181–190 of 217 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
May I bother you to expand on why GOG over itch.io? I also prefer to use GOG whenever I can, but I really don’t know enough about itch.io to judge it. I’m hoping you can help bridge that knowledge gap.
I’m not them, but games from GOG don’t (AFAIK) have any DRM. So you can play them forever without having to log on to Steam etc.
But they ignored him, and went off on a tangent trying to design their own ultimate totally general purpose virtual reality (and we know how well Second Life has done ;), without much thought to what was actually possible, playable, or fun on current computers.
They gave some demos of the 3D prototype to reporters, then Maxis ran out of money because it was nowhere near shipping, then EA bought us, then fired the people who were out of control, and Luc Barthelet announced to the reporters that SimCity 3000 wouldn't be 3D, but it would be 2D and beautiful.
Here is a little nugget I saved from that time: Guru's infamous SimCity 3000 design document, from when the 3D design was really going off the rails:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rnvzKdJp9tyEJwEGxsIjoHnT...
Ocean Quigley says that Guru was really sincere and believed what he said (and was not just on mushrooms).
I have to admit, that if that's true, then that Guru dude was 15 years ahead of his time, and not just a crackpot! But he should have mentioned something about the fact that it would take 15 years to develop those ideas into a shipping product!
- Peak hubris / scope explosion:
“It is possible to bridge the chasm of expectations and technology in the forthcoming year in a realistic and economical manner.”
“The Real Time Render mode shall define a visual paradigm hitherto unseen in any game or product.”
“Hence attempting to assault the cliff of expectations of the visual paradigm by means of the linear ladder fails.”
“There is a whole think tank of concepts and ideas which shall be explored and implemented…”
- Hardware reality fighting back:
“Needless to even state this is impossible performance for a delivery Pentium 75 within one year.”
“Terrifying thought. Cut the flexibility we say ! Let’s govern the flexibility I say.”
“That’s a tall order, admittedly, but then, this is an ambitious project !”
- Glorious jargon poetry:
“The semi-digested spatial data is nothing more than just that.”
“This data simultaneously suffers further transformation…”
“The motion window is always stabilized and will ‘fly’.”
“The Snapshot Port — a.k.a. The Portrait of Reality”
“causation of an event singularity for the common reference of the simulator and the visual computing system”
- The “there / that / do this” interface:
“Once ‘that’ has been identified to be able to ‘do’ ‘this’ to ‘that’…”
“The user can merely point ‘there’: and place a building. The user can point to ‘that’ building and delete it.”
“A single pencil beam shot back into the scene from the point of the mouse…”
- Biology metaphor goes full Spore:
“The species of the virtual world… shall be encoded for spatial representation as chromosomes…”
“The species itself shall be represented in its completeness as a self descriptive cell.”
“Needless to add… if transfer RNA were metaphorically the lifts of the building…”
“The other facet… is the ability to create more species by crossbreeding and mutation of species.”
- Buildings become existential -- this is the crown jewel:
“The behavioral transformation over time has a standard pattern
Now I’m a cylinder and Now I’m an egg
Now I’m smooth & shiny and Now I’m not
Now I am mottled and Now I’m not
Now I feel mottled and Now I do not
Now I’m here and Now I’m over there
something or the other blah blah”
“Once the Simulator and the VC shell agree that there is a building called Big Joe’s Shark Tent…”
“yes I have neon lights, I have thirty bulbs all having high level scripts…”
“aaah OK ! you got it ! the script is queued, bye”
- Voxel fever dreams:
“This throws up the possibilities of bulldozers actually bulldozing soil. And Mining community towns actually mining inside a silver mine !!!!”
“Voxel space animation methods can actually cause earthquakes.”
“The display of a building or a city block being engulfed by splitting seams of the earth is not an impossible target…”
- Favorite one-liner:
“Modelessness is messy.”
SC3K had a masterfully executed advisor system that felt both classy and warm. Ditto its music and art. 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)
Wait, are those from Sim City 2000, released in 1993? One of them references Google Maps, first available under that name somewhere around 2004?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This sounds super interesting, but I'd much rather buy it on GOG than on Steam or itch.io. Any chance on releasing it there?
May I bother you to expand on why GOG over itch.io? I also prefer to use GOG whenever I can, but I really don’t know enough about itch.io to judge it. I’m hoping you can help bridge that knowledge gap.
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 some…
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.
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 some…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tailgating in a massive SUV is not disrespectful, it's dangerous to other person. Why encourage this behavior by immediately letting them through?
Or how about you get the heck out of the fast lane when someone is approaching you going faster? Tailgating is an acceptable and common way to tell someone to gtfo of the way. That is common courtesy in most states in the U.S.
What a strange person, from the same author: https://www.thran.uk/writ/yarn/2025/03/road-rage-maxxing-or-... I don't understand how you can feel morally superior by blocking the overtaking lane and letting people through if they're respectful enough.
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 lo…
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.
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 some…
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.
SC3K had a masterfully executed advisor system that felt both classy and warm. Ditto its music and art. 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)
These aren’t actually from the game…