This week's SimDay brings a few new things. The first is the winning of an AIAS award by the Sims 2. The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences has awarded the game as best simulation game of 2004. Last year Maxis won two AIAS awards as well, for Bustin' Out and Superstar. Furthermore there's news of an interview with Will Wright on The Onion. The website interviewed Will about creating the Sims and SimCity series. He talks about how he gets inspired, but also about things he's tried but never worked out very well, and how SimAnt more or less turned into the Sims:
[Update 4 February, 23:30] SimDay Part 2 has been posted as well, with two new things. The first is a survey about the Urbz. If you got the game, you can let Maxis know what you think of it. It's quite possible they will use the information for future games. Remarkable is the mention of the Urbz 2 during the survey. There have been some rumours about this title already, and although the survey in no way confirms it it's not any less likely now. The second thing is a new Valentine's Day look for MySim Pages. If you're feeling romantic you can apply it to yours, or you can check out MaxoidMonkey's page for a preview.
"There was a little simulation of a guy who lived in the house who would sit and watch television, get food from the fridge, mow the lawn, stuff like that. I realized at the end of SimAnt that the simulation we built for the ants was almost more intelligent than for the guy, because the guy was being done using traditional programming, whereas the ants were done using this distributed environmental intelligence of the pheromone trails. I began wondering, could we build a more robust simulation of human behavior if we adopted this ant model, where we distribute the intelligence not through the agents, but through the environment? Then I started experimenting with some techniques, and that got the ball rolling for The Sims."To read the rest of the article, which mentions a lot more than just that, head over to the special. Finally there's a link to yesterday's preview, which we've already mentioned here.
[Update 4 February, 23:30] SimDay Part 2 has been posted as well, with two new things. The first is a survey about the Urbz. If you got the game, you can let Maxis know what you think of it. It's quite possible they will use the information for future games. Remarkable is the mention of the Urbz 2 during the survey. There have been some rumours about this title already, and although the survey in no way confirms it it's not any less likely now. The second thing is a new Valentine's Day look for MySim Pages. If you're feeling romantic you can apply it to yours, or you can check out MaxoidMonkey's page for a preview.
Written at 20:54 on Thursday, 3 February 2005 by ChEeTaH.
