I’m currently reading the book “Game On!” About video game history, and had to verify.

When initially designing The Sims, Wright spent a great deal of time researching the fan community of the hugely successful Quake and Quake 2. “I was amazed at the time people were pouring into making their own custom levels,” he told Wired. “So with The Sims, we wanted to make it possible to modify everything. Players could use it as a storytelling platform.”

https://www.shortlist.com/news/15-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-the-sims-4

  • SilverShark@beehaw.org
    22·
    4 days ago

    This is awesome. He said indeed also that he had himself a lot of fun designing levels and places for video games, so he though making a video game out of the very process of designing a level would be cool.

    A project from Will Wright that always fascinated me is SimAnt, a game from 1991 where you build an ant colony.

      • SoleInvictus@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        1·
        3 days ago

        I lost entire weeks of my childhood playing at being an ant.

        Now that I’ve typed that out, bug big chunks of my childhood suddenly make more sense.

        Edit: dammit. I’m leaving that typo because it’s perfect.

      • DdCno1@beehaw.org
        8·
        3 days ago

        Subjectively at least - and this might be rose-tinted glasses influencing my judgment - it feels like it was more common, that certain genres were almost expected to come with an accessible level/map editor. I think I spent more time with the one from Age of Empires than the actual game.

      • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.netEnglish
        7·
        4 days ago

        I remember finally getting my hands on the editor for the Build engine after a few years of making maps in Doom and Heretic and had thought 3D level design was only something super geniuses could do… Until Hammer showed it was just the garbage UI/UX of Build lol

        • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.netOP
          3·
          3 days ago

          Oh man I remember how incredible Hammer was.

          I built my college campus! (And never showed anybody because this was during the Columbine era)

          • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.netEnglish
            2·
            3 days ago

            I’m glad that when I made my high school for Counter-Strike, it was back in 1.6 and not more recently. Heard about a kid who did the same for CSGO just a few years ago and he got expelled and I think he was arrested because they saw it like “terrorist planning” or some bullshit…

    • brsrklf@jlai.lu
      7·
      3 days ago

      Yeah, apparently SimCity itself was the result of Will Wright working on an helicopter shoot’m up and realising he had fun making maps for it.

      That’s an interesting starting point for codifying a whole genre of games.