Community News

In a couple of news posts over at Simtropolis recently, the old spectre of Sim City 5 seems to have reared its head yet again. Most interestingly, statements from a former executive at EA seem to indicate that they are considering resurrecting some "old franchises". Whether that includes Sim City or not is anyone's guess.

Paradox Interactive released a new game yesterday called Cities In Motion. While not a city builder per se, the game looks like something that would appeal to city sim fans. Gameplay is apparently centered around constructing transport networks in historical cities. I'm a big fan of Paradox's games, so I'll definitely be checking it out!

Recently a group of Canadian students has started an independent city sim project called Synekism. Their current release looks very intriguing, and already features some decidedly next-generation elements: gridless design, procedural building generation, etc. You can download a demo at their site to try out. I'll be looking forward to seeing how their project develops!

As a quick update to my previous story on procedural generation, PixelActive, the company that makes the 3D urban design / simulation program Cityscape, has been bought out by a firm called NAVTEQ. NAVTEQ is a subsidiary of Nokia, and focuses on location software like for use in things like car navigation systems and GPS devices. Clearly NAVTEQ is looking to move into 3D for its mapping software. The PixelActive site has now closed, and their demo is no longer available.

Personally, I'm sorry to see Cityscape disappear as an independent application. While not actually a game, the demo was a lot of fun to play around with and was a pretty intriguing showcase of the kind of things we might expect from a future city sim.