SimCity (1989 video game)


SimCity, also known as Micropolis or SimCity Classic, is a city-building simulation video game developed by Will Wright and released for a number of platforms from 1989 to 1991. SimCity features two-dimensional graphics and an overhead perspective. The objective of the game is to create a city, develop residential and industrial areas, build infrastructure and collect taxes for further development of the city. Importance is put on increasing the standard of living of the population, maintaining a balance between the different sectors, and monitoring the region's environmental situation to prevent the settlement from declining and going bankrupt.
SimCity was independently developed by Will Wright beginning in 1985, and would not see its first release until 1989. Because the game lacked any of the arcade or action elements that dominated the video game market in the 1980s, video game publishers declined to release the title in fear of its commercial failure, until Brøderbund eventually agreed to distribute it. Although the game initially sold poorly, positive feedback from the gaming press boosted its sales. After becoming a best-seller, SimCity was released on several other platforms, most notably on the SNES in 1991, in which its gameplay was significantly improved with Nintendo's involvement.
SimCity was commercially successful, selling 300,000 units for personal computers and nearly 2 million units for the SNES. The game was recognized as a new phenomenon within the gaming industry, and it broke the widespread belief that computer games were primarily intended for children. SimCity was met with critical appraisal for its innovative and addictive gameplay in spite of the absence of platformer or shooter elements. Reviewers considered the game to be instructive and helpful toward the player's understanding of the basics of urban planning, politics and economics. SimCity received numerous awards from various news publishers and associations. The success of SimCity marked the beginning of the urban simulation genre of video games, as well as publisher Maxis's tradition of producing non-linear simulation games, one of which – The Sims – would surpass all its predecessors in popularity and become one of the best-selling franchises in the video game industry. It is considered one of the greatest video games of all time.

Gameplay

The objective of SimCity is to build and design a city, without specific goals to achieve. 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, to enhance the city. Once able to construct buildings in a particular area, the too-small-to-see residents, known as "Sims", may choose to construct and upgrade houses, apartment blocks, light or heavy industrial buildings, commercial buildings, hospitals, churches, and other structures. The Sims make these choices based on such factors as traffic levels, adequate electrical power, crime levels, and proximity to other types of buildings—for example, residential areas next to a power plant will seldom appreciate to the highest grade of housing. In the Super NES version and later, the player can also build rewards when they are given to them, such as a mayor's mansion or a casino.
The player may face disasters including flooding, tornadoes, fires, earthquakes and attacks by monsters. In addition, monsters and tornadoes can trigger train crashes by running into passing trains.

Scenarios

SimCity includes goal-centered, timed scenarios that could be won or lost depending on the performance of the player. The scenarios were an addition suggested by Brøderbund to make SimCity more like a game. The original cities were based on real world cities and attempted to re-create their general layout. 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.

Development

SimCity was developed by game designer Will Wright. While working on the game Raid on Bungeling Bay, in which the player flies a helicopter dropping bombs on islands, Wright found he enjoyed designing the islands in the level editor more than playing the actual game. This led him to develop increasingly sophisticated level editors. At the same time, Wright was cultivating a love of the intricacies and theories of urban planning and acknowledges the influence of System Dynamics which was developed by Jay Wright Forrester and whose book on the subject laid the foundations for what would become SimCity. In addition, Wright also was inspired by reading "The Seventh Sally", a short story from The Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem, in which an engineer encounters a deposed tyrant, and creates a miniature city with artificial citizens for the tyrant to oppress. The game reflected Wright's approval of mass transit and disapproval of nuclear power; Maxis president Jeff Braun stated "We're pushing political agendas".
The first version of the game was developed for the Commodore 64 in 1985; it was not published for another four years. The original working title of SimCity was Micropolis. The game was unusual 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, Braun, founder of the tiny software company 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. After Brøderbund executives Gary Carlston and Don Daglow saw SimCity, they 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.

Ports and versions

After the original release on the Amiga and Macintosh, then the Commodore 64 and IBM PC, it was ported to several other computer platforms and video game consoles, specifically the Atari ST, Acorn Archimedes, Amstrad CPC, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, BBC Micro, Acorn Electron, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, EPOC32, mobile phone, Internet, Windows, FM-Towns, OLPC XO-1 and NeWS HyperLook on Sun Unix. The game is available as a multiplayer version for X11 Tcl/Tk on various Unix, Linux, DESQview and OS/2 operating systems. Certain versions have been re-released with various add-ons, including extra scenarios. An additional extra add on for the Windows version of SimCity Classic was a level editor. This editor could be opened without use of the disc. The level editor is a simple tool that allows the user to create grasslands, dirt land, and water portions. SimCity Classic was re-released in 1993 as part of the SimClassics Volume 1 compilation alongside SimAnt and SimLife for PC, Mac and Amiga.
A version was developed in 1991 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, but never released; a prototype version was found in 2017. On December 25, 2018, a ROM image of the unreleased NES version was released online by Frank Cifaldi of the Video Game History Foundation.
The IBM version of SimCity is notable for the unusually large amount of graphics modes it supports; the game runs in CGA 640x200 mode, EGA 640x200 mode, Tandy 640x200 mode, Hercules, EGA 640x350 mode and VGA 640x480 monochrome. A later release dropped all of the 200-line modes and added 640x480 color mode. Unlike most commercial PC games at the time, 320x200 resolutions were not used because they were inadequate for the amount of graphics detail the game needed. A port of SimCity was released for Windows 3.0 in 1992. It runs in the Windows GDI and does not support 256-color graphics or sound.

Super NES

SimCity for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System features the same gameplay and scenario features; however, since it was developed and published by Nintendo, the company incorporated their own ideas. Instead of the Godzilla monster disaster, Bowser of the Super Mario series becomes the attacking monster, and once the city reaches a landmark 500,000 populace, the player receives a Mario statue that is placeable in the city. The Super NES port also features special buildings the player may receive as rewards, such as casinos, large parks, amusement parks, and expo centers; some of which would be incorporated into SimCity 2000. A bank can be built which will allow a loan of $10,000 to be taken, but it must be paid back before another loan can be taken out. The game includes schools and hospitals, though they cannot be placed by the player; instead, the game will sometimes turn an empty residential lot into one. There are city classifications, such as becoming a metropolis at 100,000 people. It has some of the same pre-set scenarios in the PC and Mac versions and two new ones. One is in Las Vegas under attack by aliens and another called Freeland. Freeland has no water and no rewards buildings are given. Also unique to the Super NES version is a character named "Dr. Wright" who acts as an adviser to the player. The soundtrack was composed by Soyo Oka. The edition is featured as Nintendo's Player's Choice as a million seller.
In August 1996, a version of the game entitled BS Sim City Machizukuri Taikai was broadcast to Japanese players via the Super Famicom's Satellaview subsystem. Later, a sequel titled SimCity 64 was released for Nintendo 64DD, the Japan-only Nintendo 64 add-on.

Cancelled NES version

A version for the Nintendo Entertainment System was announced alongside the SNES version, and had been showcased at the 1991 Consumer Electronics Show, but the NES version was never properly released. However, prototype cartridges for the NES version were discovered in 2017, and one copy was obtained by video game preservationist Frank Cifaldi, who extensively documented its features compared to the original personal computer game and the SNES version. It featured a completely different soundtrack than the SNES version; besides Metropolis Theme, a composition that Oka herself considers one of her best works.

''Micropolis''

In January 2008, the SimCity source code was released under the free software GPL 3 license, renamed to Micropolis for trademark reasons, and developed by Don Hopkins. The release of the source code was motivated by the One Laptop Per Child program. The Micropolis source code has been translated to C++, integrated with Python and interfaced with both GTK+ and OpenLaszlo.
In 2008, Maxis established an online browser-based version of SimCity. A second browser-based version was later released under the name Micropolis. In 2013, a browser-based version was released, ported using JavaScript and HTML5, as micropolisJS.

Since Micropolis is licensed under the GPL, users can do anything they want with it that conforms with the GPLthe only restriction is that they cannot call it "SimCity". This allows other, differently named projects to be forked from the Micropolis source code. Improvements to the open source code base that merits EA's approval may be incorporated into the official "OLPC SimCity" source code, to be distributed with the OLPC under the trademarked name OLPC SimCity, but only after it has been reviewed and approved by EA.

Comparison of different versions

SimCity was a financial success, selling one million copies by late 1992. In the United States, it was the ninth best-selling computer game from 1993 to 1999, with another 830,000 units sold. It was critically acclaimed and received significant recognition within a year after its initial release. As of December 1990, the game was reported to have won the following awards:

  • Best Entertainment Program 1989.
  • Best Educational Program, 1989.
  • Best Simulation Program, 1989.
  • Critics' Choice: Best Consumer Program, 1989, Software Publisher's Association.
  • Most Innovative Publisher, 1989, Computer Game Developer's Conference.
  • Best PC Game, 1989.
  • Member of the 1989 Game Hall of Fame, Macworld.
  • Game of the Year, 1989., Computer Gaming World.
  • Second Best Simulation of all Time for C-64.
  • Fourth Best Simulation of All Time for Amiga, .info.
  • Editors' Choice Award: Best Simulation, 1989, Compute.
  • Editors' Choice Award: Best Recreation Program, 1989, MacUser.
  • Best Computer Strategy Game, 1989, Video Games & Computer Entertainment.
  • Best Game Designer of the Year: Will Wright, for SimCity, 1989, Computer Entertainer.
  • Best 20th Century Computer Game, 1989, Charles S. Roberts Award.
  • Software Award of Excellence, 1990–1991, Technology and Learning.
  • Best Educational Program, 1990, European Computer Leisure Award.
  • Tilt D'Or : Most Original Game, 1989, Tilt.
  • Game of the Year, 1989, Amiga Annual.
  • World Class Award, 1990, Macworld.
  • 4th best game of all time, Amiga Power.
  • Best Curricular Program, Codie award.
  • Best Consumer Program, Critic's Choice Award.
    • In addition, SimCity won the Origins Award for "Best Military or Strategy Computer Game" of 1989 in 1990, was named to Computer Gaming Worlds Hall of Fame for games readers highly rated over time, and the multiplayer X11 version of the game was also nominated in 1992 as the Best Product of the Year in Unix World. Macworld named the Macintosh version of SimCity the Best Simulation Game of 1989, putting it into the Macintosh Game Hall of Fame. Macworld, in their review, praised its graphics as well as its strategic gameplay, calling it "A challenging, dynamic game, realistic and unpredictable", and notes how "as the population grows the city's needs change." SimCity was named No. 4 "Ten Greatest PC Game Ever" by PC World in 2009. It was named one of the sixteen most influential games in history at Telespiele, a German technology and games trade show, in 2007. Sid Meier in 2008 named SimCity as one of the three most important innovations in videogame history, as it led to other games that encouraged players to create, not destroy. It was named No. 11 on IGN's 2009 "Top 25 PC Games of All Time" list. In 1996, Computer Gaming World declared SimCity the 6th-best computer game ever released.
    Entertainment Weekly gave the game an B+.
    In 1991,     PC Format named SimCity one of the 50 best computer games ever. The editors called it "a town planner's dream".
    The University of Southern California and University of Arizona used     SimCity in urban planning and political science classes. Chuck Moss of The Detroit News found that Godzilla attacking the city in the 1972 Detroit scenario caused less destruction than the mayoralty of Coleman Young. In 1990 The Providence Journal invited five candidates for Mayor of Providence, Rhode Island to manage a SimCity town resembling the city. Victoria Lederberg blamed her close loss in the Democratic primary to the newspaper's description of her poor performance in the game; former mayor Buddy Cianci, the most successful player, won election that year.
    The     SimCity Terrain Editor was reviewed in 1989 in Dragon No. 147 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the expansion 4 out of 5 stars.
    The ZX Spectrum version was voted number 4 in the     Your Sinclair Readers' Top 100 Games of All Time.
    On March 12, 2007,     The New York Times reported that SimCity was named to a list of the ten most important video games of all time, the so-called game canon. The Library of Congress took up a video game preservation proposal and began with the games from this list, including SimCity''.

    Legacy

    SimCity yielded several sequels. "Sim" games of many types were developedwith Will Wright and Maxis developing myriad titles including SimEarth, SimFarm, SimTown, Streets of SimCity, SimCopter, SimAnt, SimLife, ', SimTower, SimPark, SimSafari, and The Sims, which spawned its own series, as well as the unreleased SimsVille and SimMars. They also obtained licenses for some titles developed in Japan, such as SimTower and Let's Take The A-Train. Spore, released in 2008, was originally going to be titled "SimEverything"a name that Will Wright thought might accurately describe what he was trying to achieve.
    SimCity inspired a new genre of video games. "Software toys" that were open-ended with no set objective were developed trying to duplicate SimCity's success. The most successful was most definitely Wright's own The Sims, which went on to be the best selling computer game of all time. The ideas pioneered in SimCity have been incorporated into real-world applications as well, as urban developers have recognized that the game's design was "gamification" of city planning by integrating numerous real-world systems for a city or region interacted to project growth or change. For example, VisitorVille simulates a city based on website statistics. Several real-world city improvement projects started with models inspired by SimCity prior to implementation, particularly with the onset of more-connected smart cities.
    The series also spawned a     ' collectible card game, produced by Mayfair Games. Rick Swan reviewed Sim City: The Card Game for Dragon magazine No. 221. Swan says that "While the card game doesn't scale the heights of the computer game, it comes close."
    Dr. Wright from the Super NES version has made appearances in several video games. He is a non-player character in , and an assist trophy in the Super Smash Bros. series.