hardcore fans of the franchise and those, like me, who have over the years grown a bit bored with its formulaic feel.”
- Eurogamer has an episode of “EGTV” featuring Societies (starting 7:00 in).
- GameSpy took advantage of the opportunity to just sit back and look at Societies, and says it’s “just what [the reporter] needed to really begin to appreciate what Tilted Mill is trying to do with the title.” It also looks like the game will be “massively moddable” out-of-the-box, since it will ship with the tools. The Monkeys Uncle summarizes their story very well: “the graphics look nice… but the lack of real city simulation makes gameplay a little iffy.”
- Gamespot has some new SimCity Societies video, with lots of great shots of the little things that bring life to the game.
- IGN’s most recent SimCity Societies update details some of the minor changes that the game has undergone (renaming several “societal energies”, for one), and reveals an interesting pattern in gameplay: certain buildings affect the “energies” more than others, and putting down a building which has a very large energy production or consumption has a drastic effect on the city. They write, “After placing a steel mill in the city, [...] [e]verything about the city’s aesthetics changed. Streets were cracked and littered with trash, smog rolled in choking the air…” Interesting developments!
SimCity Central reports that Electronic Arts has posted a new SimCity Societies about page. It doesn’t tell us much that we don’t know, but it does reveal a few nuggets. It says the game will ship with “over 350 buildings”, while for comparison SimCity 4 Deluxe/Rush Hour had about 550 “growable” buildings (though many were similar to each other). There also appears to be an online sharing system in the works for SimCity Societies.
With all the commotion over Monte Cristo‘s Cities Unlimited, Simphoni has opened up a new forum especially for discussion of the new game. Join in (if you haven’t already) and come chat with us and others eagerly awaiting more news of the game! We wouldn’t mind having some guys from Monte Cristo drop by to pick up a few ideas, either. 
Cities Unlimited: Ideas and discussion about the upcoming city simulator
Jan
2
Our member Gil has found the personal website of one of the Spore concept artists, which is chock full of all sorts of concept art. As the artist explains:
In summer 2004 I was hired as a Conceptual Art Director on Sims Creator Will Wright’s upcoming game Spore to pre-visualize prototypes of planets, creatures, vegetation, vehicle, and architecture and their various building blocks.
Enjoy!
On Monday the 4th, Stephen Colbert interviewed Will Wright on The Colbert Report, rilling him with questions about The Sims and the upcoming Spore.
Colbert first asked about The Sims, and noted how he has control over his audience like a Sims player has over his virtual dolls. The discussion then turned to Spore, where Stephen noted a resemblance between “Intelligent Design” and the game, to which Wright retorted, “Well it’s like that, but the desigers aren’t necessarily that intelligent.”
You can watch the interview on Google Video or the You Tube.
Be sure to watch out for your own personal internet, what with those two movies streaming across the Internet. Thanks to dhamp for getting the scoop.
