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When highlighting software that contributed the most towards me becoming the person I
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am now, there’s one title that might top the list.
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SimCity: The City Simulator, developed by Maxis and published by Broderbund Software
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on the second of February, 1989.
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SimCity is an undisputed classic that had an immediate impact on the simulation genre
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and the millions that played with it, myself obviously included.
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More specifically, the one I first owned was SimCity Classic from 1993.
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It was the first boxed retail game I ever received, my first taste of proper computer
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software that wasn’t just a bite-sized shareware release or something that came packed in with
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our Packard Bell 486.
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And it thoroughly blew my seven year old mind.
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Gazing into that little 13” VGA monitor and seeing the simulation take place in real
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time was like an epiphany.
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Here was an entire virtual world that let me play god, effectively.
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More than anything else I had played to date, SimCity Classic provided an intoxicating sense
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of control, paired with an unending urge to experiment with each feature to see what happens.
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SimCity induced a mindset I’d never experienced before, a way of thinking that, through exploring
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its symbiotic systems, revealed that the physical world around me was larger, more complex,
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and more fragile than I realized.
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As a kid I learned that my house resided inside something called a residential zone, that
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my parents worked in commerce, that my hometown’s profits relied on industry, and that Godzilla
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could attack at a moment’s notice with disasters enabled.
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Okay, so SimCity was never completely realistic.
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And that playful sensibility is a large reason so many folks enjoyed it back then
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because, let’s be honest.
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When you first pick up SimCity, you more than likely end up setting off random disasters
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and bulldozing the world.
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That being said though, the older I got, the more SimCity I played, and the deeper I dove
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into what made the simulation tick?
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That’s when I started to truly appreciate what SimCity was all about, and why the software
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was developed in the first place.
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It’s a pretty well-known story at this point, but the roots of SimCity begin with designer
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Will Wright and his first commercially-released game, Raid on Bungeling Bay.
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Distributed by Broderbund in 1984 for the Commodore 64, Bungeling Bay was a top-down
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helicopter shooter with more complexity than many of its contemporaries.
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Instead of simply shooting anything that moves, here the goal was to take down the Bungeling
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Empire by way of defeating the very infrastructure that made their cities thrive.
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Enemy units came from factories, factories relied on supplies, supplies came from ships
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and vehicles, vehicles rely on canals and roadworks, and the empire’s technology improves
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the longer you play.
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The oft-repeated tale is that Will Wright found greater satisfaction in creating the
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buildings and infrastructure than bombing everything after the fact, leading to him
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programming an increasingly detailed level editor that eventually became SimCity.
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However, it’s also pertinent to acknowledge the works of Jay W. Forrester, Christopher
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Alexander, and Stanisław Lem if you’re seeking a more complete SimCity origin story.
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Over the years, Wright has repeatedly listed Urban Dynamics, A Pattern Language, and
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The Seventh Sally from The Cyberiad as direct inspiration for how his simulation games function.
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Urban Dynamics describes the systemic structures responsible for urban development and subsequent
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decay based on computer simulations in the late 1960s.
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A Pattern Language lays out 253 interconnecting patterns in human behavior deemed by the authors
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to be universal, with solutions on everything from laying out city streets to constructing buildings.
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And The Seventh Sally is a science fiction short story about an engineer named Trurl
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inventing a miniaturized world filled with artificial citizens for a wicked king to tyrannize,
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much to the horror of his friend Klapaucius.
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With each of these inspirations in mind, it seems inevitable that a game like SimCity
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would result, although early on it wasn’t called SimCity at all.
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The pre-release Commodore 64 iteration from 1985 was titled Micropolis, a fitting name
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considering it was about managing a microcomputer metropolis.
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It wouldn’t last though due to a potential naming conflict with the pre-existing company
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Micropolis, a manufacturer of hard disks and other storage media.
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But being a simulated city, SimCity was a suitable second choice.
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And once Will Wright met Jeff Braun a year later and founded Maxis Software in 1987,
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things really got rolling.
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Braun had a multiplayer jet fighter simulation he was looking to publish, and Broderbund
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was becoming interested in Wright’s city simulator, leading to a deal where they’d
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publish both of them through Broderbund.
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Braun’s flight sim launched first in 1988, a game called SkyChase, technically making
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it Maxis’s first published game even though SimCity was originally created earlier.
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Then in February of 1989, SimCity came out for the Apple Macintosh and Commodore Amiga
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computer systems, with the popular IBM PC-compatible version launching later that year in October.
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And it’s the MS-DOS version we’ll be admiring throughout the majority of this video, because
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from my point view, SimCity defines the overall feeling of late 80s PC games.
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A feeling comprised of 16-color EGA graphics, crunchy PC speaker sound, crude mouse support,
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and a feeling of captivating confusion and awestruck bewilderment at what the heck is
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actually happening on-screen.
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Removing the outer sleeve of the 1989 IBM PC’s release reveals a tasteful black box
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emblazoned with the original Maxis logo.
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Following this is a richness of physical content, kicking off with a trio of double-density
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floppy disks in both 3.5” and 5.25” forms.
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You also get a product registration card addressed to the first Maxis office space, a cozy little
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commercial lot in Lafayette, California.
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Nowadays, it’s now the Stillpoint Center for Health, Well-Being & Renewal.
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Personal renewal, I presume, and not the urban kind.
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Next in the box you get two advertisements, one for the upcoming SimCity Terrain Editor
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and another for the Covox Sound Master.
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The latter of which was the only sound card that SimCity supported on the PC at that point,
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one that is now exceedingly hard to find.
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Then there are a couple of sheets going over some last-minute game updates, system requirements,
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and installation stuff.
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Along with a fold-out reference card going over things like simulation dynamics and its
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copious keyboard shortcuts.
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Then there’s the all-important copy protection sheet, printed in dark ink on a deep red cardstock.
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This was to thwart duplication attempts using a standard copy machine, which would only
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provide an illegible muddied image due to this color combo.
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And lastly, there’s the SimCity instruction manual, a 55-page book detailing a fantastic
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amount of information regarding each and every menu, feature, system, and subsystem in the game.
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It even has a whole section on the history of cities and city planning authored by Cliff
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Ellis, providing a brief summary on urban structure, the effects of industrialization
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and the automobile, the importance of open spaces in urban environments, and so on.
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And it wouldn’t be complete without a bibliography with recommended reading for children and
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adults alike, a section that would become a staple in Maxis documentation from here onward.
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Speaking of legacy, collecting SimCity releases
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can quickly become an obsession if you’re not careful.
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My own obsession began when I first noticed these two different covers for the game: the
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original release with artwork displaying the monster disaster and later boxes using a tornado instead.
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Apparently Godzilla’s owners, Toho, had some qualms about the unsanctioned usage of
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a Godzilla-like monster on the packaging, and that’s why every subsequent release
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featured the tornado disaster box art.
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Well, unless you were outside the US, with many releases using a photograph of Sydney,
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Australia overlaid with brightly-colored drawings and labels of urban redevelopment.
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And that’s just scratching the surface, there are
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dozens upon dozens of releases for tons of systems.
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But yeah, let’s go back to the DOS version and see what the game is all about.
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And the first order of business is to determine the graphics mode you’ll play in, because
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it comes with a ton of ‘em.
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Several monochrome modes, 16-color modes, and even a 256-color MCGA mode if you have
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the right patch installed.
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We’re gonna stick with the hi-res 16-color mode for this video though, which starts up
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with three menu options placed onto a classic American green city limits sign.
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You can start a new city, load an existing city, or tackle a premade scenario, and starting
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a new one has you choosing your city’s name and difficulty.
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The latter affects your starting capital, frequency of disasters, taxation tolerance,
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maintenance costs and more.
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And seriously, hard mode is no joke.
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Barely any money, citizens are constantly on the verge of rioting, and natural disasters
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strike incessantly, even simultaneously.
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If you play hard mode and manage to avoid having a pile of flame-scorched rubble after
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five minutes, then my hat’s off to you.
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Maybe stop playing SimCity and go fix real life Detroit.
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As for the rest of us, let’s begin with a nice relaxing easy mode city, which always
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starts with selecting an initial map location for your city center, followed by placing
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one of two types of power plants: coal or nuclear.
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Then you’ll wanna start dropping down zones of commercial, residential, and industrial
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types, each of which comes in fixed 3x3 cells to be placed along the unseen map grid.
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And not unexpectedly, zones have to be powered in order to do anything, and in the original
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SimCity this is accomplished by connecting them directly to power lines or up against
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already-powered zones.
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Transportation is also a requirement, with railways and roads
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being the two transportation options on offer.
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Each powered zone will generate traffic so long as it has at least one transportation
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tile directly adjacent to it.
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And yeah, that’s it for the necessities in the original SimCity.
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Compared to later games in the series there’s a lot it doesn’t do, like forgoing water
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pipes, not bothering with subways or buses, ignoring schools and garbage disposal, and
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leaving zoning density up to the simulation to decide.
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It doesn’t even have outside connections, city ordinances, or individual zoning tax rates.
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Really, as long as you have a power plant with zones and roads attached, you’ve got
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a city with growth potential.
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And at its core, SimCity is all about that potential for growth, along with stagnation
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or decay, while balancing the demands of commercial, residential, and industrial zones.
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Half your time playing SimCity will be spent keeping a watchful eye on the indispensable
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CRI indicator on the left-hand side of the screen, which presents a vague and slightly-delayed
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idea of what’s in demand.
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The other half of your time will be spent eyeing your financials, which by default pops
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up every new year.
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But it’s a good idea to open this budget panel more often than that since it dispenses
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some invaluable info on how much money you’re bringing in versus how much is being spent.
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It’s also where you adjust the citywide tax rate and the budgets for transportation,
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police, and fire services.
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Speaking of which, traffic, crime, and fire are easily the three
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most common types of “disaster” in any given city.
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Unless you’re playing on hard mode of course
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but let’s pretend that didn’t happen. [fire and screaming in background]
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Anyway yeah, traffic!
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In particular, heavy traffic is treated like a disaster if it gets bad enough, which makes
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sense being how utterly debilitating it can be to your city.
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Same with crime, because nobody wants to move into a city that would rather murder you than
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give you the time of day.
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And of course fire is a standard disaster, one that can be ignited anytime from the disasters
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menu along with all the others.
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And it’s a scary thing in SimCity, with a single flame having the potential to take
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out the entire map if you don’t pay attention.
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Still, the way you tackle these issues is pretty basic.
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Heavy traffic can be solved by constructing more connected roads and providing more railways
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for your highest-density zones.
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Solving crime is a matter of keeping your police funded and placing enough stations
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wherever you’ve got the most awfulness.
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And with fire, just place a buncha fire stations and bulldoze whatever’s touching fire tiles,
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because fire can’t spread over blank land.
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Oh yeah, land, that’s a thing.
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It has a value attached to it determined by nearby trees, parks, and water tiles, along
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with its proximity to crime, pollution, and the city center.
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All of this stuff is referenced in the map window, with an overlay of your city and each
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of the stats laid out and color-coded on top.
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There’s also a graph window for referencing your overall progress, or lack thereof, which
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is awesome if ya love graphs.
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And I mean, if you’re into a game like SimCity then you probably are.
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Oh and there’s also an evaluation window, providing yet another way to get a bead on
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how you’re doing in the eyes of the people.
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Y’know, in retrospect all this stuff might’ve groomed me
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to obsess over YouTube analytics decades later.
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Huh.
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Finally, you have three more buildings on offer once enough people demand them, each
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supporting a specific zone type.
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Sports stadiums provide extra incentive for residential zone growth, airports boost commerce
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and come with passenger planes and traffic helicopters, and seaports provides cargo ships
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and incentivize industrial growth.
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And yep, that’s the gist of SimCity!
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Plop stuff down, watch it do its thing, address problems as they arise, build some more, continue
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until you’re satiated or until something irreversibly awful occurs.
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I’ve seen SimCity gameplay compared to gardening before, and yeah, I can see it.
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Placing zones is like planting seeds, power and transportation is like fertilizer and
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watering, disasters and broken infrastructure is like pestilence and weeds.
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SimCity is a garden of pixelated people.
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And it’s a rather zen-like experience even thirty years later.
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I love how rapidly I can still get sucked into it and let time pass like it’s nothing,
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despite the relative simplicity of the simulation.
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And considering how unique it truly was back in 1989, it’s easy to see why it caused such a stir.
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Yet I can also see why it was initially such a hard sell, both to potential publishing
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partners and to the general public.
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It took years for a publisher to take a chance on SimCity’s open-ended design, and it even
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took a bit of convincing with gamers, reportedly selling very few copies during its first several
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months at retail.
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SimCity just wasn’t like most other games in 1989.
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Sure, players could run out of money or fail a scenario, but the simulation never stopped
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simulating, never provided a traditional game over message, never handed out a high score.
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There was plenty of discussion as to whether SimCity was even a game at all, by the commercial
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definition of its day.
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As Will Wright himself put it, "Most games are made on a movie model with cinematics
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and the requirement of a climactic blockbuster ending.
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My games are more like a hobby - a train set or a doll house.
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Basically they're a mellow and creative playground experience."
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SimCity sparked a sort of revolution in the gaming industry at large, with developer Sid
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Meier chiming in to say, "SimCity was a revelation to most of us game designers.
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The idea that players enjoyed a game that was open-ended, non-combative, and emphasized
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construction over destruction opened up many new avenues and possibilities for game concepts."
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Perhaps all of this is what led Maxis to later refer to their products as Software Toys,
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rather than straight up games, pushing the boundaries
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of what interactive entertainment could accomplish.
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Whatever the case may be, once SimCity got into the hands of journalists and game reviewers,
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word of mouth did its thing.
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Newspaper articles, high-scoring reviews, and even a piece in Time magazine.
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It took time, but SimCity started to catch on like a fire disaster in hard mode.
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By 1992, SimCity had sold over one <