House Party Game
House Party Game
The Sims is a strategic life-simulation computer game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It was created by game designer Will Wright, also known for developing SimCity . It is a simulation of the daily activities of one or more virtual persons ("Sims") in a suburban household near SimCity.
The Sims was first released on February 4, 2000. By March 22, 2002, The Sims had sold more than 6.3 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling PC game in history; the game has shipped 16 million copies worldwide as of February 7, 2005. Since its initial release, seven expansion packs and two sequels, The Sims 2 and The Sims 3 (each with their own expansion packs), have been released. The Sims has won numerous awards, including GameSpot's "Game of the Year Award" for 2000.
Overview
The Sims focuses entirely on the lives of "Sims", placing the player in control of their virtual "world" and their daily activities, such as sleeping, eating, reading, and bathing. Will Wright, the game's designer, calls it a "digital dollhouse". Although players are encouraged to make their own characters, certain pre-made characters, such as the Newbie and Goth family, have become popular.
The player controls almost all aspects of the lives of a family, either premade or self-created, sometimes being referred to as a god. Many choices can lead a player's Sim to a large household or a single life.
Origins and development
The idea for The Sims is thought to be drawn from Will Wright's experience in the 1991 Oakland firestorm, when his house and many of his possessions were destroyed in the fire. Wright was required to move his family elsewhere and rebuild his life; these events led to Will's inspiration of creating a simulated game about life. The game is also loosely based on SimCity , another computer game designed by Wright in which the player must manage a city and its citizenry, dubbed "Sims". The idea of "simulated people" led Wright to believe that he could program and design the perfect construct of the main aspects that a computer or video game possesses.
Wright originally proposed the idea of a virtual family to Maxis in 1993 while the idea was still in development, although the proposal was met with skepticism by staff; computer hardware during the period was not thought to be capable of running such a simulation smoothly. In 1995, Wright was offered an opportunity from Electronic Arts to continue developing the concept and game so that EA could publish it. Development of the game, initially dubbed "Project X," commenced in 1995.
After production for the game finally began in 1995, Wright was interviewed about his idea in a PC Magazine article published around 1995, in which he talked about the chance for players to control computer-generated characters in their own environment.
In 1997, the name of the game was changed from "Project X" to "The Sims" as a reference to Will Wright's earlier " Sim " games, which had been very successful in the early- to mid-1990s.
Gameplay and design
Instead of objectives, the player is encouraged to make choices and engage fully in an interactive environment. This has helped the game successfully attract casual gamers. The only real objective of the game is to organize the Sims' time to help them reach personal goals.
Creation of families
When starting, the game offers players pre-made characters as well as the option to create more Sims that they can control. Creating a Sim consists of creating a "family" (identified by a last name) that can hold up to eight members. The player can then create Sims, by providing the Sim a first name and optional biography, and choosing the gender (male or female), skin complexion (light, tan, or dark) and age (child or adult) of the Sim. The personality of the Sim is dictated by five attributes (neat, outgoing, active, playful, and nice) and a specific head and body type. A Sim's body is bundled with a specific body physique and clothing. The player cannot change a Sim's face, name, skin tone, or personality once it has been moved onto a lot.
Life Stages
In the Sims, there are only 3 life states, Baby, Child, Adult. The only life stage that can be passed is baby. Children cannot grow up (unless cheats or the Makin' Magic expansion pack are used). Adults are the most advanced life stage and are able to have children, get jobs, etc.
Each family, regardless of how many members are in it, starts with a limited amount of cash (§20,000) that will be needed to purchase a house or vacant land, build or remodel a house, and purchase furniture. All architectural features and furnishings are dictated by a tile system, in which items must be placed on a square and rotated to face exactly a 90 degree angle with no diagonals. Walls and fences go on the edge of a "square" and can be diagonal, whereas furniture and Sims take up one or more squares and cannot be diagonal. Artwork may not be placed on diagonal walls in the same way as furniture may not be placed against a diagonal wall. There are over 150 home building materials, landscaping options, furnishings, and design objects (windows & doors.)
Sims' lives
Sims are directed on the basis of instructing them to interact with objects, such as a television set, a piece of furniture or another Sim. Sims may receive house guests, which are actually based on the Sims of other game files. The player cannot control "visiting" Sims, although it is important for Sims to interact with one another in order to develop a healthy social life and gain popularity.
Sims, if enabled within the game, have a certain amount of free will, meaning they will engage in activities when left to their own devices, though player commands will override anything a Sim decides to do on its own. However, Sims may not perform important commands, such as find a job or conceive a child, on their own initiative. Unlike the simulated environments in games such as SimCity , SimEarth , or SimLife , the Sims are not fully autonomous. They are unable to take certain actions without specific commands from the player, such as paying their bills. Thus, if left alone, without any player supervision, the Sims will eventually develop overdue bills and their property will be repossessed.
The player must make decisions about time spent in personal development, such as exercise, reading, creativity, and logic, by adding activities to the daily agenda of the Sims. Daily need fulfillment must also be scheduled, such as personal hygiene, eating, and sleeping. If the simulated humans do not perform need fulfillment, they suffer consequences. For example, if they do not eat, they will die of starvation. If they do not go to the bathroom, they will wet themselves. If they do not have fun, they become depressed and unwilling to do things. When Sims have low motives they are more likely to be nasty to other Sim characters by insulting them, slapping them and even attacking them.
Financial health is simulated by the need to send the Sims to find jobs, go to work and pay bills.
There are several career tracks, with ten steps in each. A Sim that makes a number of new friends and learns the right skills can get promoted, and receive a raise and changed work hours. The original careers are Business, Entertainment, Law Enforcement, Crime, Medicine, Military, Politics, Pro Athlete, Science and Xtreme. The expansion packs add new careers.
The inner structure of the game is actually an agent based artificial life program. The presentation of the game's artificial intelligence is advanced, and the Sims will respond to outside conditions by themselves, although often the player/controller's intervention is necessary to keep them on the right track. The Sims technically has unlimited replay value, in that there is no way to win the game, and the player can play on indefinitely. It has been described as more like a toy than a game.
In addition, the game includes a very advanced architecture system. The game was originally designed as an architecture simulation alone, with the Sims there only to evaluate the houses, but during development it was decided that the Sims were more interesting than originally anticipated and their initially limited role in the game was developed further.
The first game of The Sims has several limitations, most notably that children never grow up to become adults, though babies do eventually become children. Also, adult Sims never age (or die of old age), and there is no concept of weekends. For example, adults and children are expected to go to work and attend school respectively, every day. In particular, adults receive a warning if they miss one day of work, but they are fired if they miss work for two consecutive days. Children can study at home to keep their school grades up.
While there is no eventual objective to the game, states of failure do exist in The Sims . One is that Sims may die, either by starvation, drowning, perishing in a fire, electrocution or by virus (contracted from a pet guinea pig, which can happen when its cage is left dirty). Randomly, the Grim Reaper may
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