SimCity spawned a series of Sim games. Since the release of SimCity, similar simulation games have been released focusing on different aspects of reality such as business simulation in Capitalism.
On January 10, 2008 the SimCity source code was released under the free software GPL 3 license under the name Micropolis.
History
SimCity was originally developed by game designer Will Wright. The inspiration for SimCity came from a feature of the game Raid on Bungeling Bay that allowed Wright to create his own maps during development. Wright soon found he enjoyed creating maps more than playing the actual game, and SimCity was born.
In addition, Wright also was inspired by reading "The Seventh Sally", a short story by Stanislaw Lem, in which an engineer encounters a deposed tyrant, and creates a miniature city with artificial citizens for the tyrant to oppress.
The first version of the game was developed for the Commodore 64 in 1985, but it would not be published for another four years. The original working title of SimCity was Micropolis. The game represented an unusual paradigm in computer gaming, in that it could neither be won nor lost; as a result, game publishers did not believe it was possible to market and sell such a game successfully. Brøderbund declined to publish the title when Wright proposed it, and he pitched it to a range of major game publishers without success. Finally, founder Jeff Braun of then-tiny Maxis agreed to publish SimCity as one of two initial games for the company.
Wright and Braun returned to Brøderbund to formally clear the rights to the game in 1988, when SimCity was near completion. Brøderbund executives Gary Carlston and Don Daglow saw that the title was infectious and fun, and signed Maxis to a distribution deal for both of its initial games. With that, four years after initial development, SimCity was released for the Amiga and Macintosh platforms, followed by the IBM PC and Commodore 64 later in 1989.
On January 10, 2008 the SimCity source code was released under the free software GPL 3 license. The release of the source code was related to the donation of SimCity software to the One Laptop Per Child program, as one of the principles of the OLPC laptop is the use of free and open source software. The open source version is called Micropolis (the initial name for SimCity) since EA retains the trademark Simcity. The version shipped on OLPC laptops will still be called SimCity, but will have to be tested by EA quality assurance before each release to be able to use that name. The Micropolis source code has been translated to C++, integrated with Python and interfaced with both GTK+ and OpenLaszlo.
Objective
The objective of SimCity, as the name of the game suggests, is to build and design a city, without specific goals to achieve (except in the scenarios, see below). The player can mark land as being zoned as commercial, industrial, or residential, add buildings, change the tax rate, build a power grid, build transportation systems and take many other actions, in order to enhance the city.
Also, the player may face disasters including flooding, tornadoes, fires (often from air disasters or even shipwrecks), earthquakes and attacks by monsters. In addition, monsters and tornadoes can trigger train crashes by running into passing trains. Later disasters in the game's sequels included lightning strikes, volcanoes, meteors and attack by extraterrestrial craft.
In the SNES version and later, one can also build rewards when they are given to them, such as a mayor's mansion, casino, etc.
Scenarios
The original SimCity kicked off a tradition of goal-centered, timed scenarios that could be won or lost depending on the performance of the player/mayor. The scenarios were an addition suggested by Brøderbund in order to make SimCity more like a game.[7] The original cities were all based on real world cities and attempted to re-create their general layout, a tradition carried on in SimCity 2000 and in special scenario packs. While most scenarios either take place in a fictional timeline or have a city under siege by a fictional disaster, a handful of available scenarios are based on actual historical events.
The original scenarios are:
Bern, 1965 – The Swiss capital is clogged with traffic; the mayor needs to reduce traffic and improve the city by installing a mass transit system.
Boston, 2010 – The city's nuclear power plant suffers a meltdown, incinerating a portion of the city. The mayor must rebuild, contain the toxic areas, and return the city to prosperity. In some early editions of SimCity (on lower-power computers that did not include the nuclear power plants), this scenario was altered to have a tornado strike the city. Much like the Tokyo scenario below, the mayor needs to limit damage and rebuild.
Detroit, 1972 – Crime and depressed industry wreck the city. The mayor needs to reduce crime and reorganize the city to better develop. The scenario is a reference to Detroit's declining state during the late 20th century (See also History of Detroit) and the 1970's economic recession.
Rio de Janeiro, 2047 – Coastal flooding resulted from global warming rages through the city. The mayor must control the problem and rebuild. In some early editions of SimCity (on lower-power computers that did not include the flooding disaster), this scenario was altered to have the objective be fighting very high crime rates.
San Francisco, 1906 – An earthquake hits the city, the mayor must control the subsequent damage, fires and rebuild. The scenario references the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
Tokyo, 1961 – The city is attacked by a Godzilla-type monster (Bowser in the SNES version). The mayor needs to limit the damage and rebuild. The scenario is strongly based on the original series of Godzilla films.
The PC version (IBM, Tandy compatible; on floppy disk) , CD re-release, as well as the Amiga and Atari ST versions included two additional scenarios:
Hamburg, Germany, 1944 – Bombing, where the mayor has to govern the city during the closing years of World War II and rebuild it later. This scenario references the bombing of Hamburg in World War II.
Dullsville, USA, 1910 – Boredom plagues a stagnating city in the middle of the United States; the mayor is tasked to turn Dullsville into a metropolis within 30 years.
In addition, the later edition of SimCity on the Super NES included the basics of these two scenarios in two, more difficult scenarios that were made available after a player had completed the original scenarios:
Las Vegas, 2096 – Aliens attack the city. This invasion is spread out over several years, stretching city resources. While somewhat similar to Hamburg, the scenario included casino features as well as animated flying saucers.
Freeland, 1991 – Using a blank map without any water form, the mayor must build a game-described megalopolis of at least 500,000 people. There is no time limit in this scenario. While similar to the earlier Dullsville scenario, Freeland took advantage of the SNES version's clear delineations between city sizes, particularly metropolis and megalopolis. In the center of Freeland is a series of trees that form the familiar head of Mario. However, as with all scenarios, the player is unable to build any of the reward buildings from the normal game.
While the scenarios were meant to be solved strategically, many players discovered by dropping the tax rate to zero near the end of the allotted timespan, one could heavily influence public opinion and population growth. In scenarios such as San Francisco, where rebuilding and, by extension, maintaining population growth play a large part of the objective, this kind of manipulation can mean a relatively easy victory. Later titles in the series would take steps to prevent players from using the budget to influence the outcome of scenarios.
Also, several of the original scenarios, such as the Bern scenario, could be won simply by destroying the city, as they checked only one factor, in this case traffic. In the SNES version of the Boston Nuclear Meltdown Scenario, there was a bug, such that when you are pressing any button, nothing can happen in the game, effectively pausing the game but allowing you to build or take any other actions. In this manner, you can bulldoze all the nuclear power plants before any of them can explode, averting disaster. However, the cost of rebuilding the power infrastructure afterwards made winning the scenario even more difficult than normal if you used this tactic.
