SimCity: A New Society

I am sorry about the gap in posts. I ran through several posts that read like mud, so scrapped each one. Here is a post I'm actually proud enough of to post. Enjoy.SimCity was released in 1989 by EA Games. SimCity was lated succeeded by three games, the latest being Sim City 4, released in 2004. That was three years ago, and in due time, a new additions to the franchise is finally being released. SimCity as you've known it will become SimCity Socities.With Maxis hard at work on "Pure Awesomeness," also known as Spore, a new pair of wings has undertaken the SimCity brand. Tilted Mill Entertainment in the development seat this time, drawing from previous experience on simulator titles, Caeser IV and Immortal Cities. Game design is a fascinating topic, but so is sequel design. Tilted Mill Entertainment saw SimCity 4 and wanted to do something different. In an interview with 1up, VP of EA Rod Humble had this to say:

We thought that SimCity 4 was a brilliantly executed point of the simulation track of urban planning and it really nailed all those physical attributes, but we were sort of fearful that any design we did might start veering back towards that territory and we definitely wanted to do something different. And so, placing it with a different developer made a lot of sense and was a lot of fun as well. And when we showed the concept, the Tilted Mill guys got ahold of it and said, 'Hey, this is great. Let's change it here, here, here, and how about this and this?' and we sort of got the fire hose of creativity from them. And it was a great fit. It's been such a pleasure working on this project.

I haven't played SimCity 4, but from what I've read it pretty much perfected the city building simulator. EA is being very logical, they simply didn't want to retread on broken glass. Societies is a sort of branch off of what SimCity has given us before. Put bluntly, the game is completely different from previous iterations. This is not a bad thing. I'll be honest though, as a gamer, I'm having trouble coming to terms with the new SimCity, its just so different from the greatness of the franchise. However, as a game designer, I really like some of the ideas Tilted Mill is throwing into the cog.SimCity Societies is less a simulator and more of a sand box. Comparisons can be made more easily to RollerCoaster Tycoon than to traditional SimCity gameplay. One immediate example is that players now plot down individual buildings as opposed to zoning areas. Societies is about creating a unique society all to its own. This is represented in many ways: graphically, governance, economy, and people. There are three types of buildings in Societies: housing, work, and venues (entertainment). All are necessary in creating a thriving society with productive citizens. Additionally, each building brings with it certain attributes, called "societal energies," which contribute to defining your particular society. The six energies are creativity, devotion, industry, knowledge, obedience, and wealth. A venue tied to devotion may be a church. An industry venue, meanwhile, may be a bar or club.
Societies is customizable. Players can take to any energy they prefer, or mix or match for perhaps unexpected results. An obedience focused city will eventually become very "big brother" in style. A city built with creativity will be more like the board game "candy land." And of course, players can mix and match any buildings with any other, creating a montage of societal energies.

What I like most about this design is that the energies are a web. The six energies criss-cross and connect with one another. The means to creating a city on any given point is building the energy types that the player desires. Because players have placement control over individual buildings, they are able to construct a blueprint for any city layout they please. And not only physically, but societally as well. This is where SimCity Societies really shines: organic gameplay.
Players are simultaneously constructing a city and a society. Both develop organically according to the players' decisions. Placing buildings serves multiple ends, similar to how the factory mini-game in Chocolatier affected the meta game. Buildings are not only physical entities, they are also a piece of your society. Players build a city of brick and mortar which then creates a society of laws and individuals. Socities takes the gameplay of SimCity one step further. It does change much of the content from previous games, but thats ok, because this is a new game, with cool new ideas. I'm looking forward to it.

Sources:
IGN preview
IGN video demonstration
1up preview
1up video demonstration

Form Baton-Categorizing Gameplay

Nintendo's Software Planning & Development Division is ready to launch WarioWare: Smooth Moves for the Wii, however, the team faced a difficult hurdle in the games development. As the fifth game in the WarioWare series, the team knew full well exactly what makes a WarioWare title play so uniquely and well. For those who don't know, WarioWare has players completing very specific, seemingly random tasks, at a lightning fast pace. The player only has a moments warning to understand how to solve a microgame before time runs out and their turned to the next game. Its like playing epilepsy.
What the team didn't expect for this iteration of WarioWare, was the challenges presented by the Wii remote. The team came up with many new microgames for WarioWare, but they had trouble figuring out how each game should be controlled, and more importantly, how the player will know what to do when each microgame is presented. The Wii has nigh infinite possiblities in detecting motion, but unspecified solutions to each microgame would prove impossible for a player to complete them. Yoshio Sakamoto, software planner for the team, put the problem like this.

It's true that the Wii Remote allows for any number of ways to play a game, and is especially well matched with the WarioWare series, but because of this players are faced with the new problem of not knowing exactly what they are expected to do. Conveying this information to them posed a problem for us. With WarioWare speed is everything, people have five seconds at most to grasp the way they have to play. How to best communicate this became the first problem we were confronted with.

But later Sakamato would arrive upon a fantastic answer that would solve probably every issue the team was experiencing thus far.

We had a tendency to play it safe, selecting ideas where the player could hold the Remote normally and not be required to perform really tricky movements. Then it happened, a solution presented itself. I thought, why don't we tell the players to: "Hold it like this!" before each of the individual microgames starts. We implemented instructions saying: "Hold the Remote like this" and "Next, hold it like this."

They called it the "Form Baton." And what it does is basically categorize each microgame into one of seven styles of play. The player is told to hold the remote a certain way before each game begins. This way, defeating each microgame becomes a reasonable, if challenging, request upon the player. Here are a couple screenshots from the game, the second one is a demonstration of using the form baton:


The SPDD team came up with a very effective design response to their issue. By categorizing gameplay, or different styles to play each microgame, they could then implement the various control schemes into their many microgames. Plus, the Form Baton adds to the chaos that is WarioWare, forcing the player to go through just one more step each game. The solution may be simple, some might even say contrived, but theres no question that its effective.
What do you think of the Form Baton? What about categorizing gameplay?
What other examples of categorizing gameplay can you think of?
Please post any thoughts you have in the comments.
And thats the day numero two.

Source: Nintendo Europe: Iwata Asks
-Gryffin