Philippe Da Silva, Internet Director for Monte Cristo Multimedia and frequent visitor of SIMphoni, had a very nice surprise for us today. No, make that several nice surprises. We were provided a glimpse into things we’ve been wanting to know about Cities Unlimited since we first heard about the game being in development.

Landscapes (or maps) have undergone a huge overhaul it seems:
On the technical side the big milestone was the landscape. We wanted to offer a really wide variety of maps, offering different challenges and opportunities to the players. We want players to be able to not only to create “classic cities” but also to specialize and build the Key West, Aspen or Detroits of this world. We are happy with the current results. Be prepared to build on maps as you have never seen before.
And we would like to say, the screenie showing the Aspen side of things made us want to go out onto the slopes right away!

(Click the images for larger versions.)

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Want to have your ideas heard by the Cities Unlimited development team? Monte Cristo’s Philippe Da Silva (who is a regular poster here) is creating the Cities Unlimited official website, and he’s posted a request for some ideas. He wants to know how we would like the team to interact with us in order to make the best city building game possible. He has two questions for you:

How would you like Monte Cristo to communicate with you? How could we make sure we reach, all together, our objectives?
You all are part of the community and members of one of the existing community websites: how would you like us to partner with them?

Post your idea for the website in our forum thread.

Of course, there are lots of excellent game concepts floating around as well, and Simphoni is a good place to get them heard. Make sure you register in our forums and post your ideas!

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It has been several years now since the debut of city builder games SimCity 4 (by Electronic Arts/Maxis) and City Life, (by Monte Cristo). This month, Electronic Arts announced that it was working on the next SimCity. Then, something unexpected popped up: a screenshot of Cities Unlimited surfaced on the blog of Philippe Da Silva, who is Internet Director at Monte Cristo. Many in the community were excited at the look of the new game, and we were too. Hungry for more information, we got in touch with Philippe to ask a few questions. Because Cities Unlimited is so early in development, he understandably was not able to respond to all the questions we had, but here are the ones he could answer.

Q: We know you’re just about as excited about this game as we are, so we want to thank you for answering our questions!

A: It is my pleasure, thanks for the invite.

READ THE REST! Simphoni Interviews Philippe Da Silva

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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

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As you might have heard in the forums, Monte Cristo has been working on a semi-sequel to their city simulation game, City Life. Well, Simtropolis has had the privilege of interviewing Philippe Da Silva on the upcoming game, called Cities Unlimited. Here’s a quote:
Dirk: What were some of the feedback that you received from players of City Life?

Philippe: To summarize they loved the 3D, the freedom of construction and the Building Customization Editor of the Deluxe (world edition) version. They want more transport, graphical realism and financial management.
Not surprisingly, this is exactly what many SimCity fans want, and we’re very excited that Monte Cristo is up to the challenge. In addition, they are looking into adding weather effects to the game, something that has long been the desire of virtual city builders.

Along with the one existing screenshot we’ve seen of Cities Unlimited, the interview also includes a new one, featuring amazing graphics.

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