August 11, 2022

DGC Ep 315: SimCity 2000 (part one)

1 hour 14 minutes

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we begin a new series on that classic sim, SimCity. We very briefly situate it in time and talk a little bit about Will Wright before talking over some of the strangeness that is this game (or toy). Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary.

Sections played: Tutorials or A Few Cities

Issues covered: which version and why, establishing the SimUniverse, Wright and describing his design process, a good representative for our art form, a simulated ant farm toy, setting it in its time, licensed titles, the origins of the game in practice and in theory, a wide variety of influences, industrial design, where other designers get their influences, working in a space with other designers, picking your battles and choosing conflict, different sims being developed at the same time, legacies, a recognizable space, playing with it like a toy, setting your own goals, differences in the motivation for play, a very Western lens, making assumptions and scope, a Christian church as a statement, designing to constraints, what you're building and what you're not, meeting the citizens' concerns, zoning and pipes and infrastructure, how cities grow in reality and the intersection with history, the newspaper as a conduit for information and setting and feel, the weird content in the newspaper, advisors and the pulse of the people, being grounded, the things that are your concern, budgets and taxes and deficits, audio associated with taxes, "Read my lips: no new taxes," being careful with incentives, replaying MegaMan levels, audio budgets, the names and lore of MegaMan, listening to music when you code, generated art, humans as creators and consumers of art, art as conversation and exploration, enjoying procedurally created levels and worlds, AI assistant tools, kudos to the hosts, being humbled by how our games touch people.

Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: Will Wright, The Sims (series), MAXIS, Spore, SimAnt, SimCopter, SimTower, SimEarth, MegaMan 2/X, Prince of Persia, Populous, Tetris, GameBoy, Castlevania (series), Star Trek: The Next Generation, Batman (1989), MYST, DOOM, Day of the Tentacle, Star Fox, Secret of Mana, The 7th Guest, Bill Gates, Link's Awakening, Raid on Bungeling Bay, John Romero, Christopher Alexander, A Pattern Language, Urban Dynamics, Star Wars, Alien, June Longo, Shigeru Miyamoto, Pikmin, Legend of Zelda (series), Civilization, Populous, Sid Meier, Black & White, Dungeon Keeper, Cities: Skylines, X-COM, Dark Souls, Mrs Reckis, mysterydip, The2ndQuest, NES, Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, OCRemix, Metal Gear Solid, Valheim, Minecraft, Parham, Republic Commando, Skyrim, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia.