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Sim City 2K

  • nhubi
  • 02/24/2015 03:40 PM
  • 976 views
This game was made for an RPG Maker Breach competition with the goal to push the limits of what RPG Maker games can do, or since this game was release in 2007 what 95, 2K, 2k3 or XP could do. logue chose RM2K for his attempt at ground breaking and his method was creating a sim game within the engine, as well as incorporating mouse control for player interface. The resulting demonstration game is very impressive if understandably short.

The basic premise is simple, you are the unnamed mayor of an unnamed town, and unfortunately there is no option to name yourself or your burgeoning township, who has been tasked with expanding and improving your small township. To that end you have access to a variety of building types, farms, shops and houses as well as the all important wells.


Houses, finally giving you someone to boss around.

Each building type, with the exception of the wells has a set of prerequisites attached so you need to map out which buildings you are going to construct first to enable you to expand your town in an efficient manner and reach the win condition. House grant you 5 workers, but cost the food to feed them, shops give you a great deal of gold in the form of sales tax but require 7 town inhabitants to justify their existence and farms produce food but demand 3 labourers to toil away producing it. It's only the wells that come with no strings attached, other than a gold outlay, but since they are basically holes in the ground that's a realistic allowance. Each well will water 8 workers so you need 2 wells for every three houses.

There is a building cap in place, due to the restrictions of the engine, so you cannot build more than 3 wells, 4 houses, 2 farms and 2 shops, the building of the latter will trigger the win condition. But it is much easier to lose that to win in this game, so it's a good idea to keep an eye on the health of your workers, if they start to disappear it's because they are either dying of thirst or starvation.

There are two modes within the game, build mode, where you construct the buildings within your town, and Mayor mode where you can walk around and interact with the buildings and people who inhabit them. Whilst that does add a personal touch to the game there is a risk as you converse with your townsfolk that one or other of them will pick your pocket and reduce your gold reserve. Hey times are tough and you have to do what you can to feed your family. Though the instances of petty pilfering do drop the more prosperous your town is which is an interesting touch. Talking to your workers also gives some insight into their situation and provides clues for the next step you should take, even if it can be a little pointed.


Show some respect, I'm the mayor!

The mouse controls don't work in mayor mode, so it's a shift back to the keyboard to go and visit the denizens of your growing town and wander around the newly constructed farms and shops.

As you would expect in a building game everything takes place on a single map, but it is changing in response to your actions, so it doesn't feel oppressively small, the mouse responsive menu forms a frame around the map itself and is whilst simple the clarity is welcome. The placement of houses is only restricted by previously constructed buildings or natural obstacles such as trees, so your town can grow in a natural and chaotic fashion if you wish, or you can attempt some form of control by placing like structures together or aligning them with each other. The choice is entirely yours.

The music is sourced from Norwegian composer Bjorn Lynne and is all well suited, from a slightly jaunty tune, very upbeat and I would go so far as to say catchy, to a slightly more sombre one that still has a beat and is quite lyrical.

There is a subtle humour in the game and quite a bit of work has gone into the interactions with the other inhabitants, it takes quite a number of occasions to get a repeated dialogue so obviously the developer has taken the time to flesh out his NPC's to aid in the feeling of immersion, which is unexpected and quite pleasing in such a small game.


But after that you can?

With a bit of patience and a little planning you can keep your growing community well fed and watered and apparently happy and complete both of the shops that indicate you have succeed in your task, and trigger your congratulatory win message.

This game is never going to be expanded on as it was designed simply as a demonstration of what RM2K could do with some ingenuity and innovative thinking, and in that endeavour it has more than succeeded in its purpose. If you feel like a trip back to the 'bad old days' of 2K and you want to see just what can be done with the engine if you throw out the rulebook, then I would suggest spending the 15 minutes or so it takes to win the game. If not, well that's your loss.