Category Archives: The Android’s Universe in a Jar (Sim)

The Android's Bunker (Strategy), The Android's Horn-Rimmed Glasses (Indie), The Android's Sandbox (Sandbox/Open World), The Android's Second Ledger (Management), The Android's Universe in a Jar (Sim)

Banished

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A few days ago one-man indie outfit Shining Rock Studios published their medieval city builder Banished, a game which I had been looking forward to since coming across it a few months ago. So after spending a few days messing with it and giving a couple of villages a go, I’m here to give you my report on the thing.

I want to begin with by observing that Banished is, for me, a highly polished product. I have encountered no crashes, no slowdown, and no bugs, even of a graphical nature. It’s a small thing really, but it’s both impressive and a little damning that a one-man outfit can produce a game which in this regard is up to snuff where huge mexabux companies sometimes seem to struggle with it. Obviously my experience is an anecdote and in no way representative, but still nice to see.

Now to the game itself. You start with a handful of villagers, some food and tools and clothes and, depending on your difficulty level, a few starting buildings and useful things like seeds and livestock. Your task is very simple: survive. You do this by building houses, making coats, and chopping firewood to keep warm, by hunting, fishing, gathering, and farming to provide food, and by establishing the secondary industries needed to perform those tasks most efficiently, like making sure you have an educated populace using good tools, and making sure they’re healthy by providing a good mix of foodstuffs and having some medicinal herbs on hand. And you have to carefully balance and plan, otherwise you’ll be in some trouble. Expand too fast? People starve. Expand too slow? People don’t have enough kids to create the next generation. Not enough firewood and winter coats? People freeze to death. Plus there are disasters like fires and tornadoes, and they can really do a number on you. It’s a game about survival, and survival can be a brutal struggle.

A pleasant, bustling idyll. Until a tornado arrives.
A pleasant, bustling idyll. Until a tornado arrives.

One of the words I’ve seen in connection with this game is “shallow”. This game has no overarching goal beyond survival, there’s no kings to overthrow or Orcs to fight off (no combat of any kind), there’s no grand monuments to build, your only task is to keep your village going and grow it as much as you can. It’s refreshing in its simplicity and for the most part I like the lack of direction as precisely what a good city builder should provide, but it does go a bit too far in that direction, I think. There needs to be at least some higher-tier content to work towards; a grand cathedral, a big phallic monument, stuff like that. There also needs to be a bit more in the way of random decorative stuff like trees and small statues and whatnot. This sort of thing would be pretty pointless in the early game, but would help prettify your city a lot, and isn’t that what a city builder is ultimately all about?

I’m a little hesitant to just call the game shallow and leave it at that though. It’s a solid, compact title that I’ve already more than got my money’s worth out of, and I recommend it to anyone looking for a game in the genre, especially those burned by SimCity 2013. It’s by no means perfect, there are some balancing issues to work out, and the pathfinding probably needs to be tightened up. There definitely needs to be more content of some sort as well, but the dev has voiced support for modding and hopefully we’ll be seeing modding tools soon to aid in that. All in all I don’t expect this game to overcome SimCity 4 for city builder addictiveness, but it’s a very nice starting point that’s entirely playable right now and will, with some time and affection, almost certainly grow into something really special.

Y’all can get Banished on Steam, or GoG.com, or from the Shining Rock site directly: http://www.shiningrocksoftware.com/

The Android's Bunker (Strategy), The Android's Sandbox (Sandbox/Open World), The Android's Universe in a Jar (Sim)

The Old Gods

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A few days back Paradox Interactive released the latest DLC for Crusader Kings 2, entitled The Old Gods. The primary focus of this expansion is the Pagans, most especially the Norse, hence the name. After eagerly snapping it up I’ve spent the last few days playing it pretty intensively and I can safely say now that it’s my favorite of all CK2 DLC and I don’t want to ever play without it again.

The big change you’ll see right away is the new start date – 867 AD, when Ragnar’s sons are leading the Great Heathen Army out of Jorvik and seeking revenge upon Ælla of Northumbria, the Pagan faiths remain mighty across much of Northern and Eastern Europe, the Umayyads control most of Iberia, Charlemagne’s descendants control the Frankish Realm, the Magyars are migrating westwards, and a few small territories cling to the ancient faith of the fire, still following the words of the Prophet Zoroaster. Given that the game used to run from 1066 to 1453, adding another 200 years extends the game time by 50%. The new starting date gives a completely different set of possibilities and the world can go in radically different directions as a consequence.

Even the words of Mani can revive. The AI did all this by the way.
Even the words of Mani can revive. The AI did all this by the way.

There are many new features to play with as a Pagan, especially the Norse, who got the most love in this expansion. Perhaps the most fun is the raiding mechanic. You grab your lads, toggle them into being Raiders, load them onto the longships, and then you sail off to find some rich, fat provinces to loot. You can claim a percentage of the province’s loot just by standing in it, or you can stick around to win the siege and you’ll get whatever wealth was behind the castle walls as well. It’s exceedingly powerful in the early game, especially as the Vikings can navigate major rivers. You can sail up the Elbe, or the Danube, the Vistula, the Rhine, and so on, and pillage inland provinces as well as coastal ones. However, as forts grow mightier, rivers start becoming impassable, cutting your options – and as provinces develop, they grow richer, but can summon larger armies in their defense as well.

You can also do such things as taking captured maidens as concubines, raising runestones to yourself or your parents (and if you have the lustful trait you can insist the runestone makes reference to your massive cock), hold Blots at which you sacrifice people to the Allfather, find magical +2 axes that boost your martial score, and try to reform and standardize your faith in order to help it stand against the very convincing missionaries regularly sent by Christian rulers to try to convert you.

In short, with The Old Gods installed, Crusader Kings 2 becomes the greatest Viking Asshole Simulator ever put to code and if you like CK2, or grand strat games, or Vikings, or just generally being a massive troll to the Christian rulers of medieval Europe, this is the DLC for you. It also bears mentioning that Paradox are one of the few who get DLC right – you actually get regular, significant content additions for very fair prices, and the other stuff like portrait and music packs are entirely optional and in no way required for you to enjoy the game.

The Android's Distracted Boss (Casual/Flash), The Android's Horn-Rimmed Glasses (Indie), The Android's Second Ledger (Management), The Android's Universe in a Jar (Sim)

On Game Development and Rusing

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A small game which came out recently hit the headlines for a reason that wasn’t to do with the game itself so much as the game’s response to piracy. It’s pretty hilarious! But let’s have a word about the game itself before we get into that.

Game Dev Tycoon takes its cues from Game Dev Story, an iOS/Android game wherein you control a videogame development house with the intent of making money and great games. I’ve not played GDS but GDT is a very enjoyable little game that’s well worth the few bucks it costs to get – in fact it’s got one of the better money-to-time ratios of games I’ve recently shelled out for. The game starts you out in around 1980, working out of your garage, making games for the C64 era – you decide on the theme and genre, hopefully ones that go well together (Although I did once put out a Fashion RTS that sold surprisingly well) you choose various base options such as whether the game will be text based or 2D or what have you, and then you assign time to various aspects of development, so you can spend loads of time writing backstory at the expense of graphics. Then you watch your little girl or guy beaver away as the game gets made, and it gets sent out for review and release – your choices in development influence how well it does, and high review scores translate into high sales, and that means money – allowing you to invest that much more into your next game!

Where GDT triumphs is that it is constantly tantalizing you with some new aspect you can work with in your games. Your first few games will be very simple affairs but soon you’ll be able to knock together an engine that affords you more choices, better graphics and sound options, and so forth. New consoles will start to come out, loving parodies of real ones such as the Vintendo Super TES, and different systems tend to appreciate different genres and so on. Then you’ll move into a small office, which is where the game really opens up as you can hire new staff, train yourself and them, and start making bigger and better games. Ultimately you can create MMOs, put out your own consoles, invent a Steam-equivalent, and spend tens of millions on Triple-A games that take your team a year to make only to result in 5/10s across the board and imminent bankruptcy.

>mfw upon being offered a loan with a 100% interest rate.
>mfupon being offered a loan with a 100% interest rate.

Indeed, the main failing I can point to in this game is that there’s just not enough of it, which is hardly fair to say of something made by a two-man outfit and is faint damnation anyway. But I do hope they think about an expansion pack or at least some more patches, just to increase your choices and options. Anyway as I said it’s an enjoyable little game and if you’ve got a few bucks and want something that doesn’t strain the brain but will keep you engaged for awhile, there’re worse choices than this.

Now, let’s talk about how I heard about the thing – as an indie game it’s obviously going to struggle to get much media attention, but a very clever little play on the devs’ part got it out there like whoa. See, the devs – brothers Patrick and Daniel Klug – were well aware they would suffer from piracy when this game hit the torrents, but rather than making a lot of bluster or seeking out an attackdog lawyer they did something subtler and cleverer. What they did is upload the thing to torrent sites themselves. Crazy, right? Well the thing is the version they uploaded played normally up to a point, but after awhile in-game you would start getting messages about how all your games are being pirated and you’d start losing money due to it no matter how good your games are. You wouldn’t be able to finish the game due to this, instead going into ignominious bankruptcy.

So, this is a pretty neat solution anyway because it’s essentially a fairly decently sized demo that might encourage a few purchases they wouldn’t otherwise get. The real comedy gold started when people on the forums began to complain about the pirates in-game, as apparently self-awareness is something some people utterly, totally lack. Perhaps the greatest line I’ve seen written is the simple, plaintive question, “I mean can I research DRM or something?” Beautiful. You can take a proper look at the whole story on the dev’s blog here if you’re interested, it’s well worth a read if you want a laugh!

The Android's Horn-Rimmed Glasses (Indie), The Android's Second Ledger (Management), The Android's Universe in a Jar (Sim)

Prison Architect or, Jesus Christ How Did You Smuggle A Shotgun In Here

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Introversion, makers of widely-acclaimed games such as DEFCON and Darwinia, are currently working on their newest game, called Prison Architect. In another case of games being accurately named, in PA your job is to design and run a penitentiary, somewhat in the vein of Bullfrog’s Theme Hospital. But the comparison isn’t totally accurate because although Prison Architect has a fairly goofy graphical style it plays the prison theme fairly straight, unsettlingly so at times.

The basic premise is as you’d expect from any such management game – you need an array of services (divided into rooms in this case) such as cells, kitchens, canteens, admin offices, etc., and you need to plan these out in a way that is efficient with regards to the space you’ve got to work with, your finances, and to ensure things run smoothly. This last point is where Prison Architect is clever and differs from a lot of similar games. Prisoners, of course, are not there by choice. Many of them are there for violent offences, and the stresses of prison life will mean they’re often close to breaking point and minor provocations can set them off. Prison Architect is rare, perhaps even unique, in that rather than designing a theme park people want to visit or a hospital people want to move through easily, you’re fighting against your inmates insofar as you’re trying to keep them in the prison and out of trouble.

Shape up Hannevig or you're back in Solitary!
Shape up Hennevig or you’re back in Solitary!

This creates a lot of interesting dynamics that work against each other to create tension. You want a prison that keeps your inmates in, but you also want one that minimized time spent moving around and which your staff can navigate easily. You want to keep your prisoners out of trouble, but the same gentle hand that might reduce their propensity for it will also make it more difficult to rein in if trouble does start. Conversely if you’re a brutal sonofabitch that seems fine to begin with, but your inmates will find a way to express their anger and then you’ll have to repair their toilets or replace their beds or even inform some guard’s family that he’s a goner.

Part of the reason PA is a fascinating game is of course the subject matter. Introversion have said they intend to tackle most of the issues which might arise in a prison – violence, gangs, smuggling, and so far that does seem to be borne out. It stands in contrast to games like Theme Hospital, as disease and death are serious issues but can’t be taken terribly seriously when the diseases are things like Bloaty Head Syndrome and Hairyitis. In this game your inmates are there for crimes like armed robbery, murder, and assault, and the tutorial revolves around a repentant man being sent to the chair. It’s rather affecting stuff and it’s going to be very interesting to see how the game tackles these issues at it continues to develop and more mechanics are implemented.

You may also be interested in watching this presentation by the Introversion devs; it’s a fascinating look at where PA came from and what they’re hoping to do with it.

Prison Architect is still in alpha, and it’s rather pricey for an alpha, but it’s already a very enjoyable and playable game and it’s from an eminently talented developer. If management games of this sort are your thing then rejoice, because there’s finally a good new one in the works.

I don’t want to know where Lim was hiding that knife whilst naked.

The Android Collects Random Objects (Adventure), The Android's Casting Magic Missile (RPG), The Android's Horn-Rimmed Glasses (Indie), The Android's Kickbacks (Gog/Bribed), The Android's Party Cannon (Holidays and gifts), The Android's Universe in a Jar (Sim)

The Damage Thus Far

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So lemme put it this way: I smashed through my entire “Steam Sale” budget by Day Five.  Obviously this hasn’t stopped me from buying anything further, but let’s just say that I’ve spent a rather lot of money so far.

It has occurred to me that I need to buy a Spongebob Wallet.

Of all the stuff I’ve gotten so far, here are some of the ones I’ve been enjoying the most:

The Legend of Grimrock: Fun dungeon crawling oldschool RPG that eschews silly things like maps in favor of you bumbling around lost and attacking giant snails.  All of the charm of old dungeon-crawls from back in the day.

Train Simulator 2012: No, I’m not kidding.  This game is great.  Especially if you’re a sim game grognard who gets excited by the thought of playing a travel game in real-time, so if it takes an hour to go from Point A to Point B in real life, you’d better believe it will take you an hour to do so in game.  With “Simple Controls” activated, this game is in the vein of classics such as Desert Bus, except you can pause and do things like start and stop.  This is more endearing than it sounds and this game easily devoured three hours of my time right after buying it.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: A game which I haven’t touched since it launched almost a decade ago and I played it on the Xbox.  I’d really forgotten how much fun this game is and what was originally going to be an “I’ll dink around for an hour and feel some nostalgia feels” game has turned into several hours of a legitimate playthrough.  Let’s just hope Carth stops wanting to talk about his feelings at some point.  (He won’t.)

Orcs Must Die!: I’ve actually yet to play this one (the curse of buying so many games at one time), but my dear associate Mister Adequate swears up and down that this game is amazing and fun.  Considering his raucous laughter over Skype whenever he plays it, I’ll take his word for it.

What sorts of gems have you picked up with the sale?

The Android's Bunker (Strategy), The Android's Universe in a Jar (Sim)

Victory is Possible

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If you keep up with what Paradox talk about you may be aware that they just recently announced a new project, first codenamed Project Reagan and since revealed to be a Cold War-era game by the team who made HoI2 offshoot Arsenal of Democracy. Now, as long-time readers may be aware I have a particular interest in the Cold War or more specifically the aspect of nuclear warfare and policy within it. To this end I’m going to write up a nice long post detailing my thoughts on this development!

At the core of the Cold War, and thus things that need to be executed well in this game, are two concepts. The first is the whole espionage, diplomacy, proxy war side of things. The second is nuclear policy, strategy, brinkmanship, and potentially, war. Neither of these are things that have been tremendously well-implemented in the main so it will be interesting to see whether the AoD team can live up to this challenge.

If the consequences of nukes are only “GAME OVER, and no you don’t get an animation of a mushroom cloud, we don’t reward failure.” then it’s not actually going to be very much fun. It was a valid design choice for Balance of Power, but I’ve got both academic and gamer objections to the idea of ending the game the moment someone presses the red button. Just because nuclear brinkmanship worked out the way it did in our world does not mean it always had to do so, and this needs to be reflected if the game is going to be anything except a history show.

The problem (And this is something that Pox as well as other games always fall down on) is that you really need to model negotiations, both formal ones like the SALT talks and “Comrade Premier, there’s a single American nuclear weapon flying in. It will detonate in the remote Urals. What do we do?” red-phone hotline business. There needs to be the opportunity for deceit – there needs to be the opportunity for back-and-forth – and there needs to be an intensely personal element to it. When you talk to the President about said incoming nuke it matters enormously what you, as the Russian Premier, think of him. If the two of you have good relations and you believe him sufficiently honest, that’s going to demand a much different reaction from thinking he’s a gung-ho senile old capitalist snake who has been itching to wipe out Moscow. As it stands of course the system is Send an Offer -> Other Guys reject it -> Two weeks later bribe Other Guys -> Two weeks later Send the Offer again. That barely cuts it for any of their existing games, it sure as shit won’t cut it in a conflict which should very often play out without full-scale war and where the outbreak of full-scale war itself should provide a massive imperative for emergency negotiations to stop it, because everyone knows where it could very quickly lead.

Also, what’s a Cold War game without storing up trouble for the future?

The question of nuclear targeting policy, and nuclear use policy, is of vital importance. In real history the USA’s policy was to keep European forces relatively weak, weak enough that they couldn’t really hope to stop a full-scale Soviet invasion (this changed as time passed and NATO technology developed much faster than Soviet tech did, and by the 80’s this would have just led to a lot of ruined Red tanks). They also made explicit that they would not rule out first-use of nuclear weapons. The whole thing was a bluff, brinkmanship of the highest order. Perception is more important than knowledge, and your leader’s personal beliefs on the Other Guys is vital. Another issue in the targeting policy side of things is that targeting policy occupied a huge amount of thought on both side. What do you aim at? How much do you devote towards everything? Is your policy to try and wipe out the other guy’s ability to nuke you? To simply ensure your own second-strike capability, so even if every last person in Russia is dead you can still destroy the West? Do you target population centers, or only warfighting centers, and does the distinction even matter? So on and so forth, and nothing about the outcome was predetermined, of course.

It will be interesting to see how East vs. West tackles these issues, if indeed it tries to at all. It’s been a long time since there was a real Cold War game, and longer still since one that took a shot at tackling these sorts of issues. A good Cold War game could be the most tense gameplay experience since the original Silent Hill made us shit our britches. We’ll have to wait and see.

(PS for one view on what nuclear policy should be, you could do worse than to read Colin Gray’s paper Victory is Possible.)

The Android's Bunker (Strategy), The Android's Casting Magic Missile (RPG), The Android's Favorites, The Android's Universe in a Jar (Sim)

JUDAS!

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No, not the Lady Gaga song, as great as it is. No I’m talking about Jihad Sultans 2 Crusader Kings 2. Let me set the scene for you guys.

Using the Character Creator I began as a German-culture Christian in Gao, and quickly expanded to take the surrounding lands and form the Kingdom of Songhai. So far so good, but then my male line seems to just end and I have nothing but daughters for like 50 years, and despite the continuation of expansion at first I’ve been struggling to keep things together. Why? Because my country is full of FAITHLESS BACKSTABBING MENDACIOUS FRAUDULENT TWO-FACED DOUBLE-CROSSING PERFIDIOUS RECREANT TRAITORS, THAT’S FUCKING WHY!

I’m so mad. I try and be a nice, benevolent ruler. But people keep rebelling and that necessitates tyranny to keep the land together – which of course makes people dislike me further. There should probably be a fear modifier for a consistently victorious tyrant because I always manage to find a way to win, whether it’s by attriting the other guys to death in the horrendously bleak deserts of Africa, taking loans until I can afford the mercenaries needed to win, or through the sheer luck of capturing the leader of a rebellion in battle.

My current Queen, Queen Luna I of Songhai and Ghana, is only 35 years old and she just put down the “Third War to Depose Queen Luna”, the “Second War against the tyranny of Queen Luna” (Caused by people who you try to arrest or revoke the titles of saying “Nah bro” and revolting instead; but I only tried to imprison them because they were involved with other revolts!), and some random attempt at independence by some podunk no-account count of Povertania, West Africa. Oh and then my still-pagan neighbors in Tarkur took a shot at me and I had to cede some territory because it was in the middle of one of those other wars.

Why is there never a vassal swarm in my DEFENSE?

Twenty-two years on the throne and already in this mess. And furthermore thanks to not having ANY SONS EVER ARGH I don’t have people I can hand landed titles out to any more; so here I am sitting pretty with a ton more provinces than I can administer and nobody loyal to give the damned things to. Mom tried that with Duke Valerian II and he got outmaneuvered by Dukes Emich I and II, the latter of whom ended up with ALL THE DUCHIES. Which meant I had to fight 3/4 of my country simultaneously because Emich II was all “Oh ho ho ho I’m not going to settle for that oh no I’m Petyr Fucking Baelish, Littlefinger big ambitions, time to betray the daughter of the woman who gave me power in the first place!” So now my country is a ruined hellhole, going from the most prosperous and powerful Christian state outside Europe to an impoverished, contracting realm with no money, no manpower, and no loyal vassals in the space of twenty years.

I love this game.

e; Oh also there’s Rome 2 announced.

The Android's Bunker (Strategy), The Android's Second Ledger (Management), The Android's Universe in a Jar (Sim)

Bored Receptionists and Smelling Faintly Of Cabbage

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It bears mentioning that Theme Hospital has very recently become available on Gog.com and I urge you all to purchase it at your earliest convenience. I did and have barely been able to put it down since, it is if anything even better than I remembered it being.

Theme Hospital is the sequel – after a fashion – to Theme Park, two of the games Bullfrog put out in the 1990s during their golden era, a short but incredible catalog that I’m not convinced any other developer has ever matched; Populous, Syndicate, Magic Carpet, Theme Park, Dungeon Keeper; it’s a truly illustrious list of games that are not only classics, but that in some cases defined and defied genre. In Theme Park your job was, as the title suggests, to construct a profitable Theme Park. Theme Hospital is obviously a preposterous notion, but that gives a good indicator of the humor at the game’s core. Your job as manager-god is to design, staff, and run a profitable hospital, dealing with such absurd conditions as Bloaty Head and Uncommon Cold, keeping your staff and patients happy (And alive), and coping with the sometimes rather restrictive layouts you are given.

The gentleman dressed as Elvis will die ON THE SPOT if his shrink gets it wrong.

It’s a management game of the kind that became so widespread in the years after Theme Park/Hospital and Railroad Tycoon were successful, but make no mistake, this is the genuine article. We are not talking about Waste Management Facility Tycoon here (though you do need to build toilets), we are talking about an exceedingly clever, enjoyable game that gets challenging fast, all with a strong streak of humor running through it, from the perfectly bored tannoy announcements to the amusing descriptions of staff.

The Android's Bunker (Strategy), The Android's Hockey Riot (Sports/Canada), The Android's Universe in a Jar (Sim)

Unexpected games

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We’ve been going for about a year now (Huzzah!) and in that time I’m sure you’ve become familiar with the content of this blog, because said content is eminently predictable (it is a blog about spergy strategy videogames). Still we’ve all got surprises up our sleeves, I am sure. For example, the game I have been playing a lot of this past week?

Football Manager.

Picture: Pike's face when I told her this.

Now I suppose I should clarify that I’m not a Sports Guy. I’ve never been a big fan of sports, and that’s largely because no matter what I try I’ve never been very good at sports. Partly because I’m blind in my left eye, which messes my depth perception right up and means anything like baseball and tennis is right out, and partly because I’m just crap at them anyway, so they never held much interest and I developed my interests in other directions. Yet I got a little bit of an itch, the idea of management like FM provides is… appealing.

I should further clarify that Football Manager is still a game about sperging over spreadsheets, and you could probably say it’s “strategy” inasmuch as you have a bunch of goals (Ha!) and you must concoct and execute long-term plans in order to meet them, all whilst opponents are trying to stop you. Nonetheless there is no arguing that tone and content matter greatly, and this game definitely doesn’t contain the slaying of monsters, nuking of foreigners, or militarily-enforced agglomeration of foreigners into the Glorious Worker’s Republic of Transcascadia. No, this is a game of spherekick (As opposed to handegg). But damned if it’s not compelling! I’ve just come away from a string of defeats and finally yelled at my team, locked them in the locker room after the last game, and then drew up a new formation, new first XI squad, and new training regimen for them. The first game since these changes is just underway and it’s gripping me. More than most games do, even in genres I very publicly adore.

Of course, sports games of the more typical kind have one great strength, which is multiplayer. Great as many games are in that regard few things compare for small-scale, couch competitive gaming, as a game of Virtua Tennis, Tiger Woods PGA Tour, or John Madden. In any event this really detailed side of things is hugely fun, much more than I would have guessed when I caved into a strange hunch and gave it a shot.

Readers, tell us in the comments about any games you’re a fan of that people around you might not expect!

The Android's Hardware (Tech), The Android's Sandbox (Sandbox/Open World), The Android's Universe in a Jar (Sim)

SimCity

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So, though there’s not a huge amount of information yet, the new SimCity looks like it has potential! Here is the good stuff we know so far:

Curved roads.
PC-only.*
Modding supported.

Launch Arcologies

And the GlassBox engine seems to have a great deal of potential for detail. Here is a link to a GamaSutra interview regarding it, and I’ll quote one of the most interesting parts. It may look a little intimidating if you’ve never seen code before but if you take a minute to read through it you’ll see it’s really rather simple and intuitive.

Here is an example of a unit rule, showing a chaining effect: as a sim consumes mustard, they create an empty bottle, which then adds to a city’s pollution. If mustard is unavailable, they then go buy more mustard.

unitRule mustardFactory
rate 10

global Simoleans in 1

local YellowMustard in 6
local EmptyBottle in 1
local BottleOfMustard out 1

map Pollution out 5

successEvent effect smokePuff
successEvent audio chugAndSlurp

onFail buyMoreMustard
end

Map rules are simpler than that. In this example, grass will grow only where there’s soil, water and nutrients, which are all depletable resources

Putting aside the amusing image of your Sims eating an entire bottle of mustard and nothing else for a meal, I don’t know if that is the actual way GlassBox stuff can be written, or if modders will have access to this side of the thing, but if it is it will be simple for modders to wrap their heads around but have a great deal of potential for changing how the game operates. It does sound like, hopefully, they are aiming to have a level of detail and fidelity that even SC4 fell far short of, and that in turn should help the development of natural looking cities.

If that still doesn’t make sense, take a look at these videos from the GDC giving some examples of how the engine works:

One
Two
Three
Four

Pretty impressive, right?

Of course these are early days. There’s a great many ways this game could go wrong, and there are already things I’m wary of, such as the DLC elements already announced, and how multiplayer is involved. Nonetheless, although rather cautiously, I do have a smidged of confidence that this game will be a worthy update to the series – and if it isn’t, that modders will be able to fix it! What do you all think of what we know so far?

*I have nothing against console games, it’s just that a game as complex as a good SimCity is something that no right-minded company should consider porting to a console.