Tag Archives: simcity

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 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.

The Android's Universe in a Jar (Sim)

SimCity 5 – Is This the Real Life? Is This Just Fantasy?

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There is a big big BIG rumor going around right now that Maxis has got SimCity 5 in the works. Now as you may recall, Mr. Adequate and I are rather devout fans of this series, so upon hearing this we did some digging around and discovered this very roughly translated article (from German) as well as pictures which, from what we can tell, are concept art.

Very lovely concept art! (All dem delicious curvy roads)

Supposedly we’re going to get confirmation and more details in the coming weeks, so in the meantime all we can do is speculate and feverishly hope that this isn’t going to turn into Spore or SimCity Societies.

What do you want to see in SimCity 5? Besides more Arcologies, I mean. Because we always need more Arcologies.

The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical)

Everything I Need to Know in Life I Learned from Video Games

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Sometimes I’ll be driving down the road in town and I’ll see a sign outside an area that’s being developed. It’ll say something on it like “2 acres, zoned commercial.”

And I know exactly what they’re talking about. I mean, why wouldn’t I? I’ve played SimCity.

In fact, 99% of what I know about city development and planning comes directly from SimCity.

Just like everything I know about Europe in the 15th century comes from Europa Universalis 3. They don’t teach you about this sort of thing in school– not here, anyway. You get one year– nine months– of “World History” and they have to cram everything from pre-history to the present era in those nine months. Do you think they have the time to tell you about a bunch of dinky little countries in Europe that have since disappeared or merged into larger ones? They don’t.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail is responsible for the rest of my knowledge of pre-19th century European History.

Now, some games, of course, expressly set out to be educational. Some of them succeed, and some of them don’t. The Oregon Trail is one of the ones that succeeded. Thanks to that game I am expert on dozens of landmarks dotting the midwestern US, as well as several other interesting tidbits, such as: how to use 19th century first aid to treat a variety of illnesses, when it is appropriate to ford the river or caulk the wagon when crossing a river, and how to identify a wide variety of poisonous plants. Whether or not any of these skills will come in handy some day remains to be seen, but one can only hope.

Strategy games have taught me a good deal about war through the ages. I can’t claim to be at the same point that Mister Adequate is (the chap actually has a master’s degree in this sort of thing, thanks to an interest in it that was sparked by video games), but where else would I have learned about various types of war doctrines or crazy sounding terms like “amphibious invasions”? The History Channel, maybe.

Next up, on the History Channel!

Actually, I was recently flipping through a coffee table book my mom had lying around; it was called “The 100 Most Important Ideas in Human History” or something. Reading it was like reading an enhanced version of the Civilization tech tree. I mean, you literally could have released this book as an addon to a Civ Special Edition package or something and no one would have questioned it because the game and the book cover the exact same material.

You know, I could go on and on with sort of thing all day. Just like all other media, video games teach us things and mold us into who we are. Sure, we all love to relay that infamous Pac-Man joke:

This one.

…but somewhat lesser known is the fact that surgeons who played at least three hours of video games a week made 37% fewer errors in surgery simulations. Or that kids who played a math game over the course of a few months saw their test scores increase by eight.

Glad to see I’m not the only one who learns from games!

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

Because There’s Nothing Like a Clean Slate

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Guys, I have a terrible disease.

I can’t keep a Minecraft world or a SimCity city going for more than a couple of days. Or even hours.

I don’t know why! It’s not like I CAN’T keep a city in SC going for a while. Actually, one time I had one going for a really long time. That was in SimCity DS, which only allowed you to save one city at a time, and I played that particular city religiously over the course of about two or three months. I enjoyed the micromanagement and little improvements I could make to an already developed city, and the only reason I finally stopped was because I got to a point where my entire city inexplicably decided to become a fire hazard for no reason, and no amount of fire stations would solve the problem, and I just couldn’t be bothered to fix it. So I quit playing.

Actual blurry phone picture I took of my city when I was in the middle of that marathon a couple years back. It has a weird colorscheme for zoning: yellow is residential and red is industrial, if I recall correclty.

For some reason, that was the last time I’ve really been able to “get” into a single city like that. I’ve been playing a bit of SimCity 4 here and there over the past few months. And you know, I know how to set up a good city. I know where to put the zones, the power plants, the roads, and everything else you need, and perhaps most importantly, I know how to actually make money in the game.

But, every time, I’ll get to a point where I’ve played ten, maaaybe twenty in-game years and then get bored and delete it all and start a new city.

It’s certainly a change from the aforementioned SimCity DS, where I played that one city for something like 150 or 200 game years.

I’m not sure why this happens. It happens in Minecraft, too. I start a new Minecraft world… well, I was going to say every couple of days, but truthfully I really only play Minecraft a few times a week. So I’ll start a new Minecraft world every week or every other week or so. I honestly have no idea why. There’s just something so very enticing about a fresh slate.

(Terraria, on the other hand, has had me hooked in the same world for weeks now, so maybe that’s a sign that my attention span is actually lengthening now!)

Does anyone else have this problem, or is it just me?

The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical), The Android's Universe in a Jar (Sim)

Do You Remember the First Time You Played SimCity?

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Monsieur Adequate and myself have both been playing a lot of SimCity 4 lately. And the other day when we were playing it, the topic of just how long this game series has been around came up. Here, have a timeline:

  • SimCity – 1989 – 22 years ago
  • SimCity 2000 – 1994 – 17 years ago
  • SimCity 3000 – 1999 – 12 years ago
  • SimCity 4 – 2003 – 8 years ago

This thought– that this game has been around for 22 years, and we’re still just as engrossed by it– really hit me for some reason. The weird thing is that there are other game series that have been around just as long, if not longer, but they don’t seem to strike me that same way. For example, I’ve theoretically been playing Mario games since Donkey Kong in… whatever year that was that I first played Donkey Kong. Certainly before 1989. But Mario has evolved. Look at Donkey Kong– or even Super Mario Bros.– and then take a look at, say, Super Mario Galaxy. Beyond the titular main character, there is little to no similarity. Other series that have been around for just as long are similar. The characters, locations, and baddies may be the same, but the games and gameplay themselves are usually different.

I honestly didn't realize that this was the same character as "Mario" until much later.

SimCity, however, has essentially stayed the same. If you were a first time player and played SimCity 2000 for a while and then jumped to SimCity 4, you would have very little trouble adjusting. Everything is still there. The zoning is there. The roads are there. The water pipes are there. The power lines are there. Your schools and hospitals and fire departments are there. You still have your top-down, isometric view of the world. Your Sims still follow the same basic rules now that they did in 1994.

And it is this thought– this fact that an idea Will Wright had in the eighties is so very stable as to still be a thoroughly addicting and entertaining game today– that is a wonderful thing, I think. And I’m reminded of this whenever I play yet another incarnation of the series, geek out about something ridiculous like road signs, and realize that I’ve been in love with this game for twenty years.

One of the all-time greats? Yup. One of the all-time greats. And I love the fact that I grew up with it.

Any games or series you guys feel this way about?

The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical), The Android's POG Collection (Retro)

Power Overwhelming

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Cheating!

Or “using your resources”. Pick your term.

We’ve all done it. Hooked a Game Shark up to your Game Boy to give yourself a Mew and a few hundred Master Balls and Rare Candies. Used Power Overwhelming, Operation CWAL and Show Me the Money in StarCraft. Typed “imacheat” a dozen times into SimCity 2000 to give yourself millions of dollars.

…well, I’ve done all of those, at least.

You KNOW you wanted him too.

I just finished a rather fun game of Civilization IV wherein I used the World Builder to give myself a massively unfair advantage. I gave myself several dozen Great People right from the start, resulting in a huge leg up on tech, building, and money. Once I had done so, I proceeded to play a mostly “normal” game, except that I had nukes and the Apollo Program by the mid-1700s, a full two centuries before I can usually snag them if I’m playing at my best. (Well, I also wasn’t afraid to drop a Globe Theatre on the heads of a city that showed any sign of unhappiness. Nor was I afraid to give myself a bunch of Factories early or rifle through other civilizations’ pockets for their unique buildings. BUT. OTHERWISE. NORMAL GAME. *shifty eyes*)

It was a lot of fun! However, a great deal of that fun came from the fact that I was already very familiar with the game and knew I could win normally, and it was amusing to speed up that process.

Which brings me to my next point: I don’t tend to use cheats when I can’t win. Rather, I use them when I can win but want to add some spice to the game. Once I beat Pokemon, it was fun to do it again but with that legendary Mew. Once I was already decent at Starcraft, but couldn’t be bothered to finish a particular game the “normal” way, it was fun to wreak some havoc. And as for SimCity 2000…

…

…okay, I used to have SERIOUS money problems with that game. So, maybe that’s my exception to the rule– I’d cheat just to make that one playable. I’ve learned a lot since then, though! I actually make money in SimCity 4! Legally! No, really!

It's true, but I really can't blame Twilight for being somewhat dubious.

So how about you guys? Do you cheat often? Did you have a Game-Sharked-Mew just like I did? (Because really, how many times did we try to use Strength on the truck behind the S.S. Anne? And how much Lemonade did we give to the thirsty girl on the Celadon Department Store roof? ALL THE KIDS AT SCHOOL SAID WE WOULD GET A MEW AND WE DIDN’T. You can’t blame us for branching out, now, can you?)

The Android's Bunker (Strategy), The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical)

Why is blowing things up so much fun?

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So I’ve been playing a fair bit of Minecraft recently, it seems it has ‘clicked’ for me and whatever makes it work for others is working for me too. However, after spending a few days building my little settlement, an underwater tunnel, and a big lighthouse, I spawned a ton of TNT and blew it all to kingdom come.

All my screenshots have disappeared. I don't know where to or why. Have a Pony instead.

And it got me to thinking. I love management and builder games. I’ve put more hours into Sim City than you can imagine. When I was a kid I played so much Theme Park that I saw sprites from the game every time I closed my eyes. When I play an RTS, I am the turtler par excellence, I consolidate, husband, prepare carefully, build an impressive defense, and only then do I launch attacks (Which isn’t really the best way to fight a war but what are you going to do).

Yet at the same time I am delighted by destroying it all. I giggled gleefully as I watched my Minecraft stuff get destroyed; I click the natural disasters like a monomaniacal Bond villain in SimCity; I have been known to use superweapons on my OWN BASES if I’m not impressed by the size of the enemy’s and don’t feel nuking them would cause enough destruction. I don’t really understand where this comes from, but I have a suspicion it’s a major reason I love strategy games so much, as they tend to encompass both building and destroying. I am deeply satisfied by a construction job well done, a base laid out just so, a city which looks both believable and functional. And I’m equally satisfied by watching it all get blown to pieces. Even better, watching it get put back together afterwards! I love how countries can collapse and rebuild over decades in games like Europa Universalis III.

It does lead me to believe that the best game I could ever play would let you build a city like SimCity, then go down to street level like GTA and level the place with Red Faction: Guerrilla’s GeoMod 2.0 whilst calling in superweapons from the C&C series.

The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical)

“Comfort Games”

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Ever had a “comfort food”? Something that you know will cheer you up when you’re feeling down? I have one. Ice cream. I LOVE ice cream. Actually, it really doesn’t matter what mood I’m in, I’ll eat it. So I suppose that sort of defeats the purpose of my intro. But!

I was thinking the other day and realized that I have such a thing as “comfort games”, which I tend to play more at certain points of my life than others. Let me give you a good example of what I mean:

Harvest Moon.

AKA the world's most addicting waifu simulator!

I love the Harvest Moon games and I’ve played them a lot through my life, but I can guarantee that I’ve played them most when I’m sick and stuck in bed. There’s something just relaxing enough about it, but still just addictive enough, that it can distract me from all but the worst sicknesses and keep me well occupied and entertained, without having to do too much heavy thinking.

Here’s another game that I frequently turn to when I’m sick:

SimCity DS.

Except I always pick the robot advisor. ALWAYS.

Like Harvest Moon, SimCity DS manages to offer juuuusst enough complexity to keep myself distracted from the disturbingly large pile of tissues beside my bed without stressing me out due to having to worry about a limited number of lives or an excruciatingly high difficulty level. As such, it falls nicely into the category of being one of my comfort games.

So those are the games I lean toward when I’m sick. What about when I’m feeling particularly scared or uneasy about something? Well, for a long time, that was when the RPGs and adventure games come out. The classics, usually. There’s something about stepping into the shoes of a stereotypically heroic character that can chase away fears. I’ve told stories before of the way Ocarina of Time and Final Fantasies IV and VI all did wonders for me when I was having a tough time. It’s completely true, and I’m not afraid to admit it.

Lately if I’m not feeling too optimistic about things, I’ll multiplayer something with a friend. Nothing like going on some sort of genocidal rampage in game to cheer you up, right? (Come on, admit it. You’ve done the same thing.)

Oh, and long car rides where I’m not driving?

There is one thing and one thing alone for those:

You know it.

So what about you guys? I can’t be the only one out there with “comfort games” that I always go back to!