omg
So the Sims 3 is coming out and I'm like this:
But the Sims is like crack (okay not that nice but with the same negative post-usage effects)! I could spend hours in front of the screen with a rollie (or in my case, 5 of them) designing and cranking and designing. And well, generally not getting anything done in the real world. Oh, art project due tommorrow? I'll just skip school and design this SWANK eco-mansion for my sim to get knocked up in. With a pool.
But ohemgee!
This is an excerpt from an article talking of the 2D prototype alone:
Yet another category of prototype experiments was designed not just to pick apart The Sims' core concepts - but also to experiment, in an engineering-led way, with some of the sociological ideas that informed the game design. Some were simple, like a program that created procedural "paintings" using a random set of parameters - but could create similar-looking paintings consistently, as a way for a Sim to express their artistic side. Others were more complex.
One of the team's favourite prototypes certainly falls into that category. Designed to explore ideas about socialisation, it created a sea of 2D faces with distinctive features - and showed you both your own face in the game, and that of your nemesis. By singling out other people with similar features to your nemesis, but different features to yourself, and declaring them to be a witch, you could gradually influence the crowd into declaring your nemesis a witch and burning him - complete with mandatory Monty Python sound effects.
Silly? Yes, but also an intriguing exploration of communal social knowledge. "It led us to have interesting and meaningful conversations about things like your town's social trends," explains Brown. "There might be one person in your town that everyone hates, or one person that everyone likes - we looked into how to find value in those kinds of macro trends, and in whether players pick up on them or not."
Even emotional response was explored with simple prototypes. "Bring out the one I hate," Humble says with a groan, prompting grins from the other designers. This prototype explored how to make players feel genuinely bad for a Sim, and how to create emotional displays in the game. With a simple stick figure, Brown shows how it can develop an affinity for a ball if you play with it - or can develop a fear of the same ball if you throw it repeatedly at the Sim's head. Moving the ball in and out of the scene then changes the Sim's emotions; which can be mixed up by moving around other environments, even drowning the poor chap by depriving him of oxygen underwater.
Getting to know individuals in the community has turned into a really fun part of the game - finding out that your neighbour is really flirty, but she's 80 years old, or that the two kids across the street are total opposites and hate each other's guts. It's great fun to explore the characters around you."
Those characters are kept consistent by another system we see in a more complex simulation. Here, an entire neighbourhood is represented by 60 boxes on screen, each a house, each each holding a Sim - or a household of Sims. In this high-level simulation, rather than running around going to the toilet or making spaghetti, they do the big life things - meeting people, falling in love, getting married, moving to new homes, getting jobs, getting promoted, having kids, and even dying.
As we watch, the whole town moves around in a fluid way. People get married and have children, the children grow up, the parents die. Icons indicate objects and furniture people buy; dollar amounts show how wealthy they are. They start dating, move in together, and new families move into the vacant lots. It's all consistent, and it runs all the time. In the game, of course, you see only glimpses of this; most of it happens in houses with their roof firmly on. In the prototype, however, you can see the life stories of every Sim, and understand how the team has ensured that stories in the game match together - helping to make the whole town feel real.
That, in the end, is the whole objective of the exercise. Described variously as a game, a creative tool and simply an escapist outlet, The Sims 3 is - from an engineering and design standpoint - an attempt to create a community of people that's believable, consistent, and realistic - without ever sacrificing the principles of being fun and entertaining.
More on the Sims 3 prototype
CRACK I SAY, CRACK!!!
Click to viewBut the Sims is like crack (okay not that nice but with the same negative post-usage effects)! I could spend hours in front of the screen with a rollie (or in my case, 5 of them) designing and cranking and designing. And well, generally not getting anything done in the real world. Oh, art project due tommorrow? I'll just skip school and design this SWANK eco-mansion for my sim to get knocked up in. With a pool.
But ohemgee!
This is an excerpt from an article talking of the 2D prototype alone:
Yet another category of prototype experiments was designed not just to pick apart The Sims' core concepts - but also to experiment, in an engineering-led way, with some of the sociological ideas that informed the game design. Some were simple, like a program that created procedural "paintings" using a random set of parameters - but could create similar-looking paintings consistently, as a way for a Sim to express their artistic side. Others were more complex.
One of the team's favourite prototypes certainly falls into that category. Designed to explore ideas about socialisation, it created a sea of 2D faces with distinctive features - and showed you both your own face in the game, and that of your nemesis. By singling out other people with similar features to your nemesis, but different features to yourself, and declaring them to be a witch, you could gradually influence the crowd into declaring your nemesis a witch and burning him - complete with mandatory Monty Python sound effects.
Silly? Yes, but also an intriguing exploration of communal social knowledge. "It led us to have interesting and meaningful conversations about things like your town's social trends," explains Brown. "There might be one person in your town that everyone hates, or one person that everyone likes - we looked into how to find value in those kinds of macro trends, and in whether players pick up on them or not."
Even emotional response was explored with simple prototypes. "Bring out the one I hate," Humble says with a groan, prompting grins from the other designers. This prototype explored how to make players feel genuinely bad for a Sim, and how to create emotional displays in the game. With a simple stick figure, Brown shows how it can develop an affinity for a ball if you play with it - or can develop a fear of the same ball if you throw it repeatedly at the Sim's head. Moving the ball in and out of the scene then changes the Sim's emotions; which can be mixed up by moving around other environments, even drowning the poor chap by depriving him of oxygen underwater.
Getting to know individuals in the community has turned into a really fun part of the game - finding out that your neighbour is really flirty, but she's 80 years old, or that the two kids across the street are total opposites and hate each other's guts. It's great fun to explore the characters around you."
Those characters are kept consistent by another system we see in a more complex simulation. Here, an entire neighbourhood is represented by 60 boxes on screen, each a house, each each holding a Sim - or a household of Sims. In this high-level simulation, rather than running around going to the toilet or making spaghetti, they do the big life things - meeting people, falling in love, getting married, moving to new homes, getting jobs, getting promoted, having kids, and even dying.
As we watch, the whole town moves around in a fluid way. People get married and have children, the children grow up, the parents die. Icons indicate objects and furniture people buy; dollar amounts show how wealthy they are. They start dating, move in together, and new families move into the vacant lots. It's all consistent, and it runs all the time. In the game, of course, you see only glimpses of this; most of it happens in houses with their roof firmly on. In the prototype, however, you can see the life stories of every Sim, and understand how the team has ensured that stories in the game match together - helping to make the whole town feel real.
That, in the end, is the whole objective of the exercise. Described variously as a game, a creative tool and simply an escapist outlet, The Sims 3 is - from an engineering and design standpoint - an attempt to create a community of people that's believable, consistent, and realistic - without ever sacrificing the principles of being fun and entertaining.
More on the Sims 3 prototype
CRACK I SAY, CRACK!!!