This week, IGN’s regular top ten list features game designers and they put Will Wright in second place. IGN says of Will: “Wright is able to tap into common human interests and create some of the most compelling gameplay experiences around” Including our long time favorite SimCity series, Will’s latest game, Spore, also promises to push the limit of gaming as we know it. Indeed, Wright was the inventor of the simulation genre, way back in the days when arcade-shooter games dominated. He’s right behind Shigeru Miyamoto, the designer of iconic Nintendo series such as Mario Bros, the Legend of Zelda, and Donkey Kong. Sid Meier rounds out the top three, having created titles such as the strategy game Civilization (a Simphoni forum favorite as well).
Archive for the SimCity Category
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.
According to IGN.com, SimCity for the Nintendo DS “plays like a metropolis, looks like the ghetto.” SimCity DS received a decent rating of seven out of ten for being “a solid recreation of the city builder, with all the management tools and addictive gameplay necessary to make a bustling metropolis.” However, the game was criticized for having bland graphics and frustrating touch screen controls along with far too many minigames and horrible character design. Overall, SimCity DS was an ambitious effort but would have been better suited as a SimTown sequel.
IGN also has some SimCity DS screenshots and videos.
Another new 1Up video at GameVideos.com (different from the one linked in the previous article) shows that EA was fearful of making a SimCity 4 clone, where they wanted to do something “completely different”. This, according to EA’s Rod Humble, was the reason for placing the project with Tilted Mill.
So it appears this move was not as much a result of Maxis being tied up with Spore, but of EA wanting SimCity Societies to be more of a God-Game than an Urban Planning Simulation. The harsh criticism aimed at Tilted Mill by the SimCity fanbase for not hearing what the community wanted out of a new SimCity may therefore be directed at the wrong company.
Rod Humble clearly states that EA wanted to do something completely different instead of making “the same type of game” again and again, but agrees it is risky. “If our SimCity playerbase don’t like it, for sure they can expect the next iteration will be back to basics!”. He even contemplates Societies being the start of a separate line of SimCities, in addition to the traditional format. “It’s all about finding an audience”.
Our colleagues at GameVideos have posted an 18 minute 1Up video of SimCity Societies. (Don’t be confused by the Settlers Commercial in the middle, the interview continues afterward!)
In the video Garnett Lee of 1Up gets a demo of SimCity Societies. Senior producer Matt Williams of Tilted Mill introduces us to city where he’s modelled a society of obedience a la 1984, with its own Ministry of Thought. Design director Jeff Fiske remarks that societies are often shaped by the way their rulers (in this case: the player) react to problems, and that Tilted Mill’s goal is to give people a lot of options for doing just that.
We also get a close-up view of how buildings are placed. There appears to be something like “spheres of influence” around them that are shown as buildings are positioned on the grid.
Lighting effects are a major part of showing what type of society you’re currently playing: Orwellian states are dark and gloomy, whereas Candy Cane happy societies have a bright Sun shining down on them.
Something that remains from previous versions of SimCity is pollution. Each type of building has its own unique set of emissions. According to Matt, CO2 emissions increase the rate of global warming, which in turn increases the chance of tornadoes visiting your city.
The demo shows clearly that SimCity Societies is more focussed on Societies than on Sim(ulating) cities. With that in mind, it’s clear to see SimCity Societies may appeal to a large audience. It may be other than the traditional SimCity folks, but still: there’s a lot of people out there dying to see “what kind of evil combinations one can use to mould society”.
Following the news of EA’s splitting up, there was some discussion at SIMphoni about where the development of Simcity Societies would take place. The general consensus was that it would probably fall under the EA Games division. News is now emerging that the game will actually be developed by EA Sims:
The first of the “labels”, The Sims, will be led by president Nancy Smith. EA says the company “created the model on which the new organization is built.” The forthcoming games MySims, for Wii and DS, SimCity Societies, The Sims Castaway Stories and more will fall under this label.” [source]
This seems to be in line with the image that Simcity Societies screens, along with the concept of the game appear to be more Sims-esque than reminiscent of the Simcity days of old.
According to Gameworld Network, Electronic Arts, the leviathan that once gobbled up Maxis, has decided to split into four groups. Their names will be: EA Games, EA Sports, The Sims, and EA Casual Entertainment. According to GWN: “EA Games will be developing games such as Spore, Need for Speed, and Command and Conquer. EA Casual will continue their work with Harry Potter, Boogie and mobile games. EA Sports will no doubt continue to churn out the same tired old series’ year after year, while the new Sims team, now relinquished of any other burdens can focus solely on The Sims franchise.”
They hope “this reshuffle will make a little room for some of that risky ‘innovation’ we all keep hearing about”.
One can’t help wonder where SCS fits in in all of this. The link with the Sims, and Sims-like looks have been pointed out by many. Does this mean SCS will be developed under the Sims division? Or will it remain under Games?
After previewing SimCity Societies at a pre-E3 event in Los Angeles, IGN appears to be slightly reassured of the quality of the SimCity series. They have posted a preview article and video on their website, which outline the basic gameplay items and also describe the various types of cities you can build. There are six “societal energies” that you will have to take care of, but the main element of SimCity has been reduced to the following:
If you don’t really want to think that hard, all you need to know is that there’s homes, workplaces, and venues, and that there’s the six societal energies which each building produces. But when you want to get right into it, you’ll see that every single building has its own unique attributes, and some of them have direct action that you can click on, so there’s always something for you to do
You build homes when you want more people, you build workplaces when you want more money, you build more venues when you want more happiness
IGN appears to be on the fence about whether this is good or bad, but they do say the demo lifted their spirits a bit. What they do say, though is that “It probably won’t be the SimCity that fans were hoping for, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be its own brand of good.”
View: Article | Video | Forum Discussion
Thanks to Gil for the tip!
The SimCity 5 preview in Games for Windows has finally been released, but it’s not anything like we expected two weeks ago, when we first heard rumours it was coming. This SimCity is so completely different from anything we have ever seen before; it barely even looks like a SimCity. The game features cartoonish graphics along with the gutting of a lot of familiar SimCity gameplay. Some observers claim the new gameplay is geared toward an under 10 audience, not the typical 14+ age group past SimCities have attracted. In the place of city building, SimCity Societies will now focus on “culture building”, the article says.
The Monkey’s Uncle’s Review: OK, we can see what they mean about the water pipes and advisors, they did get annoying. However, we actually liked a lot about SimCity 4, even if there were a few vices. Why then, did they have to gut the entire game and start over from scratch? Thanks to Greyleaf for the tip.
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