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Simcity Social Details and New Screenshots

Simcity Social was announced hours ago at E3, however the launch trailer was brief and vague about the game features. In an interview with VentureBeat, Lucy Bradshaw shed some light about some of the details in the game. Simcity and Simcity Social are two seperate games meant to provide two different flavors. Simcity Social is a lighter more social experience.

In summary:

  • Simcity Social is a collaboration between Maxis and the Playfish studio in Beijing.
  • Cities are player driven, they react to your decisions.
  • There is no set path to make a city, you can make them in any style you’d like.
  • Crimes, fires, and pollution are some of the negative things that can occur in your city.
  • The graphics are meant to reflect the original Simcity but visually looks closer to Simcity 3000.
  • You can do mean and nice actions to other players cities.
  • Events can affect the city over time.

 

Simcity Boxart Revealed and 7 New Screenshots

New Simcity Deluxe Edition Boxart

EA has finally revealed Simcity’s  boxart. Simcity will release February 2013 for the PC. The Deluxe Edition will be priced $79.99 while the limited edition is priced $59.99.

EA has also provided 7 new screenshots with excessive amounts of tiltshifting. Though what is cool is that this blur effect happens in real time based on the buildings closest to the screens. Some of the screenshots depict tall vs dead grass, a stadium at night, and a vista that would connect your city to other towns as shown in the E3 Trailer.

Simcity Social E3 Trailer Takes Jab at CityVille

Simcity Social is now officially announced for Facebook. Simcity Social allows players to build cities that form based on player-driven decisions. Similar to The Sims Social, on the left hand side are quests players can choose to fulfill as they play the game. The top of the screen has your currency such as coins and a box with a gear icon (which we’ll unofficially call widgets). The bottom of your screen has your friends with either halo or devil horn symbols.

 

The bane of casual Facebook games is the inclusion of an energy bar at the top of the screen. It will likely limit you from doing any kind of action once you run out. These energy bars will fill up after some time has passed.

 

Simcity Social takes a jab at CitVille

The game allows your friends to move in and out of houses in your city. 

On some buildings there appears to be actions you can take to receive rewards. For example, on a stadium there were three options; “Crash Party,” “Attend a Soiree,” or “Tip hat”. After clicking “Crash Party” you receive coins, medals, and gift boxes.

Players will also have the option to upgrade buildings. For example, you can upgrade your theme park to a more luxurious three star version by selling cotton candy.

Simcity Social also includes disasters like fire and UFOs. There also appears to be “negative” events happening around the city that needs your attention. In a pop-up with a police badge, it required the player to respond to “ruffians” who are loitering near a Spanish Villa.

Simcity First E3 Screenshots

The first Simcity gameplay footage was shown just briefly at E3. We took screenshots of the first trailer in case you missed it. Of note, the way you plop buildings and transmission towers is sort of interesting. It basically floats and spins around as if someone was holding it in mid-air. EDIT: It appears some buildings will grow naturally and other service buildings like power plants are ploppable.

The trailer also showed a disaster where a dinosaur trampled down city buildings.

Additionally, they showed multiplayer footage of an airport that needed to be built in between two cities. You can actually see the other cities off to a distance too. We’ll have more details when it becomes available.

Simcity Releases February 2013 Plus First Screenshots

According to the press release from EA, Simcity will be releasing February 2013 on the PC.

Powered by the GlassBox simulation engine, SimCity is taking back its crown as the king of city-building games. Players will have the power to build the city of their dreams, connect with their friends and face real-world challenges together as SimCity comes to retail and Origin in February 2013.

  • Platform: PC
  •  Ship Date: February 2013
  • ESRB Rating: “RP” for Rating Pending

There are three different screenshots featuring an Industrial city, a University city, and firefighters trying to save a burning a building. Each of the three screenshots utilizes a photo manipulation technique known as tilt shifting. The buildings are a bit cartoony, but the art style looks like a cross between Sims 3 and the cancelled game Simsville.

[via gameranx]

Reactions

From these three screenhots, users have described the art style as “cartoony” and “FisherPrice” inspired. A few are still skeptical and waiting for more screenshots until judgement.

 

Simcity 2013: Data Layers More Visual and Animated

Taking a look back at data layers in the past Simcity series, they were generally colored tiles that indicated whether a tile was powered, watered, polluted, etc. These data layers were pretty boring to look at, but, the new Simcity plans to change all this by rethinking how the data layer is represented.

Taking some inspiration from infographics, Simcity aims to mix data visualization with modern design. The intent is to create animated data visualization so the player can see it flow in real time.

In this screenshot above, the water table is visible underneath all buildings. The more bluer areas contain more water. When the water tower is placed and pipes are laid down to different buildings, the player will see the water (agents) flow to different buildings.

Christian Stratton, User Experience Director for Simcity, gave an example of how you’ll see power travel down power lines. When you place a power plant down, the player will see power flow away from the plant to nearby buildings. If there’s any breaks among those lines, the player would immediately see and recognize it. If the power plant isn’t capable of providing power to a far location, you will see the power get “eaten-up” before it reaches there.

The data layers are also integrated into the game itself. As you place down a fire station, you’ll see a basic data layer that will give you a general idea of where you should place the fire station. There’s also the option to see a more in-depth data layer if the player requests it.

New Simcity Footage on Spike TV June 4th, 2012

SpikeTV and EA has announced they will be broadcasting a one hour special live on Monday June 4th, 2012. The special titled, “The Download: EA 2012 Preview” will be hosted by Geoff Keighley, will be a part of Spike’s “E3 All Access Live” program.

During the special event, EA will offer never-before-seen footage and world premieres of highly-anticipated games like SimCityTM, Crysis® 3, Battlefield 3TM, Medal of HonorTM Warfighter, Madden NFL 13, FIFA 13 and other unannounced projects currently under development at EA.

We’re hoping to see that one of the unannounced projects is the rumoured Simcity Facebook game.

EA 2012 Preview

  • Date: June 4th, 2012
  • Time: 4PM Eastern / 1PM Pacific.

Simcity: Concern over Specialized Cities

One of the worries with this current generation Simcity is its focus on specialized cities. Specialized cities were a concept used in previous games like Simcity Societies where players could make an authoritarian city. This changed the environment to make the city feel as if it is being controlled by a dictator.

In Simcity (2013), players can specialize their cities to create a “casino” city or focus on “coal,” etc.

In an interview with IncGamers, game producer Jason Haber shed some light on the issue to make it more clear. IncGamers asked if you can freely choose your own specialization, or if your are limited to what the game decides to place in your city:

You’re never going to be pushed down a certain path, but there are those that will require you have certain resources available to you. For example, for coal specialisation you need coal in your box. However, having coal in your box doesn’t mean you have to use it, you can ignore it and do something completely different.

There’s no reason for you to follow a rigid route, this is still a sandbox game…

Well you can rest well knowing that you don’t have to make your city one particular type and stick with it to the end.

Simcity 2013: How Water Simulation Affects the Economy

Today, Simcity released a new video describing how the water simulator affects the economy. Like the previous videos, each step has a cause and effect, and you’ll see these things in real time.

In the water table map you can see which areas on the map have water. The bluer areas naturally have more water.

This makes the terrain green and lush, but the drier areas are brown and barren.

Place the water pump in an area with more water. As it pumps it subtracts water from the water table map.  Once the water is pumped, it is sent down the pipes as an agent to provide water to buildings. Periodically, the buildings will request more water, which will be replenished once the water agent reaches the buildings again.

But as the water agent reaches industrial zones, it will come in contact with ground pollution. In previous games, this ground pollution would reduce the amount of water dispersed. However in this game, ground pollution will now affect the water supply.

 

As the ground pollution spreads to the water tower, it will pump this dirty water to residential zones. When water is polluted it carries germs, and as Sims drink this water, they become sick.  Sick sims will leave work and head home, thus less income is generated. You can cure them by placing hospitals nearby.

As you can see, Simcity’s Glassbox Engine is a live simulator that is intricately integrated with different functions and services. One feature can detrimentally affect the other.

Simcity: The Economic Interaction Between Zones

Today Maxis released another video of their Glassbox Engine which is the fundamental layer powering the Simcity simulation. Today’s video focuses on the economic loop of the game’s engine. The simulation sends out “agents”, these agents can do various tasks, like for example, they can send out “help wanted agents” that request workers to either drive to work or walk to work.  Agents can carry resources and travel to different zones. Some of these agents aren’t shown on the screen while you are playing but they will travel along the roads and paths  you created.

 

In the video, the factories in the industrial zone opens at 6AM. However, these factories currently have no workers.  They will send out invisible “help wanted” agents that travel down the road and search for residential zones. They will figuratively “knock on their doors” to inform that zone that there is a job opening. Residential zones will then send out cars that will search for the first available job.

As enough people show up to work, the factory turns on and starts manufacturing products. Air pollution is triggered as a result of the manufacturing. In addition, freight trucks will spawn and send goods from the industrial zones to the commercial zones.

This is just one example of how Residential, Industrial, and Commercial zones interact to one another.  The point being that each thing you see in Simcity is something actually happening.

As this screenshot is illustrating, as factories are manufacturing goods, they will write to the air pollution map. This in turn triggers the smoke animation and sound effects at the same time.

[via simcity]