Trainguyrom

Trainguyrom, rok temu

Like just breakdown what the Sims into its fundamental components. The characters, the fashion, the homes, the skills, the jobs, social interactions, possessions. It’s a lot of work.

That’s the thing that gets me is the core life sim gameplay loop is actually pretty simple, mostly because it was originally an architecture simulator with people you could play house with and then Maxis realized playing with the people was a ton of fun so they built onto that gameplay.

Basically you just need several values which count down over game ticks for the needs, modifiers on how much it each goes up and down and then add a bunch to the value when the sim does something to satisfy the needs

Social interactions are purely plus/minus a few points with a bit of RNG and modifiers for the traits, mood, hygiene level, etc.

Careers are basically just bad quests from an RPG. Your sims happiness (is the average need level greater than or less than X) chooses whether their career performance value is increasing or decreasing per game tick while at work, skills and work style (working normally, working hard, etc.) will modify the value that’s added or subtracted per tick, add in a skill check when that value reaches promotion and you have rabbit hole careers

Tons of games have structure building mechanics which I won’t pretend to understand from a game engine level but I’d say that’s a pretty well solved issue

Really the hard part is the graphics but if games like Minecraft, Terraria and Stardew Valley can be such hits with 8-bit inspired graphics, I think a strong core gameplay loop can outshine average Steam shovelware-grade graphics

So basically, if you want to create a Minecraft mod to play the sims, there’s the recipe. Honestly if I was any good at programming I’d take a crack at it but I don’t have the patience nor skill to do that at this stage

Trainguyrom, rok temu

Like, make a series of games that are low budget, relatively short, and easy to pump out very quickly, but with a distinct series identity and maybe a consistent writer/artist across games. Then make a lot of them and get people hooked on the series instead of on 1 mega game.

Urban Games currently does this with Transport Fever. They flat out said while hyping the release of Transport Fever 2 (which was their third transport tycoon style game) that their goal as a development studio is to make the best transportation tycoon game they can. So they intend to continuously iterate.

N3V Games, who developes the Trainz simulator game was literally formed to buy up the property and talent from its original developer Auran and continue the franchise

There’s a third example I was going to give but got distracted while writing this comment and forgot

Trainguyrom, rok temu

I saw a tier list meme that some teenager made on Discord of every game they’d ever played. You know what didn’t appear once on the list? Not a single Grand Theft Auto game nor a single Elder Scrolls game. I asked them why and they said because GTA5 and Skyrim are “old”

They’re taking so long between releases now that they missed an entire generation of gamers

Trainguyrom, rok temu

I think music gets treated differently in this way partly because the fidelity 50 years ago was already very acceptable compared to the fidelity of brand new music, meanwhile you compare any other media and there’s significant improvements in the graphical fidelity that even movies from within this century can be poor enough video quality to degrade the experience compared to a new release

Trainguyrom, rok temu

As far as I’m concerned, if game studios simply had ISOs/ROMs of their abandoned games available to download for a nominal fee that would be acceptable. Heck with the advent of browser based emulators Sony, Nintendo and Sega (plus many early PC game rightsholders) could simply sell access to play their back catalog on their website Netflix-style via these web-based emulators, much like how archive.org handles it

Honestly I think the most achievable solution is an abandonware law that basically permits the free redistribution of any software that isn’t available for sale in any standard format for x years. Basically just codify what many companies already practice which is turning a blind eye to abandonware/rom sites distributing the very old games they aren’t selling anymore

Trainguyrom, 2 lata temu

Euro Truck Simulator/American Truck Simulator

It quickly just becomes a virtual road trip simulator, and as someone who generally enjoys driving and road trips its very chill