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on Gopher (inofficial)
URI Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI SimCity 3k in 4k (2025)
RataNova wrote 57 min ago:
There's something wonderful about this kind of PC game preservation
rishbz wrote 1 hour 10 min ago:
This sounds super interesting, but I'd buy it on GOG
DonHopkins wrote 3 hours 35 min ago:
Will Wright handed the original Maxis SimCity 3000 team a great design
for the next SimCity (which I think they should have called SimCity
2001 instead of SimCity 3000, to more realistically set expectations).
But they ignored him, and went off on a tangent trying to design their
own ultimate totally general purpose virtual reality (and we know how
well Second Life has done ;), without much thought to what was actually
possible, playable, or fun on current computers.
They gave some demos of the 3D prototype to reporters, then Maxis ran
out of money because it was nowhere near shipping, then EA bought us,
then fired the people who were out of control, and Luc Barthelet
announced to the reporters that SimCity 3000 wouldn't be 3D, but it
would be 2D and beautiful.
Here is a little nugget I saved from that time: Guru's infamous SimCity
3000 design document, from when the 3D design was really going off the
rails: [1] Ocean Quigley says that Guru was really sincere and believed
what he said (and was not just on mushrooms).
I have to admit, that if that's true, then that Guru dude was 15 years
ahead of his time, and not just a crackpot! But he should have
mentioned something about the fact that it would take 15 years to
develop those ideas into a shipping product!
- Peak hubris / scope explosion:
âIt is possible to bridge the chasm of expectations and technology in
the forthcoming year in a realistic and economical manner.â
âThe Real Time Render mode shall define a visual paradigm hitherto
unseen in any game or product.â
âHence attempting to assault the cliff of expectations of the visual
paradigm by means of the linear ladder fails.â
âThere is a whole think tank of concepts and ideas which shall be
explored and implementedâ¦â
- Hardware reality fighting back:
âNeedless to even state this is impossible performance for a delivery
Pentium 75 within one year.â
âTerrifying thought. Cut the flexibility we say ! Letâs govern the
flexibility I say.â
âThatâs a tall order, admittedly, but then, this is an ambitious
project !â
- Glorious jargon poetry:
âThe semi-digested spatial data is nothing more than just that.â
âThis data simultaneously suffers further transformationâ¦â
âThe motion window is always stabilized and will âflyâ.â
âThe Snapshot Port â a.k.a. The Portrait of Realityâ
âcausation of an event singularity for the common reference of the
simulator and the visual computing systemâ
- The âthere / that / do thisâ interface:
âOnce âthatâ has been identified to be able to âdoâ
âthisâ to âthatââ¦â
âThe user can merely point âthereâ: and place a building. The
user can point to âthatâ building and delete it.â
âA single pencil beam shot back into the scene from the point of the
mouseâ¦â
- Biology metaphor goes full Spore:
âThe species of the virtual world⦠shall be encoded for spatial
representation as chromosomesâ¦â
âThe species itself shall be represented in its completeness as a
self descriptive cell.â
âNeedless to add⦠if transfer RNA were metaphorically the lifts of
the buildingâ¦â
âThe other facet⦠is the ability to create more species by
crossbreeding and mutation of species.â
- Buildings become existential -- this is the crown jewel:
âThe behavioral transformation over time has a standard pattern
Now Iâm a cylinder and Now Iâm an egg
Now Iâm smooth & shiny and Now Iâm not
Now I am mottled and Now Iâm not
Now I feel mottled and Now I do not
Now Iâm here and Now Iâm over there
something or the other blah blahâ
- Las Vegas shark tent cinematic universe:
âOnce the Simulator and the VC shell agree that there is a building
called Big Joeâs Shark Tentâ¦â
âyes I have neon lights, I have thirty bulbs all having high level
scriptsâ¦â
âaaah OK ! you got it ! the script is queued, byeâ
- Voxel fever dreams:
âThis throws up the possibilities of bulldozers actually bulldozing
soil. And Mining community towns actually mining inside a silver mine
!!!!â
âVoxel space animation methods can actually cause earthquakes.â
âThe display of a building or a city block being engulfed by
splitting seams of the earth is not an impossible targetâ¦â
- Favorite one-liner:
âModelessness is messy.â
URI [1]: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rnvzKdJp9tyEJwEGxsIjoHnT4R...
bentobean wrote 4 hours 26 min ago:
I also love this game. I was so hoping someone had managed to port this
to WASM.
yard2010 wrote 8 hours 34 min ago:
> Risky biscuits: building 1WTC and 2WTC but no hospitals or fire
stations. I like to tease fate.
Too soon, too soon..
S-E-P wrote 9 hours 31 min ago:
So many hours, this was my SimCity experience and I still can hear the
jazz.
This and Rollercoaster Tycoon and Doom II was my jam.
shevy-java wrote 10 hours 38 min ago:
I liked the SimCity franchise. However had, while the graphics improved
a lot, the first SimCity is still my favourite, largely because the
actual gameplay was quite simple and efficient to use. I always found
this strange, because the graphics got better but the actual gameplay
itself got worse. I also noticed this even more so with civilization;
playing the first part is super-fast and super-easy; later parts
required so much more computational calculations, there was more lag,
and more annoying UI animations (not all were annoying, but when I want
to make a move, I want to make a move, not wait until unit xyz has to
do a break for smoking for the next 10 minutes).
symlinkk wrote 15 hours 45 min ago:
I'm surprised a bunch of tech professionals are totally fine with
downloading random .dll's and patching executables. How do you know
this is safe?
baron3dl wrote 4 hours 37 min ago:
Windows on Hyper-V, on Proxmox, air gapped, wearing an aluminum foil
cap.
democracy wrote 17 hours 47 min ago:
Genius!
Hobadee wrote 18 hours 54 min ago:
> I will not pay for the same game twice.
I firmly disagree with that point. If the game is well-made and
enjoyable, the developer probably deserves some extra cash thrown their
way. Games remain one of the best bang-for-your-buck when it comes to
entertainment anyways. ($50 can get you DAYS of enjoyment, compared to
going to a movie theater, theme park, or other paid attractions)
So yes, go ahead and purchase an enjoyable game multiple times if it's
a good game. I certainly have!
oneeyedpigeon wrote 9 hours 11 min ago:
I agree that games are excellent value, particularly compared to the
90s when they cost a LOT more than they do today. However, I think
the point is a wider one: even if games were priced more 'fairly',
should you be able to buy a game and then have, effectively,
perpetual ownership of it?
bombcar wrote 15 hours 38 min ago:
The copies of Stardew Valley are not free but you can just buy them
on every device you have I have 436 copies of Stardew Valley.
1xn wrote 19 hours 6 min ago:
Uhh... in 4k glory. This is one of my top games ever. Just bought the
book "BUILDING SIMCITY" from MIT Press and I have it next to me to keep
me company.
bglynn wrote 19 hours 26 min ago:
Back when SimCity 2000 was released, younger me somehow found a phone
number for Maxis and actually called them to rave about it. At some
point in the message, I very confidently told them to make âSimCity
3000.â
When SimCity 3000 came out, I couldn't help but wonder if I inspired
them. "Remember that kid was really stoked about 3000."
Hobadee wrote 19 hours 0 min ago:
I'm pretty sure the phone number was just printed on the manual back
then... Many games back then had a phone number printed in the
manual.
Lammy wrote 20 hours 26 min ago:
My favorite SimCity game by far. The aesthetics are flawless.
I was so happy to score the physical âMusic From SimCity 3000â
soundtrack CD at the Alemany Flea Market fifteen or so years ago: [1] >
Some of the music from the original release is missing from an .ini
file, even though it is present in Unlimited.
Article neglects to mention that the tracks which are included in
Unlimited are lower-bitrate and monophonic compared to the same songs
in stereo from the 1.0 release. Copy the same-name files from the
original CD instead :)
Unlimited is sad because data-mining shows that it was almost
multiplayer à la SC2k Network Edition:
URI [1]: https://www.discogs.com/release/794952-Jerry-Martin-Music-From...
URI [2]: https://tcrf.net/SimCity_3000_Unlimited/Unused_Multiplayer_Tex...
wonkyfruit wrote 4 hours 6 min ago:
Good shout on grabbing from the original CD. The mono and lower
bitrate is almost always install-footprint maths. Stereo CD audio is
~10MB per minute. Halve the channels, drop the bitrate, the
soundtrack fits in a few MB. Worth the swap if you've still got the
disc.
DonHopkins wrote 6 hours 20 min ago:
I really love Jerry Martin's music. He did the iconic music in the
Sims too, collaborating with Marc Ruso and Kirk Casey. [1] [2] [3]
Here are his web sites with more: [4] âThe Streetsâ
70âs Car Chase Music (reminds me of the Austin Powers theme Soul
Bosa Nova by Quincy Jones): [5] âBatucadaâ
Bossa Nova: [6] âNew Beginningsâ
This one is definitely in the 4 million plus club for plays on
youtube: [7] âLetâs Go Shoppingâ
Happy 50âs Shopping Music: [8] Jerry Martin â Music From SimCity
3000: [9] Simcity 4 Soundtrack [10] SimCasino (Early Access) -
Soundtrack Sessions Complete: [11] How The Sims Made New-Age Jazz
Piano the Soundtrack of Our Lives: [12] >The Sims soundtrack is an
iconic piece of video game music, and the build mode's minimalist new
age jazz piano songs are undoubtedly among it's most famous tracks.
We spoke to Jerry Martin, the composer of the soundtrack, to find out
how and why new age jazz piano became the sound of The Sims.
The Sims Soundtrack CHEATED. Here's how: [13] The Untold Story of
'The Sims,' Your First Favorite Jazz Record: [14] Music in The Sims:
[15] Interview with SimCasino Composer Jerry Martin!
A Master of Simulation Game Music: [16] SimCity Micropolis Tile Sets
Space Inventory Cellular Automata To Jerry Martin's Chill Resolve:
[17]
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Martin_(composer)
URI [2]: https://www.last.fm/music/Marc+Russo
URI [3]: https://soundcloud.com/kirk-casey
URI [4]: https://boombamboom.com/
URI [5]: https://jerrymartinmusic.com/music-70s-car-chase-1/
URI [6]: https://jerrymartinmusic.com/music-bossa-nova-3/
URI [7]: https://jerrymartinmusic.com/music-sims-1-build-1/
URI [8]: https://jerrymartinmusic.com/music-shopping-1/
URI [9]: https://www.discogs.com/release/794952-Jerry-Martin-Music-Fr...
URI [10]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSv37HwwojU
URI [11]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOm9SSXyQ_g
URI [12]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LpVUi9TQ8U
URI [13]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJMds3jT7c8
URI [14]: https://www.vice.com/en/article/the-untold-story-of-the-sims...
URI [15]: https://sims.fandom.com/wiki/Music_in_The_Sims
URI [16]: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1158420/view/4689895...
URI [17]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=319i7slXcbI
Zardoz84 wrote 20 hours 36 min ago:
Call to Vinnie and build the mythical SIM Castle...
dcrazy wrote 21 hours 9 min ago:
SC3Kâs art was not âcrafted pixel by pixel.â It was rendered from
3DS Max. Maxis released a version of G-Max called the Building
Architect Tool that included a template with the same lighting rig that
they used for the in-game assets. This tool rendered and exported the
various zoom levels and orientations.
AshamedCaptain wrote 9 hours 26 min ago:
You're describing SimCity 4, not SimCity 3000. The SC3k tool is not
entirely 2D, but it does mostly behave like one (with emulated voxels
instead of pixels).
And while I cannot confirm what Maxis was doing internally, I am
quite sure no-one was using 3DS Max for rendering game assets in the
90s considering it had just been released and well into the 2000s it
was still humongously slow.
crumpled wrote 1 hour 16 min ago:
quite sure = confidently wrong
paulbjensen wrote 21 hours 56 min ago:
Another factor was that although both SimCity 3k and SimCity 4 both had
a maximum of 256x256 tiles for their cities, the scale was different.
A SimCity 3000 tile edge was equivalent to 64m, whereas in SimCity 4 it
was 16m. The scale of the city in SimCity 3000 was bigger as a result.
Hoping to test this principle of largest possible map sizes out soon.
phaser wrote 22 hours 5 min ago:
I love this game so much. One of the reasons I started to make a city
builder* is because I don't like where the genre is going.
The focus on photorealism in modern city builders took away the
apophenia, or "food for imagination" that was a core element since the
first SimCity. As a matter of fact, Will Wright used to say that the
real simulation runs in the player's minds (or something like that).
Sure, there's something great about Cities Skylines that (at least with
very powerful hardware) can look and feel like reality. But at the same
time the game engine, in order to make this photorealism of terrain
elevations with infinite possible shapes of infrastructure, is so
complex that the actual simulation is sloppy, and feels to me like a
big downgrade from SC3000.
Traffic, economics, zoning, crime, pollution. are so much practical to
simulate (both in the computer, and in our mind models) in this classic
isometric style.
* [1] edit: spelling
URI [1]: https://microlandia.city
butlike wrote 2 hours 30 min ago:
Your game looks good. A special 'thank you' for porting it (building
it?) for macOS.
HeckFeck wrote 4 hours 12 min ago:
Looks pretty cool. Reminds me also of Metropolis 1998, which is also
going for the isometric style - with a lot more detail, i.e. you can
design individual homes and see the lives of "sims" too, something
like if SimCity and The Sims were merged. [1] [2] It has a demo on
Steam now: [3] It's quite playable already, and it's a very small
100Mb download.
URI [1]: https://yesboxstudios.com/
URI [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZHI2bCCpl0
URI [3]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2287430/Metropolis_1998/
pixel_popping wrote 8 hours 12 min ago:
I'll buy it if you add crypto payment + a tip.
simondotau wrote 9 hours 26 min ago:
Looks great. For accuracy, when you build something, occasionally
construction should stop half way through. You're then told that
costs have doubled, and you'll need to pay again to complete the
construction.
hutattedonmyarm wrote 9 hours 45 min ago:
This sounds super interesting, but I'd much rather buy it on GOG than
on Steam or itch.io. Any chance on releasing it there?
cassianoleal wrote 7 hours 35 min ago:
May I bother you to expand on why GOG over itch.io?
I also prefer to use GOG whenever I can, but I really donât know
enough about itch.io to judge it. Iâm hoping you can help bridge
that knowledge gap.
hutattedonmyarm wrote 3 hours 8 min ago:
Mainly, so that I don't have my games spread out over too many
platforms :)
taneq wrote 7 hours 31 min ago:
Iâm not them, but games from GOG donât (AFAIK) have any DRM.
So you can play them forever without having to log on to Steam
etc.
cassianoleal wrote 3 hours 36 min ago:
Thanks but note that I wasn't asking for a comparison between
GOG and Steam. I know both of those pretty well.
phaser wrote 8 hours 57 min ago:
I love GOG and I would publish there in a heartbeat but I never
hear back from them :(
shevy-java wrote 10 hours 36 min ago:
Although I don't have the same focus, I also came to the same
conclusion: the actual game and gameplay itself got worse over the
years. Same with civilization and many other games. Modern game
designers don't understand this or don't care. But I spoke to some of
them, and while I initially thought they understand but don't care,
most of them really do not UNDERSTAND the problem domain. In
particular younger ones; many of them have not played old games.
nprateem wrote 14 hours 1 min ago:
I wish someone would do this for a modern TTD but with railroad
tycoon stock market/economy dynamics
hdgvhicv wrote 10 hours 59 min ago:
Which RT? The first was my first PC game I played, on CGA and
keyboard only (5,1,2)
RT2 (which I played on Linux through Loki) was very different.
LASR wrote 14 hours 35 min ago:
Incredible. Since youâre the dev, please please please isometric
camera.
phaser wrote 8 hours 52 min ago:
The camera is very very close to isometric but as you've noticed,
it's not an ortographic projection. During early access I decided
against it but tbh I can't recall why. I'll go back to the drawing
board on this one (or at least allow it to be enabled in settings)
scruple wrote 18 hours 28 min ago:
This is fabulous and I'm going to buy a copy to play on my SteamDeck.
Will be sure to leave a review after I've put some hours into it!
RobKohr wrote 19 hours 18 min ago:
Do you have water and ports on the roadmap. I'd love some boats :)
phaser wrote 18 hours 35 min ago:
There's plans for: river map, island map, peninsula map, port zone,
(with docks and containers), industrial fishing.
All in different stages of development. Can't say for sure when
it's gonna be live but it's locked in.
uproarchat wrote 19 hours 36 min ago:
This looks great, I just bought a copy. While it's downloading I'm
perusing the listing, and I'm curious if this supports generating a
large image/print of your finished city, like you could in SCURK
(SimCity Urban Renewal Kit, which shipped with SC2K).
One thing I particularly loved was printing out very large maps of my
city to go on the wall :)
Edit: I like the music a lot, and the little tutorial guy is
endearing. One question, how do I move the viewport around? I tried
scroll click drag, mouse button drag, arrow keys.
phaser wrote 19 hours 24 min ago:
That's a super cool idea. Actually we have an internal thingy to
export your city to blender, then we can have nice images like this
one: [1] Maybe we manage to make something that doesn't need
blender (though it probably won't look as cool) or we just stop
dev-gatekeeping the function that exports the 3d file. Consider it
done for the next point release :)
URI [1]: https://microlandia.city/assets/press/keyart/t21.jpeg
danielheath wrote 15 hours 48 min ago:
Spent a bit of time with it.
Biggest peeve so far: It's very easy to build the 'premium'
version of a building (eg police HQ instead of police station)
and utterly annihilate your city budget - with no ability to
cancel / undo.
"Click on the correct-looking-but-actually-wrong button
functionally ends your game" is... not great.
Other than that, I'm really enjoying it.
phaser wrote 8 hours 47 min ago:
I see. I'm adding an option to "disable" a building, so you'll
be able to suspend a city service due to budget constraints or
any other reason.
uproarchat wrote 19 hours 9 min ago:
Beautiful, yes, that's what I am looking for. One question, how
do I move the viewport around? I've tried various click drags and
arrow keys. Pan/zoom/tilt works great.
phaser wrote 19 hours 3 min ago:
Up and down arrow keys will change the tilt. left right to
rotate in 90 degree steps. WASD to pan.
(the keys can be changed in control settings)
If you're looking for a free-angle view we don't have it, the
game is designed to be looked like a isometric game. Having
said that, I'm working on a "photo mode" that frees the camera
and lets you choose a lens (with depth of field) and a film but
so far it's only for shooting pictures and not for actually
playing the game.
uproarchat wrote 19 hours 1 min ago:
Thank you, WASD is what I was looking for. I just want to
take a moment and say I find the music very nostalgic, it's
great. Can you tell me more about the soundtrack? Is this
tracker music?
In other news, I was on track to win re-election and lost. I
lost while having the selector for building a structure
enabled, and that was stuck on the placing-a-tile, even
though I'd lost and the game ended. Very fun game
nonetheless!
phaser wrote 18 hours 39 min ago:
The compositions are by Pablo Rubio, a long time
collaborator. Originally it's inspired in the soundtrack of
Transport Tycoon Deluxe. The music is not tracker music but
we made the artistic decision to use similar limitations
(small number of channels, sample-based instruments) to get
the aesthetics of tracker music (actually SNES music but
practically the same principles). The soundtrack is still
getting expanded. Every month we add a new track to the
playlist.
uproarchat wrote 18 hours 5 min ago:
Thanks for the explanation, it hits the mark. Please pass
on the compliments to Pablo, the soundtrack does a lot to
set the mood. I'm about to start my next city, hopefully
I do better in the election :) Thanks for sharing this, I
was not expecting to get this sucked in so fast.
nkrisc wrote 19 hours 56 min ago:
The thing is, Iâd actually rather play a game that is basically a
virtual modeling hobby than a deep city simulation.
I think Cities Skylines scratched that itch for a lot of people.
yreg wrote 20 hours 1 min ago:
I've commented this many times, but I definitely want to see more
isometric grid games like SC3k, RC2 or TTD.
They were less-realistic, yes, but is so pleasant how everything ties
together and you can neatly fill out the whole map.
Meanwhile, while I like Cities Skylines or Planet Zoo, it is always
incredibly awkward to build roads and paths to the point where I find
it frustrating.
98codes wrote 2 hours 33 min ago:
Isometric sims make it easy to build something that looks good. CS
& PZ can make things look incredible, but it's a PITA to get there.
fendy3002 wrote 16 hours 46 min ago:
it's so frustrating in Cities Skylines without mods, that it's so
common difference in height causing so much placement issues
HerbManic wrote 20 hours 1 min ago:
> The focus on photorealism in modern city builders took away the
apophenia
That would be a real challenge to achieve simply because most of us
are constantly surrounded by cities, but it is something that we
should strive for.
For instance, game designer Fumito Ueda (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus,
Last Guardian) said that I never wants to visit any old castles or
ruins for fear that it would ruin his imagination on how game worlds
should be built. It is a fair point, none of his games have had any
focus on reality in terms of scale and that is what makes them so
special.
Also looking at your game... can I get a copy of Microslop
Excellence? ;)
raddan wrote 20 hours 25 min ago:
Awesome! I am going to try this when I have some time next week.
Fantasizing about how to make a better SimCity 25 years ago is what
inspired me to pursue a computer science degree. I got sidetracked by
a PhD and never returned to making games. Maybe your version is the
one I always wanted!
sowbug wrote 20 hours 29 min ago:
On Steam Deck, I am having a rough time with the road that the
paperclip wants me to place. Holding down the physical A button (of
the ABXY group) and wiggling around the left joystick (as well as
every other control I can think of), both pressed and not pressed.
Sometimes I'll see the green highlight appear, and I can stretch it
out into a road path, but when I release A, it just vanishes.
phaser wrote 20 hours 8 min ago:
Iâm taking a look at that right now. Thanks for flagging this
Sohcahtoa82 wrote 20 hours 37 min ago:
Your simulation sounds incredible!
How big can cities get, though? One of the things I love about
Cities Skylines is how massive the land plots are, and the tiny plots
of SimCity 2013 was a bigger turnoff than anything else in its
disastrous launch.
bombcar wrote 15 hours 34 min ago:
The real key will be to discover how to run a city simulation such
that it doesn't all have to be "active" at the same time (e.g, the
opposite of the Factorio simulation).
phaser wrote 20 hours 34 min ago:
At this moment, not so big but lately I've done some interesting
technical breakthroughs that will enable large maps :D ... or at
least a lot larger than SimCity 2013
keeganpoppen wrote 20 hours 40 min ago:
whoa that game looks very coolâ love it. also loved SC3k⦠the
soundtrack was amazing. game was kinda lowkey hard, though. or maybe
it was because i was just a kid haha.
izietto wrote 20 hours 51 min ago:
You got me , enjoy your 8,99 â¬
albertzeyer wrote 20 hours 58 min ago:
I think the simulation in Cities Skylines is also quite advanced, or
not? The simulation is much more the reason why it requires powerful
hardware to run on, much less the graphics.
turtlesdown11 wrote 2 hours 9 min ago:
its honestly only palatable with dozens of mods, which is
disqualifying to me
bombcar wrote 16 hours 41 min ago:
Cities Skylines has pretty decent simulation and it uses quite a
bit of raw CPU horsepower, but it only really shines with tonnes of
mods (just like SimCity 4 before it).
Realistic traffic is always the bane of these simulators.
herdymerzbow wrote 18 hours 56 min ago:
Can't speak on how demanding the simulation is/was. But on launch
Cities Skylines 2 was extremely demanding in respect of its
graphics due to very poor optimisation. This PC Gamer article
summarises a more technical analysis, which is linked through
URI [1]: https://www.pcgamer.com/a-tech-analysis-of-cities-skylines...
paavohtl wrote 13 hours 32 min ago:
I'm the author of said technical analysis! ( [1] )
But yes, at launch Cities Skylines 2 was very heavily GPU bound,
due to very unoptimized meshes and a poor culling implementation.
I haven't profiled it afterwards, but from what I've read they've
optimized it enough that on most systems the limiting factor is
now the CPU.
URI [1]: https://blog.paavo.me/cities-skylines-2-performance/
herdymerzbow wrote 5 hours 18 min ago:
Thank you for your analysis! Apologies for not linking to you
by name but I thought I'd keep it light and refer to the PC
Gamer summary, which does link through to you as well for those
who would be interested.
john_strinlai wrote 21 hours 1 min ago:
> [1] thanks for sharing that. i'm a big city builder fan, but this
one slipped by me. looks cool, and i'll be picking it up!
URI [1]: https://microlandia.city
JMiao wrote 21 hours 35 min ago:
you had me at apophenia
deadbabe wrote 8 hours 30 min ago:
Indeed, never heard this word but itâs so useful.
delichon wrote 21 hours 36 min ago:
> I don't like where the genre is going.
Got an opinion on Timberborn? I think it's a great city builder, plus
a fluid dynamics simulator where if you guess wrong everyone dies.
8note wrote 17 hours 13 min ago:
timberborn doesnt have the beavers figuring out for themselves what
to do, and operate with agents pulling jobs you the player put on a
queue rather than statistics.
its a lot more like dwarf fortress than sim city
yreg wrote 19 hours 59 min ago:
To me it got boring quite quickly. But maybe so would Sim City at
my current age, I can't know.
Fabricio20 wrote 21 hours 22 min ago:
Not the same genre (at least for me). Timberborn is more like a
colony builder (think Rimworld) than a city builder (SimCity/Cities
Skylines). Its the micromanaging vs macromanaging, in a colony
builder you are micromanaging what each creature does (such as
timberborn or rimworld) while on a city builder you manage the city
itself and invididual pawns are alot less important! Plus the
survival aspect in that sense doesnt really add up when I'd like to
play with the simulation aspects - education, traffic, crime,
etc..!
mathgeek wrote 21 hours 4 min ago:
100% agree here. City builders for me eschew individual citizens
in favor of group statistics, to oversimplify it.
Dwedit wrote 23 hours 6 min ago:
4K screen resolution, not a 4KB intro.
nico wrote 23 hours 20 min ago:
Loved SimCity growing up.
Would it be possible to automate porting the windows version into a mac
or web version? Like giving a long-running agent the task and some
tools to check/play the game on both platforms?
cguess wrote 22 hours 8 min ago:
SimCity 4 has a native Mac build, it's on Steam. Most of the modding
community uses Windows now though since the .dll hacks became
feasible.
bombcar wrote 15 hours 36 min ago:
SimCity 4 not only has a native Mac build, but it has an
applesilicon one (I believe you have to enable a beta flag
somewhere).
Pretty impressive for a game released in 2003.
Oh my goodness SC4 is 23 years old. I'll go be old in the corner.
spockz wrote 22 hours 57 min ago:
At this point you can probably just run it with proton or wine. Why
bother porting the whole thing?
nico wrote 14 hours 13 min ago:
For fun and customization. This guy used Claude to decompile and
recreate an old mac game:
URI [1]: https://www.tiktok.com/@philsmy/video/7644482888544636180
nonamenoslogan wrote 22 hours 30 min ago:
Can confirm it runs on Debian with Wine just fine.
Paul_S wrote 23 hours 28 min ago:
What a strange person, from the same author: [1] I don't understand how
you can feel morally superior by blocking the overtaking lane and
letting people through if they're respectful enough.
URI [1]: https://www.thran.uk/writ/yarn/2025/03/road-rage-maxxing-or-tr...
nsavage wrote 8 hours 17 min ago:
According to Denis Leary, he would be an "asshole".
URI [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrgpZ0fUixs
detritus wrote 8 hours 51 min ago:
Funny, I'm reading this as very dry, tongue-in-cheek humour.
hdgvhicv wrote 10 hours 42 min ago:
I think Chelsea tractors belong in Chelsea, certainly not here in the
country where they are completely unsuitable given the size
However he lost me at
> I was cruising in the fast lane, minding my own business
There is no fast lane in the U.K (including NI). There are overtaking
lanes. If you are in this lane itâs because you are overtaking
slower moving traffic in inside lanes.
If you arenât, then you need to be losing your license
jmkni wrote 2 hours 19 min ago:
There's a small caveat to this, technically in the UK the police
are allowed to speed if they are heading to an emergency, they
don't need livery on their cars or even sirens
So if you're in the outer lane and the person behind you wants to
go faster than you and get past, get out of their way.
It's safer anyway, and also you don't know who they are or where
they're going.
doublerabbit wrote 4 hours 24 min ago:
And to those who cruise in the middle lane at 60.
IncandescentGas wrote 22 hours 37 min ago:
Off topic rage bait harassment has top comment? Why?
foo12bar wrote 22 hours 54 min ago:
Tailgating in a massive SUV is not disrespectful, it's dangerous to
other person. Why encourage this behavior by immediately letting them
through?
curiousgal wrote 12 hours 53 min ago:
Because the author is the one breaking the law, the right lane is
for passing, not for cruising.
mock-possum wrote 12 hours 59 min ago:
Because itâs safer to do so. If accidents only ever hurt the
driver responsible, that wouldnât be such a big deal - but
youâre a fool if you think thatâs how the real world works.
MaxHoppersGhost wrote 15 hours 26 min ago:
Or how about you get the heck out of the fast lane when someone is
approaching you going faster? Tailgating is an acceptable and
common way to tell someone to gtfo of the way. That is common
courtesy in most states in the U.S.
uxp100 wrote 2 hours 21 min ago:
No, itâs not. Please stop driving and leave it to the adults.
dessimus wrote 22 hours 12 min ago:
You don't know why they are tailgating or in a rush. For all anyone
knows, they could have a passenger in a medical emergency.
hypfer wrote 22 hours 13 min ago:
I suppose the middle ground is to just continue what you were doing
with a slight negative factor of idk 0.8x speed.
Don't let the people win, but also do not suddenly assume powers
you do not actually have.
Essentially, plausible deniability but on the road.
You might really just be a slow passing slow lane changing driver.
___
The goal is to reintroduce friction into everyday life to nudge
people into being less antisocial and/or make them slightly suffer
for being that.
The goal is not to become a vigilante.
One brings a stable society, the other just a different flavor of
the same chaos that came before.
StableAlkyne wrote 22 hours 37 min ago:
The graveyards are filled with people who had the right-of-way, who
died knowing they were in the right.
And even if it's a slow speed accident, who cares about being right
if you get a disability in the process? It is safer to let them
through so they don't plow into you when you have to suddenly stop.
The only reason to LARP as a highway cop is just ego.
foo12bar wrote 14 hours 50 min ago:
Sure, you can hide and worry about protecting yourself in an ever
more dangerous world, or join people like him and me and take a
stand against bad behavior. If enough people do it, it will make
a difference.
shmeeed wrote 6 hours 28 min ago:
No it won't. You're not "taking a stand". This isn't a bar
fight. You're mistaking responsible defensiveness for
cowardice, and passive-aggressiveness for civil courage.
There is zero chance they'll recognise your dominance, let
alone moral superiority, and walk away changed from a teaching
moment. They're not even seeing you as a person. They only see
your car as one more obstacle among so many other "idiots", and
it's quite probable you're provoking only more reckless
behaviour.
StableAlkyne wrote 12 hours 56 min ago:
> you can hide and worry about protecting yourself in an ever
more dangerous world
This is a childish mindset. It would be worth taking a
defensive driving course if you haven't done so, it may be
helpful.
> join people like him and me and take a stand against bad
behavior
Ironically, impeding faster traffic by camping the passing lane
is also illegal in several states (yes, even if you're going
the speed limit).
john_strinlai wrote 22 hours 41 min ago:
something else dangerous: purposefully trying to incite a road rage
incident.
in the wise words of reddit: ESH (everyone sucks here)
dnnddidiej wrote 22 hours 55 min ago:
Not only that this is so dangerous. Back off, and let the idiots
idiot.
That said, probably don't want to discuss other weird posts for each
HN submission!
iknowstuff wrote 23 hours 9 min ago:
> his is allegedly for better compatibility for streaming, but since
I'm not an egotist who needs every second of his life broadcast to an
audience, we will switch it to true fullscreen.
Ahh of course, every streamer streams every second and is
egotistical. What a moron
HeckFeck wrote 4 hours 10 min ago:
Hey, if you make your money from playing to an audience, you can
take a little joke ;)
jjordan wrote 23 hours 12 min ago:
Real people are complex and hold a wide palette of skills, opinions,
habits, biases, etc. Just enjoy the good and disregard the bad.
LeoPanthera wrote 18 hours 6 min ago:
There is a huge difference between "people are complex" and
actively advertising your antisocial and frankly dangerous actions
online, and being proud of them.
If he wants me to disregard them, he shouldn't be writing blog
posts about them.
HeckFeck wrote 4 hours 2 min ago:
Ikr? Driving massively oversized vehicles in a country where the
roads have been designed for small family cars at best, taking up
1.2 parking bays in every shop car park, and lording it over
others like you're the king of the road in your hideous pale
white hulks, yeah that's terribly antisocial behaviour.
We need more than blog posts, we need the government to do
something. I'm thinking of starting a campaign for Saner Roads if
you'd join me.
hypfer wrote 12 hours 7 min ago:
While I understand the sentiment and generally agree with it, I
find it weird that you completely gloss over the fact that it is
reactive antisocial mirroring behavior.
The blogging person is definitely making stuff worse, but they're
just amplifying. The source of the problem is to be found
elsewhere.
A surprising amount of comments in here seem to completely
disregard that for some reason.
jp191919 wrote 23 hours 18 min ago:
I think it's some type of personality disorder.
HeckFeck wrote 4 hours 9 min ago:
I agree. Someone should have this dangerous man sectioned.
wehnsdaefflae wrote 23 hours 23 min ago:
Well, I can
zuzululu wrote 23 hours 32 min ago:
what would be really cool is a first person world generated from
simcity maps and you can walk around and go inside buildings etc
ChoGGi wrote 19 hours 38 min ago:
It would be nice if they remade Simcopter or Streets of SimCity yeah
nielsbot wrote 23 hours 36 min ago:
> SimCity 3000 is the best SimCity
I disagree! SimCity 2K FTW. :)
Best balance of complexity IMO and ran pretty well on my old Mac. I'd
love a retro-futuristic reboot.
somat wrote 19 hours 3 min ago:
I was replaying SC2K(dos) recently and it is much harder than I
expected. Usually these city games are fairly easy chill affairs. On
a 1900 hard(max bond) start the only way I found to succeed(marked
when I payed off all bonds) was to pause(to avoid early bond
repayment losses), use all your money to setup the perfect layout for
the next 40 years. Then wait in debt(can't build anything) for 40
years while hopefully your city profit grows past the bond interest
amount and you are able to slowly claw yourself out of the red. Then
immediately start saving for the replacement power plant as your
original one will explode soon. I was not making a comfortable profit
until about 1960. And this was after many failed cities, can't fix
anything when you can't build anything.
DanielHB wrote 10 hours 50 min ago:
Couldn't you do external connections to sell power and water? I
vaguely remember this being the best strat in the beginning. Or
maybe that was just in 3k.
JMiao wrote 21 hours 27 min ago:
i first played 2000 when it was bundled with my family's windows 95
pc, and was sad to learn that gog/steam sell the inferior dos
variant. but, yes, 2000 was just right.
syockit wrote 8 hours 24 min ago:
I think that's because it's easier to package a DOSbox program than
a Win16 program (it had Win32 edition, but supposedly the installer
itself was Win16). According to pcgamingwiki, there's a patch to
convert the GOG DOS edition to the Win32 edition.
auto wrote 22 hours 19 min ago:
Not sure to what extent you're looking for a reboot to be
representative of the original, but I've been following the
development of this indie spiritual successor for some time:
URI [1]: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2287430/Metropolis_1998/
petepete wrote 11 hours 4 min ago:
This looks fantastic.
I worry that its scope might be a bit wide.
From planning region-wide infrastructure (the thing I love about
city builders/OpenTTD) right down to deciding how many wardrobes
someone needs. How well can it do those things and everything
inbetween?
But, I'll definitely be giving it a go. Thanks for posting the
link.
AbraKdabra wrote 23 hours 46 min ago:
Man, I played the fuck out of this game in my teens, it's in my top 5
best games ever made.
racl101 wrote 1 day ago:
I'd love to see to see this game remade and released. I'd buy it in a
second.
ortusdux wrote 1 day ago:
Diablo 1 in 4k -
URI [1]: https://i.imgur.com/4ResbPc.jpeg
sp1nningaway wrote 1 day ago:
Sim City 3k is my least played Sim City game, but this is inspiring me
to take another look. I really like the sweaty micromanagement and
bigger scope of 4, but maybe I will prefer 3k's simplicity in my old
age.
The picture caption with a 9/11 joke is a little off-putting, but it's
at least proof that this isn't AI generated content...
nonamenoslogan wrote 22 hours 31 min ago:
Some of us use 9/11 as a milestone event in our lexicon of world
changing events.
jedberg wrote 23 hours 44 min ago:
> The picture caption with a 9/11 joke is a little off-putting
9/11 seems to be an important milestone in his life. In the about
section of his web page it says this:
Q:/> How old are you?
A:/> I can't remember the collapse of the Soviet Union, but I can
remember 9/11.
TheGRS wrote 22 hours 19 min ago:
I always thought of 9/11 as the major event for older millennials.
I used to think it was all millennials, but many weren't even in
kindergarten when it happened.
voidfunc wrote 19 hours 12 min ago:
Honestly my personal millennial generation cut-off is the
"remember before 9/11 world" vs "don't before remember 9/11
world" group of kids.
iccananea wrote 1 day ago:
Signs that you are old: I saw "in 4k" and thought that it was in 4
kilobytes, not 4k resolution
vardump wrote 22 hours 51 min ago:
Or a demoscener.
arjie wrote 1 day ago:
This was one of my favourite games. City simulators took up an enormous
amount of my childhood and I still dream about arcologies. When I see a
modern development like Brentwood in Canada's BC or some older ones
like along the river in Chicago it reminds me of the wonders we can
build.
As an aside since it's in the article, what are other cultures'
irreverent targets? e.g. Anglo-cultures seem to casually joke about
disasters like he does here about 9/11. Somewhat diminished by the fact
that he's British, not American, but Americans do it too, and the
American-British interaction involves this and Irish Car Bombs taken
rather lightly. I find that curious. Do the Quebecois joke about
Opération Satanique and the French have likewise a thing they make fun
of the Quebecois for? Or is this an Anglo-culture thing? Obviously, I
principally read in English so this might be specific to my language.
RataNova wrote 52 min ago:
The arcologies are such a perfect example of what these games did
well
dylan604 wrote 22 hours 13 min ago:
> and I still dream about arcologies
even after 9/11 and London's Greenfeel Tower fire? The vertical
living seems very strained to me after events like that. Sure, they
are not common issues, but there's always that thought in the back of
my mind of what if.
lbrito wrote 19 hours 17 min ago:
Apartments are safer than single family houses regarding fires.
In 2023, the annual fire fatality rates for single-family homes and
older multifamily homes were roughly equivalent at 7.6 and 7.7
deaths per million, respectively. In contrast, according to Pew
researchers, the annual fire fatality rate for newer multifamily
residences was 1.2 deaths per million.
URI [1]: https://www.multifamilyexecutive.com/apartment-trends/mode...
pbronez wrote 5 hours 47 min ago:
Does that change with the growing market share of 5 over 1 wooden
mixed used buildings?
dylan604 wrote 18 hours 46 min ago:
A single family home built to today's standards will be safer
than an apartment built 50 years ago. Of course newer built
anything complying with modernized fire safety regulations will
be safer than older anything. I feel like your point is missing
the mark
xboxnolifes wrote 21 hours 42 min ago:
I feel like at the scale of an arcology, there isn't really much of
a meaningful difference between there being a fire blocking your
escape in the massive structure vs, say, fire blocking you escape
in a mall. You're either completely surrounded by fire or you're
not.
jiggawatts wrote 22 hours 3 min ago:
The Grenfell fire was caused by petty corruption. Someone involved
in its construction used a cheaper flammable cladding material
instead of the (slightly!!) more expensive fire resistant version.
Itâs very on-brand for places like Russia and China but clearly
western countries are not immune to this kind of thing either.
After the fire there were investigations into towers constructed
here in Australia. Many used the cheaper flammable cladding
material also. Just like with Grenfell, nothing much was done and
nobody went to prison.
dylan604 wrote 21 hours 56 min ago:
What does that have to do with the actual idea that being in a
tall building could make it difficult to escape. It doesn't
matter if the cause of the disaster is cheap building materials
or an external force acting on a properly built building.
themanualstates wrote 14 hours 30 min ago:
The material should've behaved like concrete; stopping fire /
smoke instead of spreading it.
That way firefighters can take people down the elevators safely
etc.
selectively wrote 1 day ago:
Obnoxious author. Refusing to 'pay twice' for a game they care enough
about to go through all this trouble + deeply obnoxious bit about
Windows 11 at the end of of the post.
luxuryballs wrote 1 day ago:
What A View! Sims Thrilled As Local Landscaping Artist Hosts DIY Expo
rl3 wrote 1 day ago:
SC3K had a masterfully executed advisor system that felt both classy
and warm. Ditto its music and art.
Unfortunately for SC4, they proceeded to make all the advisors
3D-rendered Sims. For SC2K, well: [1] (that was the least offensive
page to link; for the canonical experience start at page 1)
URI [1]: https://www.somethingawful.com/news/simcity-advisors/4/
bknight1983 wrote 4 hours 34 min ago:
YOU CAN'T CUT BACK ON FUNDING! YOU WILL REGRET THIS!!
comradesmith wrote 6 hours 35 min ago:
These arenât actually from the gameâ¦
rl3 wrote 1 hour 46 min ago:
Correct. The advisor portraits are real, though.
DanielHB wrote 10 hours 51 min ago:
I vaguely remember 2 different releases of 3k with different
advisors. I liked the cartoony ones better.
kqr wrote 12 hours 20 min ago:
Wait, are those from Sim City 2000, released in 1993? One of them
references Google Maps, first available under that name somewhere
around 2004?
belthesar wrote 3 hours 10 min ago:
These were likely made with Foone's Death Generator.
URI [1]: https://deathgenerator.com/#sc2k
syockit wrote 8 hours 33 min ago:
I have a very vague memory of being able to name streets, so this
might be that.
danbruc wrote 10 hours 57 min ago:
Also Wazzup? was later. And the dialog looks different in
screenshots you find online but then again there have probably been
quite a few releases. Still, I would say those images are not real
or maybe from some modded version.
tillinghast wrote 16 hours 39 min ago:
These are all amazing. Thank you.
dawnerd wrote 1 day ago:
I hope GOG makes this all an easy to install mod/patch.
kristofferR wrote 23 hours 19 min ago:
claude --dangerously-skip-permissions -p "get this all installed [1]
"
URI [1]: https://www.thran.uk/writ/hdid/2025/12/simcity-3k-in-4k.html
xerox13ster wrote 1 day ago:
Replace the executable, even on a Steam copy.
dawnerd wrote 22 hours 19 min ago:
There's more than just the widescreen patch. It would be really
nice if they automated configuring and installing the other tweaks
to make it really playable.
receiptful-io wrote 1 day ago:
Great, and how does that translate if we want to run it 4k in Linux?
xerox13ster wrote 1 day ago:
I run Arch. I purchased it on Steam last week after the dos.zone site
was shared here and dropped the GOG executable in the steamapps
directory, and it worked flawlessly with proton.
jp191919 wrote 23 hours 33 min ago:
Nice! I'm going to have to try that now.
squeedles wrote 1 day ago:
I was surprised to see SC3k described as isometric like 2k. I recall
versions after 2k being "look anywhere" 3D, but I guess I missed some
versions. So many games, like Railroad Tycoon post RRT2 and Worms went
full 3D and gameplay was never the same.
I actually keep a Basilisk II System 7.5 Mac environment just so that I
can play SC2k from time to time ...
DanielHB wrote 10 hours 46 min ago:
In 3k you could rotate the camera to 3 (or 4?) different angles, but
each was fixed isometric rendered. Meaning they did all assets in the
game at multiple angles.
oneeyedpigeon wrote 9 hours 16 min ago:
I'm very confident that you could do the same in 2k.
(Looks like this screenshot confirms it, those two blue arrows
rotated the view: [1] )
URI [1]: https://pressakey.com/gamepix/101/simcity3.jpg
Sohcahtoa82 wrote 20 hours 33 min ago:
> I was surprised to see SC3k described as isometric like 2k. I
recall versions after 2k being "look anywhere" 3D
You recall wrong.
The only 3D SimCity game was the one released in 2013 that was simply
titled "SimCity" but is frequently called "SimCity 2013" to
differentiate it from the original classic.
2K, 3K, and SimCity 4 were all 2D games.
bombcar wrote 15 hours 39 min ago:
I believe 3k and 4 used 3D assets "in the editors" but the actual
created tiles were 2D.
TylerE wrote 1 day ago:
You're thinking of simcopter maybe, which follwed 2K and was full 3D.
Waterluvian wrote 1 day ago:
A small frustration I have with playing old games is that the
GOG/Steam version is always the PC original and the Mac versions
almost always had far better sound and music and sometimes graphics.
mrpippy wrote 22 hours 23 min ago:
I feel like that's true for early/mid-90s games where the PC
version targeted DOS (+ the varied universe of PC video/sound
hardware), and the Mac version could just target the much more
uniform Mac platform.
But SimCity 3000 is from 1999, and the PC version was a normal
Win9x game. I own (still have the CD) the SimCity 3000 Mac port,
and it is not very good. Maxis didn't port it themselves, it was
done by Software MacKiev. System requirements were quite high for
the time, it was sluggish, often unstable, and the file open/save
dialogs reused the Windows-style dialogs which was very awkward.
The soundtrack is great though.
ndiddy wrote 23 hours 32 min ago:
You can run the Windows 95 version of the game (similar to the Mac
version) on modern computers with this patch: [1] . It's
definitely disappointing that GOG doesn't distribute that version.
Stuff like this is why I have to keep a CD drive around.
URI [1]: https://sc2kfix.net/
MrDOS wrote 23 hours 49 min ago:
And when you say âPC originalâ, you really mean âDOS version
wrapped in DOXBoxâ, because it's easier to ship that on both
Windows and Mac than patching the Windows version for Windows, and
shipping a Wine wrapper for Mac. (Have they ever shipped a Wine
wrapper for anything? I don't think so.) What a shame.
I do really wish an application-level classic Mac OS emulator
existed. There are lots of great full-system emulators for classic
Macs (Basilisk II, SheepShaver, DingusPPC), but no Rosetta-style
âmake the old application run in the context of a new machineâ
execution environments. I'll grouse to whoever will listen that all
of the best edutainment software of the '90s and early '00s is
trapped on PPC Mac OS.
Waterluvian wrote 22 hours 54 min ago:
Marathon Trilogy. Ambrosia SW games. Spectre VR. My childhood
was so flavourful. The one downside is that nobody on the
playground were talking about the games I had access to.
squeedles wrote 7 hours 46 min ago:
Almost forgot the OG Bungie hit Pathways Into Darkness! I keep
that on my Basilisk env too for the occasional hit of
nostalgia.
Waterluvian wrote 6 hours 45 min ago:
PiD is probably my favourite game of the
FPS-Text-Based-Horror-Adventure-RPG genre.
squeedles wrote 7 hours 50 min ago:
I loved Marathon and we even had enough Macs in our lab to have
a few lan parties. Wonderful memories.
And the Ambrosia folks were giants! So many great games -
Maelstrom, Ambrosia and the EV saga! There was such a
thriving ecosystem of plugins for EV!
It definitely touched others because the original Marathon
still exists as Aleph One, and Endless Sky does a great job of
capturing the essence of the Escape Velocity games!
phs2501 wrote 23 hours 31 min ago:
Probably the closest thing I remember existing to this was (in
its "modern"-ish form) [1] Not quite what you're looking for I
think but it was a Wine-style reimplementation of MacOS.
URI [1]: https://github.com/autc04/executor
MrDOS wrote 20 hours 49 min ago:
I think that is basically exactly what I've been looking for.
Thank you!
nekzn wrote 1 day ago:
Maybe you can play using an emulator. I use VMware to emulate
Windows XP to play The Sims and it works great.
wifipunk wrote 1 day ago:
Sweeet well done, especially with the audio. I like this patch method
much more than the HD Patch I've been using the last few years.
We played SimCity in my shop class at school on olds macs and i like
picking it back up every now and then. It still holds up better than
most new games.
trynumber9 wrote 1 day ago:
I must also admit to preferring Sim City 3000 over 4.
I don't know if I can handle a 4K user interface without a magnifier,
however.
tracker1 wrote 1 day ago:
Same.. I'd rather have it 2x scaling at half-resolution. Vision
issues.
greenavocado wrote 1 day ago:
Have you played SC4 with NAM?
lbrito wrote 23 hours 17 min ago:
Probably moves sc4 further away from what he would like. If you're
into NAM might as well just play cities skylines with transit mods
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