Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

SIMCITY

Specialty Definition: SIMCITY

DomainDefinition

Computing

SimCity Maxis Software's simulation game which lets you design and build your own city, which must be administered well if it is to thrive. Land must be zoned, transportation systems built, and police and fire protection provided. Once you've zoned some land, and provided electrical power, the simulation takes over, and simcitizens move in. If you perform your mayoral duties poorly, however, they will move out again. If you don't provide enough police, crime will rise and sims will vote with their feet. Try to save money on fire protection, and your city may burn to the ground. There is no predefined way to win the game, building the largest city you can is just one possible strategy. SimCity runs on Archimedes, Amiga, Atari ST, IBM PC and Macintosh. There was also a NeWS version for Sun SPARC workstations running OpenWindows. SimCity 2000 is an upgrade of SimCity. (1995-06-11). Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Top     

Specialty Definition: SimCity

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

SimCity is a real-time strategy/simulation computer game (or "software toy") developed by Maxis. There are four versions; the original SimCity (later, SimCity Classic), SimCity 2000 (1993), SimCity 3000 (1999) and SimCity 4 (2003). All of the games were re-released with various add-ons including extra scenarios.

Description

SimCity is predominantly a single-player game (the exception being a "Network Edition" of SimCity 2000). SimCity, originally developed by game designer Will Wright, sparked off a new paradigm in computer gaming by creating a game that could neither be won nor lost. This did not bode well with the game publishers at the time, who did not forsee the possibility of successfully marketing and selling such a game. However, the success of SimCity speaks for itself: "Sim" games of all types were spawned—with Will Wright and Maxis developing a myriad of titles including SimEarth, SimFarm, SimTown, SimTower, and an ant simulation called SimAnt. The most recent development is The Sims, which has since gone on to become the most successful computer game of all time.

Objective

The objective of SimCity, as the name of the game suggests, is to build and design a city, without specific goals to achieve (except in the scenarios, which typically require the player to achieve a certain population or bank balance in a given period of time). The player can mark land as being zoned as commercial, industrial, or residential, add buildings, change the tax rate, enact city ordinances, connect to neighbouring cities, build a power grid, build transportation systems and many other actions, in order to enhance the city. Also, the player can face disasters: flooding, tornadoes, fires, riots, earthquakes, etc.

SimCity 2000

The unexpected and enduring success of the original game, combined with the relative lack of success with other Sim titles, finally motivated the development of a followon, published in 1993 as SimCity 2000. SC 2000 was a major extension of the concept; the view was now isometric instead of overhead, land may have different elevations, and underground layers were introduced for water pipes and subways. New types of facilities included hospitals, prisons, schools, libraries, museums, parks, marinas, zoos, and stadiums. The budget and finance controls were much more elaborate. SimCity 2000 was extremely successful.

SimCity 3000

SimCity 3000 is essentialy SimCity 2000 with several small features added and graphics updated to a standard appropriate for when it was published (1999). Some people consider SimCity 2000 to be a better game than SimCity 3000 since the two are essentially the same and because of SimCity 3000's greater system requirements, bugss and game-play issues. For example, SimCity 3000 occasionally gives you the option of hosting a parade, which gives a boost to your city. The animation for the parade lasts a long time, the game pauses during the animation, and you do not have the option of skipping over the animation. Critics note other similar flaws.

See also

External links

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "SimCity."

Top     


Crosswords: SIMCITY

Specialty definitions using "SIMCITY": Maxis Software. (references)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Top     

Modern Usage: SIMCITY

DomainUsage

Movie/TV Titles

SimCity (1989)

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Top     

Commercial Usage: SIMCITY

DomainTitle

High Tech

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Top     

Expression: SIMCITY

Expression using "SIMCITY": SimCity 2000. Additional references.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Top     

Anagrams: SIMCITY

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams

Words within the letters "c-i-i-m-s-t-y"

-1 letter: mystic.

-2 letters: misty, mitis, stimy.

-3 letters: cist, city, cyst, mist, mity, smit, tics.

-4 letters: cis, icy, ism, its, mis, sic, sim, sit, sty, tic, tis.

-5 letters: is, it, mi, my, si, ti.

 Words containing the letters "c-i-i-m-s-t-y"
 

+2 letters: mysticism, symbiotic.

 

+3 letters: antimycins, dynamistic, lysimetric, mitomycins, musicality, mydriatics, mysticisms, mythicizes, seismicity, simplicity.

 

+4 letters: domesticity, masculinity, miscibility, myocarditis, mythicizers, promiscuity, symbolistic.

 

+5 letters: actinomycins, axisymmetric, biochemistry, compulsivity, dissymmetric, dysphemistic, isoenzymatic, meristically, meticulosity, misogynistic, omnisciently, semimystical, stichomythia, stichomythic, whimsicality.

Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.

Top     

Alternative Orthography: SIMCITY


Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)

53 49 4D 43 49 54 59

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)

American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)

=

Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)

Braille (1829, in France) (references)

Morse Code (1836) (references)

...    ..    --    -.-.    ..    -    -.--.

Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)

Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)

01010011 01001001 01001101 01000011 01001001 01010100 01011001

HTML Code (1990) (references)

&#83 &#73 &#77 &#67 &#73 &#84 &#89

ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)

0053 0049 004D 0043 0049 0054 0059

British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)

Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)

53434737435459

Top     



INDEX

1. Crosswords
2. Usage: Modern
3. Usage: Commercial
4. Expressions
5. Anagrams
6. Orthography
7. Bibliography


  

Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.