SimAnt was a huge part of my childhood. Immensely inspiring.
The Story of Maxis Software (1999)
21–30 of 68 posts
Re: The Story of Maxis Software (1999)
#22How many of you remember the original SimCity, and the "secret" keys that you could type (as Mayor) to dramatically increase your cash on hand?
The word was "BRIBE", and you could get away with it (typically) twice. Around the third time your city would be devastated by a massive earthquake.
Re: The Story of Maxis Software (1999)
#23I was going to say I miss the age in video games where there were well known players like Sid Meier or Will Wright, but then I noticed the article was written by Geoff Keighley who I still know of today for running the game awards. Kinda funny.
There are lots of famous names around, probably more so than before. Kojima and Myamoto come to mind, Tim Schafer is 20 years into a 'comeback', Minecraft - one of the most popular games of the last decade - has a well-known designer who'd still be part of the conversation if he hadn't taken it upon himself to torch his public reputation. And that's just scratching the surface.
Not to mention Chris Roberts appears to have invented a whole new business model: selling game development hype instead of games
Re: The Story of Maxis Software (1999)
#24This language dates the article, and (as a queer person) amuses me. "A homosexual programmer at Maxis objected to the use of female characters as objects of affection in SimCopter. So, he decided to protest by putting what he termed "muscle boys in swim trunks" into the game. During the game, these characters would mysteriously appear and kiss each other, but only on very rare occasions. At least, that was the idea.…
For anyone (like me) who missed that this is a multi-page article, the quote is from page 6: https://web.archive.org/web/19991109030656/http://www.gamesp...
Re: The Story of Maxis Software (1999)
#25I worked at Maxis for about six months during the middle part of the events described in the article. I started during the tumultuous days surrounding the initial attempt at SimCity 3000 (I didn’t work on that project, though I saw its prototypes from time to time), up until shortly after the EA buyout was announced (but before it actually happened). On my first day at work there was a giant poster in the reception a…
> Streets of SimCity Maybe that's why you had a Voodoo card? My brothers and I loved Streets of SimCity. That you could load your game from SimCity 2000 and drive around in it was genius. We had so much fun with that game. The ridiculous songs on the radio and the over-the-top cheesy dialog were just icing on the cake.
I love it too, if I remember correctly I believe you could set it up to play your own mp3s in the car radio.
Re: The Story of Maxis Software (1999)
#26How many of you remember the original SimCity, and the "secret" keys that you could type (as Mayor) to dramatically increase your cash on hand? The word was "BRIBE", and you could get away with it (typically) twice. Around the third time your city would be devastated by a massive earthquake.
I used to do this at the beginning of a game as a kid, because the earthquakes were pretty harmless without buildings to knock down. You'd just load up on cash, then start building!
Re: The Story of Maxis Software (1999)
#27How many of you remember the original SimCity, and the "secret" keys that you could type (as Mayor) to dramatically increase your cash on hand? The word was "BRIBE", and you could get away with it (typically) twice. Around the third time your city would be devastated by a massive earthquake.
I used to do this at the beginning of a game as a kid, because the earthquakes were pretty harmless without buildings to knock down. You'd just load up on cash, then start building!
Possibly the first ever "cheat code" in a game.
Re: The Story of Maxis Software (1999)
#28Re: The Story of Maxis Software (1999)
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
Possibly the first ever "cheat code" in a game.
plugh
Plover
Xyzzy
Y2
Okay, I guess those were cheats too.
https://gist.github.com/peteristhegreat/d3256bfa444023855de3...
Funny, I did not see "Zorton" in the list above.
Wow, I really am an old fossil. I found a reference to Zorton here: http://forums.delphiforums.com/xyzzy/messages/283/2
Re: The Story of Maxis Software (1999)
#30The SimCity-SimCopter-SoSC tie in worked because I loved creating cities and then getting to see them in 3D. Albeit, I used the SimCity Urban Renewal Kit because I didn’t understand the gameplay enough to make money at age 8-9.
Thats why you were supposed to type “iamacheat” ;)
Interestingly I was playing Valheim today and to unlock cheats you type "imacheater" in the console. I wonder if this is a nod to Sim City, or just a happy coincidence.