Sweeet well done, especially with the audio. I like this patch method much more than the HD Patch I've been using the last few years.
We played SimCity in my shop class at school on olds macs and i like picking it back up every now and then. It still holds up better than most new games.
I was surprised to see SC3k described as isometric like 2k. I recall versions after 2k being "look anywhere" 3D, but I guess I missed some versions. So many games, like Railroad Tycoon post RRT2 and Worms went full 3D and gameplay was never the same.
I actually keep a Basilisk II System 7.5 Mac environment just so that I can play SC2k from time to time ...
> I was surprised to see SC3k described as isometric like 2k. I recall versions after 2k being "look anywhere" 3D
You recall wrong.
The only 3D SimCity game was the one released in 2013 that was simply titled "SimCity" but is frequently called "SimCity 2013" to differentiate it from the original classic.
In 3k you could rotate the camera to 3 (or 4?) different angles, but each was fixed isometric rendered. Meaning they did all assets in the game at multiple angles.
Obnoxious author. Refusing to 'pay twice' for a game they care enough about to go through all this trouble + deeply obnoxious bit about Windows 11 at the end of of the post.
This was one of my favourite games. City simulators took up an enormous amount of my childhood and I still dream about arcologies. When I see a modern development like Brentwood in Canada's BC or some older ones like along the river in Chicago it reminds me of the wonders we can build.
As an aside since it's in the article, what are other cultures' irreverent targets? e.g. Anglo-cultures seem to casually joke about disasters like he does here about 9/11. Somewhat diminished by the fact that he's British, not American, but Americans do it too, and the American-British interaction involves this and Irish Car Bombs taken rather lightly. I find that curious. Do the Quebecois joke about Opération Satanique and the French have likewise a thing they make fun of the Quebecois for? Or is this an Anglo-culture thing? Obviously, I principally read in English so this might be specific to my language.
Sim City 3k is my least played Sim City game, but this is inspiring me to take another look. I really like the sweaty micromanagement and bigger scope of 4, but maybe I will prefer 3k's simplicity in my old age.
The picture caption with a 9/11 joke is a little off-putting, but it's at least proof that this isn't AI generated content...
i first played 2000 when it was bundled with my family's windows 95 pc, and was sad to learn that gog/steam sell the inferior dos variant. but, yes, 2000 was just right.
I was replaying SC2K(dos) recently and it is much harder than I expected. Usually these city games are fairly easy chill affairs. On a 1900 hard(max bond) start the only way I found to succeed(marked when I payed off all bonds) was to pause(to avoid early bond repayment losses), use all your money to setup the perfect layout for the next 40 years. Then wait in debt(can't build anything) for 40 years while hopefully your city profit grows past the bond interest amount and you are able to slowly claw yourself out of the red. Then immediately start saving for the replacement power plant as your original one will explode soon. I was not making a comfortable profit until about 1960. And this was after many failed cities, can't fix anything when you can't build anything.
I think Chelsea tractors belong in Chelsea, certainly not here in the country where they are completely unsuitable given the size
However he lost me at
> I was cruising in the fast lane, minding my own business
There is no fast lane in the U.K (including NI). There are overtaking lanes. If you are in this lane it’s because you are overtaking slower moving traffic in inside lanes.
If you aren’t, then you need to be losing your license
There's a small caveat to this, technically in the UK the police are allowed to speed if they are heading to an emergency, they don't need livery on their cars or even sirens
So if you're in the outer lane and the person behind you wants to go faster than you and get past, get out of their way.
It's safer anyway, and also you don't know who they are or where they're going.
Would it be possible to automate porting the windows version into a mac or web version? Like giving a long-running agent the task and some tools to check/play the game on both platforms?
I love this game so much. One of the reasons I started to make a city builder* is because I don't like where the genre is going.
The focus on photorealism in modern city builders took away the apophenia, or "food for imagination" that was a core element since the first SimCity. As a matter of fact, Will Wright used to say that the real simulation runs in the player's minds (or something like that).
Sure, there's something great about Cities Skylines that (at least with very powerful hardware) can look and feel like reality. But at the same time the game engine, in order to make this photorealism of terrain elevations with infinite possible shapes of infrastructure, is so complex that the actual simulation is sloppy, and feels to me like a big downgrade from SC3000.
Traffic, economics, zoning, crime, pollution. are so much practical to simulate (both in the computer, and in our mind models) in this classic isometric style.
I think the simulation in Cities Skylines is also quite advanced, or not? The simulation is much more the reason why it requires powerful hardware to run on, much less the graphics.
whoa that game looks very cool— love it. also loved SC3k… the soundtrack was amazing. game was kinda lowkey hard, though. or maybe it was because i was just a kid haha.
How big can cities get, though? One of the things I love about Cities Skylines is how massive the land plots are, and the tiny plots of SimCity 2013 was a bigger turnoff than anything else in its disastrous launch.
On Steam Deck, I am having a rough time with the road that the paperclip wants me to place. Holding down the physical A button (of the ABXY group) and wiggling around the left joystick (as well as every other control I can think of), both pressed and not pressed. Sometimes I'll see the green highlight appear, and I can stretch it out into a road path, but when I release A, it just vanishes.
Awesome! I am going to try this when I have some time next week. Fantasizing about how to make a better SimCity 25 years ago is what inspired me to pursue a computer science degree. I got sidetracked by a PhD and never returned to making games. Maybe your version is the one I always wanted!
> The focus on photorealism in modern city builders took away the apophenia
That would be a real challenge to achieve simply because most of us are constantly surrounded by cities, but it is something that we should strive for.
For instance, game designer Fumito Ueda (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Last Guardian) said that I never wants to visit any old castles or ruins for fear that it would ruin his imagination on how game worlds should be built. It is a fair point, none of his games have had any focus on reality in terms of scale and that is what makes them so special.
Also looking at your game... can I get a copy of Microslop Excellence? ;)
I've commented this many times, but I definitely want to see more isometric grid games like SC3k, RC2 or TTD.
They were less-realistic, yes, but is so pleasant how everything ties together and you can neatly fill out the whole map.
Meanwhile, while I like Cities Skylines or Planet Zoo, it is always incredibly awkward to build roads and paths to the point where I find it frustrating.
This looks great, I just bought a copy. While it's downloading I'm perusing the listing, and I'm curious if this supports generating a large image/print of your finished city, like you could in SCURK (SimCity Urban Renewal Kit, which shipped with SC2K).
One thing I particularly loved was printing out very large maps of my city to go on the wall :)
Edit: I like the music a lot, and the little tutorial guy is endearing. One question, how do I move the viewport around? I tried scroll click drag, mouse button drag, arrow keys.
Although I don't have the same focus, I also came to the same conclusion: the actual game and gameplay itself got worse over the years. Same with civilization and many other games. Modern game designers don't understand this or don't care. But I spoke to some of them, and while I initially thought they understand but don't care, most of them really do not UNDERSTAND the problem domain. In particular younger ones; many of them have not played old games.
Looks great. For accuracy, when you build something, occasionally construction should stop half way through. You're then told that costs have doubled, and you'll need to pay again to complete the construction.
Looks pretty cool. Reminds me also of Metropolis 1998, which is also going for the isometric style - with a lot more detail, i.e. you can design individual homes and see the lives of "sims" too, something like if SimCity and The Sims were merged.
SC3K’s art was not “crafted pixel by pixel.” It was rendered from 3DS Max. Maxis released a version of G-Max called the Building Architect Tool that included a template with the same lighting rig that they used for the in-game assets. This tool rendered and exported the various zoom levels and orientations.
> Some of the music from the original release is missing from an .ini file, even though it is present in Unlimited.
Article neglects to mention that the tracks which are included in Unlimited are lower-bitrate and monophonic compared to the same songs in stereo from the 1.0 release. Copy the same-name files from the original CD instead :)
88 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 85.5 ms ] threadWe played SimCity in my shop class at school on olds macs and i like picking it back up every now and then. It still holds up better than most new games.
I actually keep a Basilisk II System 7.5 Mac environment just so that I can play SC2k from time to time ...
You recall wrong.
The only 3D SimCity game was the one released in 2013 that was simply titled "SimCity" but is frequently called "SimCity 2013" to differentiate it from the original classic.
2K, 3K, and SimCity 4 were all 2D games.
Unfortunately for SC4, they proceeded to make all the advisors 3D-rendered Sims. For SC2K, well:
https://www.somethingawful.com/news/simcity-advisors/4/
(that was the least offensive page to link; for the canonical experience start at page 1)
As an aside since it's in the article, what are other cultures' irreverent targets? e.g. Anglo-cultures seem to casually joke about disasters like he does here about 9/11. Somewhat diminished by the fact that he's British, not American, but Americans do it too, and the American-British interaction involves this and Irish Car Bombs taken rather lightly. I find that curious. Do the Quebecois joke about Opération Satanique and the French have likewise a thing they make fun of the Quebecois for? Or is this an Anglo-culture thing? Obviously, I principally read in English so this might be specific to my language.
But still can't make a fountain that doesn't destroy the grout on the tiles next to it :P
The picture caption with a 9/11 joke is a little off-putting, but it's at least proof that this isn't AI generated content...
I disagree! SimCity 2K FTW. :)
Best balance of complexity IMO and ran pretty well on my old Mac. I'd love a retro-futuristic reboot.
With respect to SC3K being great still, I would run it but I haven't been able to get some performance issues ironed out.
Worst might be SC2K for N64.
Neat concept would a game to import cities into a GTA-like engine.
However he lost me at
> I was cruising in the fast lane, minding my own business
There is no fast lane in the U.K (including NI). There are overtaking lanes. If you are in this lane it’s because you are overtaking slower moving traffic in inside lanes.
If you aren’t, then you need to be losing your license
So if you're in the outer lane and the person behind you wants to go faster than you and get past, get out of their way.
It's safer anyway, and also you don't know who they are or where they're going.
Would it be possible to automate porting the windows version into a mac or web version? Like giving a long-running agent the task and some tools to check/play the game on both platforms?
The focus on photorealism in modern city builders took away the apophenia, or "food for imagination" that was a core element since the first SimCity. As a matter of fact, Will Wright used to say that the real simulation runs in the player's minds (or something like that).
Sure, there's something great about Cities Skylines that (at least with very powerful hardware) can look and feel like reality. But at the same time the game engine, in order to make this photorealism of terrain elevations with infinite possible shapes of infrastructure, is so complex that the actual simulation is sloppy, and feels to me like a big downgrade from SC3000.
Traffic, economics, zoning, crime, pollution. are so much practical to simulate (both in the computer, and in our mind models) in this classic isometric style.
* https://microlandia.city
edit: spelling
Got an opinion on Timberborn? I think it's a great city builder, plus a fluid dynamics simulator where if you guess wrong everyone dies.
thanks for sharing that. i'm a big city builder fan, but this one slipped by me. looks cool, and i'll be picking it up!
How big can cities get, though? One of the things I love about Cities Skylines is how massive the land plots are, and the tiny plots of SimCity 2013 was a bigger turnoff than anything else in its disastrous launch.
That would be a real challenge to achieve simply because most of us are constantly surrounded by cities, but it is something that we should strive for.
For instance, game designer Fumito Ueda (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, Last Guardian) said that I never wants to visit any old castles or ruins for fear that it would ruin his imagination on how game worlds should be built. It is a fair point, none of his games have had any focus on reality in terms of scale and that is what makes them so special.
Also looking at your game... can I get a copy of Microslop Excellence? ;)
They were less-realistic, yes, but is so pleasant how everything ties together and you can neatly fill out the whole map.
Meanwhile, while I like Cities Skylines or Planet Zoo, it is always incredibly awkward to build roads and paths to the point where I find it frustrating.
I think Cities Skylines scratched that itch for a lot of people.
One thing I particularly loved was printing out very large maps of my city to go on the wall :)
Edit: I like the music a lot, and the little tutorial guy is endearing. One question, how do I move the viewport around? I tried scroll click drag, mouse button drag, arrow keys.
https://yesboxstudios.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZHI2bCCpl0
It has a demo on Steam now: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2287430/Metropolis_1998/ It's quite playable already, and it's a very small 100Mb download.
A SimCity 3000 tile edge was equivalent to 64m, whereas in SimCity 4 it was 16m. The scale of the city in SimCity 3000 was bigger as a result.
Hoping to test this principle of largest possible map sizes out soon.
I was so happy to score the physical “Music From SimCity 3000” soundtrack CD at the Alemany Flea Market fifteen or so years ago: https://www.discogs.com/release/794952-Jerry-Martin-Music-Fr...
> Some of the music from the original release is missing from an .ini file, even though it is present in Unlimited.
Article neglects to mention that the tracks which are included in Unlimited are lower-bitrate and monophonic compared to the same songs in stereo from the 1.0 release. Copy the same-name files from the original CD instead :)
Unlimited is sad because data-mining shows that it was almost multiplayer à la SC2k Network Edition: https://tcrf.net/SimCity_3000_Unlimited/Unused_Multiplayer_T...