At the risk of sounding sentimental, I think we can all agree that there are some things that the old days did better. And while it can be a sort of loaded statement when it comes to gaming I think I’ve picked out one subject relevant to all of us. The Sim franchise has had a long history, massively predating the 25-year old The Sims Franchise – and building on a lot of mechanics that were tried out in the games the predated it. However, it’s the interesting spin-off SimCity Creator that stands out. So here’s the most intriguing feature from SimCity that The Sims could adopt.
What is SimCity Creator?
SimCity Creator was a Wii and DS exclusive version of SimCity released in 2008. But while the Wii version was a fairly straightforward 3D city builder that didn’t do anything too different from the SimCity franchise at the time, Creator for the DS was another story entirely.
Now, the radically different gameplay wasn’t just because of the technical limitations of the time. SimCity DS had already released, and in Japan SimCity Creator had been known as SimCity DS 2; but I suppose tying it in made more sense from a business side of things.
Build a SimCity to stand the test of time
SimCity Creator took a pseudo-Civilization style route of having multiple eras that you could take your city through. Beginning in prehistoric era, you’d progress to medieval, then modern and finally futuristic; the main twist on this being that you could also choose the style of your city from different cultures as you progress (although not mixing and matching, sadly).
A lot of the city will, naturally, change as the eras progress and you upgrade your city (which happens at predetermined points, no tech tree for you) but it allows you not only to have key historic landmarks and certain persistent buildings, but also create themed historical cities too!
This is similar to SimCity Creator for the Wii, with its catalogue of themed buildings. But in Creator there’s more of an emphasis on the changing times, with distinctive and different tiles, landmarks and even public services for certain time periods and culture of your city.
Changing faces
So, what’s the point here? Well, mine would be that if The Sims were to incorporate a major new game-changing mechanic, why not take inspiration from its cousin series? Why not try to translate that to The Sims and make the lives (and deaths) of your Sims something reflected in the changing of the world around them, perhaps with new furniture and conveniences only unlocked in certain periods of time?
Of course, themed buildings aren’t unusual and there have been multiple packs which cover that. But the idea of passing time and subsequently changing themes, I think is something that could really be interesting to explore. After all, one of the big selling points for The Sims as a franchise is that of the interpersonal drama and development of your characters.
We saw a very, very loosely related mechanic called Neighborhood Stories released back in 2022 which integrated numerous life changing events for Sims outside your household. And what about the old chestnut of Sims returning to (un)life as ghosts? Making the obvious passing of time more of a changing history could certainly be an interesting wrinkle.
You only need to look as far as the popularity of historical mods and other themes to see just how interesting this can be, and it’s not as if The Sims 4 has shied away from…well, anything (lightsabres and vampires, anyone?)
But, naturally, this isn’t as simple to implement as I’m making it sound. I doubt it’d be included in Project Rene as it seems a bit too experimental for a Sims spin-off that looks set to compete with other life simulators. Yet considering how much the Sims 4 has covered various themes, different activities and facets of life, maybe changing times could be an option?
