Stone Librande: From working on SimCity games in the past, we already have a library here with a lot of city planning books. Nicola Twilley: I thought I'd start by asking what sorts of sources you used to get ideas for SimCity, whether it be reading books, interviewing urban experts, or visiting different cities? We spoke to him both in person and by telephone, and our conversation appears below. We emerged three hours later, blinking and dazed, into the gleaming white and purple lights of Times Square, and were immediately struck by the abstractions required to translate such a complex, dynamic environment into a coherent game structure, and the assumptions and values embedded in that translation.įortunately, the game's lead designer, Stone Librande, was happy to talk with us further about his research and decision-making process, as well as some of the ways in which real-world players have already surprised him. In March 2013, the first new iteration of SimCity in a decade was launched, amid a flurry of critical praise mingled with fan disappointment at Electronic Arts' "always-online" digital rights management policy and repeated server failures.Ī few weeks before the launch, Venue had the opportunity to play the new SimCity at its Manhattan premiere, during which time we feverishly laid out curving roads and parks, drilled for oil while installing a token wind turbine, and tried to ignore our city's residents' - known as Sims - complaints as their homes burned before we could afford to build a fire station. Indeed, if we are to believe the hype, the city has become our species' greatest triumph.Ī shot from photographer Michael Wolf's extraordinary Architecture of Density series, newly available in hardcover. Once a byword for boring, city planning is now a hot topic, claimed by technology companies, economists, so-called " Supermayors," and cultural institutions alike as the key to humanity's future. In the nearly quarter-century since designer Will Wright launched the iconic urban planning computer game, SimCity, not only has the world's population become majoritatively urban for the first time in human history, but interest in cities and their design has gone mainstream.
Screenshot of our own SimCity (called, for reasons that made sense at the time, We Are The Champignons) after three hours of game play.
0 kommentar(er)
