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SimCity

aka: Micropolis, SimCity Supreme, SimCity: The City Simulator
Moby ID: 848
Buy on DOS
$36.97 used, $1,500.00 new on eBay
Buy on SNES
$15.18 used, $268.56 new on eBay
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Description official descriptions

SimCity sets you as the mayor of a new municipality, with the responsibility of building and maintaining a place where citizens can move to and work and be happy. The first task is to place essentials such as housing, transport links, schools, factories, and shops. There are 50 types of these, allowing for homes of all standards and different types of businesses. Make sure to consider which sites are effective for which tasks. Some power sources pollute, others don't but are more expensive. Taxes must be raised to ensure an income, and then portions allocated to public services such as policing and roads. Earthquakes, floods, and fires are all emergency situations that must be dealt with to contain any damage.

Successful mayoring will cause the small village to grow into a town, then a city, and finally a metropolis. As the city's size grows so do its needs. Commercial buildings may suddenly find that they need an airport to expand trade, or housing may find itself changing rapidly as vast amounts of people come and leave.

The game also includes 8 pre-defined time-limited scenarios, with specific challenges and targets. The environment varies in each game (especially if you have the Terrain Editor add-on), and this should affect your choices.

Spellings

  • Sim City - Alternate spelling
  • シムシティー - Japanese spelling
  • 模拟城市 - Simplified Chinese spelling
  • 模擬城市 - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (DOS version)

23 People (16 developers, 7 thanks) · View all

Original Concept
Design
Programming
Graphics / Artwork
Sound
Cover Art
Cover Art European release
Documentation
Special Thanks To
Amiga Programming
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 86% (based on 56 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 262 ratings with 8 reviews)

Way cool.

The Good
This is one great game - a classic in all respects. It was terribly innovative and completely original, and I still prefer it to the newer SimCity games (perhaps because the new ones are overly complex and slow).

It works like a charm on an EGA 286, and even the CGA version was cool (though very rare). The graphics were minimalistic but did their job, the management concept was excellent and the almost complete lack of sound effects is actually a good thing.

The Bad
Somewhat inconsistant AI and scoring system make this game an occasional nightmare, as you will sometimes find yourself running an extremely well-designed city only to have it fail miserably and die.

The Bottom Line
A real classic. Everyone knows this, and everyone should.

DOS · by Tomer Gabel (4534) · 2000

This game needed a surgeon general's warning on the package...

The Good
Cause it was addictive as crack... Im serious, I sat like a loser in PJ's for two weeks parked in front of the PC. Maxis struck gold on this game which later got even better in the 2000 release. Yeah, I liked pretty much everything about this game.. I thought it was a lot more fun on the SNES but whatever, the PC version came out way earlier.

The Bad
Not much, in its day, it was a pretty sweet game... kept my entertained for a long time.

The Bottom Line
c l a s s i c, this game produced the fun for me that PC gaming was all about. If it were 1989 still, i'd probably be saying that this is my favorite game at the moment.

DOS · by OlSkool_Gamer (88) · 2004

Spectacular...a different game from even the computer-version.

The Good
This game is, in short, fantastic. It's actually different from the other versions of it (i.e. Sim City Classic) for a few reasons. For one, this is the ONLY SimCity game in which you can watch the seasons change. Also, unlike the other versions of the original Sim City, this version allows you to obtain Gifts, special rewards you can recieve after meeting certain requirements. For example, you can build yourself a mansion once your tiny village reaches Town status (a population of 2,000). You get to build amusement parks and casinos when you build a certain number of roads. There are 15 gifts in all.

So, after all these differences, what's the same? Basically, everything else. You still have the same basic buildings, you still place block zones, there are still your Coal and Nuclear power plants...

But what I like most about it is its addictiveness. There are so many ways to play this game. The main way is to build a Megalopolis of 500,000 people, but you can build any sort of city you want. I just recently built a Sim City version of London, England, and my little brother built a version of Frankfurt, Germany. So there are many ways to play this game.

The Bad
Nothing. But if I was forced to say something bad about this game, I guess I'd say...well...its simplicity. It's not a very complex game. But on the other hand, that can be a good thing for younger players who wouldn't want to try and figure out pipe systems and subway rails and garbage issues and the like. So it's all a matter of opinion.

The Bottom Line
It's a must. You get to be the mayor of your own city, which is definitley cool. Ever gone down a city street thinking, "If I were mayor, I would change that."? Well, now you can.

SNES · by Brendan Smith (1) · 2003

[ View all 8 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

SimCity appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Airport

A strange thing in SimCity: If you query (Q) the RADAR (or is it something else? The moving part, anyways) at the airport, it is reported as industrial, instead of airport

Browser version

To celebrate the release of SimCity 4: Rush Hour, EA Games put a web-based version of this original SimCity game up on their website for play.

As of 2006, the URL is http://simcity.ea.com/play/simcity_classic.php

Cancelled NES port

A NES port was originally announced on the September/October 1990 issue of Nintendo Power magazine. It was playable on the Winter International Consumer Electronics Show 1991, but was quietly cancelled. On December 25, 2018, a ROM of the prototype was uploaded by Video Game History Foundation. Among other things, it featured a completely different soundtrack than the SNES port, although it had the same composer.

Commodore 64 version

The Commodore 64 version is missing various features. Some of the things missing are fire and police stations, the eval stat screen, stadiums, and meltdowns.

Copy Protection

In the original DOS release of SimCity, the copy protection was handled a bit different than most games.

The game gave you 3 square symbols, and then asked you to enter a City and Population. The copy protection itself was printed on dark red papers (therefore uncopyable).

Video modes in DOS version

The DOS version is notable because it uses several video modes rarely seen in games at the time. According to Wikipedia, "version 1.00 supports a variety of graphics modes: CGA monochrome 640x200, EGA color 320x200, Tandy 640x200 mode, Hercules 720x348 mono, and EGA 640x350 in color or mono. v1.07 added MCGA 640x480 mono. A v2.00 release (SimCity "Classic") dropped all the 200-line modes and added VGA 640x480 16-color and a VGA/MCGA 320x200 256-color mode."

Cover art

The change in box designs (see cover scans) was due to trademark infringement- the use of Godzilla on the cover wasn't appreciated by Toho Studios.

Development

The first version of the game was finished in 1985, but publishers at the time refused to release it because it was a non-standard game without a clear goal. So Will Wright and Jeff Braun had to found their own company, Maxis, to get it out. In hindsight, the publishers were terribly wrong and the game became a huge success.

Disasters

Some of the game's "random disasters" aren't really random at all. For instance, if you demolish a church a tornado will strike your city...every time! According to Johnny L Wilson's SimCity Planning Commission Handbook, this connection was implemented in order to discourage "impious" players from bulldozing churches due to perceived (not actual) effects on these public buildings' effects on the tax base. The connection only exists in the IBM version and is inspired by the phrase "acts of God" used in the insurance industry to describe property damage-causing natural disasters..

Inspiration

  • SimCity was inspired by the work Jay Forrester did at MIT. Using a specialized programming language called DYNAMO, he modeled various statistics about the world to determine how to create high quality of life. He also wrote a program to assist in urban planning.
  • Another inspiration for SimCity was Will Wright's first game, Raid on Bungeling Bay. He was having much more fun building levels than playing them, so he decided to create a game out of it.
  • According to the SimCity Planning Commission Handbook, a big influence on Will Wright in formulating the concept of this game (or "software toy") was an anthology of short stories by Stanislaw Lem entitled The Cyberiad -- especially one in which master inventor Trurl builds deposed tyrant Excelsius a "kingdom in a box" in which to harmlessly exercise his tyrannical urges. (Eventually, the people in the box manage to overthrow Excelsius.)

Languages

The Japanese PC-98 port can be switched to English in the configuration screen.

Monster

In the PC releases of SimCity, the monster that can destroy your city in a large red lizard. In the SNES release, the monster is Bowser, from the Mario games!

One Laptop

In 2007 it was announced that SimCity will be one of the games included with the One Laptop Per Child Program's $100 laptops.

Source code release

The original game's source was released under a GPL license in January 2008. The game's name was changed to Micropolis because Electronic Arts holds the license, and plane crashes have been removed because of the 9/11 incident.

Super Smash Bros.

Dr. Wright from the SNES version appears as an assist trophy in the Wii game Super Smash Bros.: Brawl.

Awards

  • ACE (Advanced Computer Entertainment)
    • March 1991 (issue #42) - Included in the list Greatest Games of all Time in category Simulations (editorial staff choice)
  • Computer Gaming World
    • October 1991 (Issue #87) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame
    • October 1989 (Issue #64) – Game of the Year
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #6 in the “150 Best Games of All Time” list
    • March 2001 (Issue #200) - #2 in the "Top Ten Games of All Time" list (Readers' vote)
    • March 2001 (Issue #200) - #5 in the "Top Ten Games of All Time" list (Editors' vote)
  • Game Informer
    • August 2001 (Issue #100) - #31 in the "Top 100 Games of All Time" poll
  • GameSpy
    • 2001 – #33 Top Game of All Time
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 12/1999 - #5 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking
  • Power Play
    • Issue 01/1990 - #2 Best Game Idea in 1989
  • Retro Gamer
    • September 2004 (Issue #8) – #98 Best Game Of All Time (Readers' Vote)
  • ST Format
    • Issue 01/1991 – #3 Best Simulator Game in 1990 (Atari ST)
    • Issue 01/1993 – #28 in '50 finest Atari ST games of all time' list

Information also contributed by Adam Baratz, Andrew Grasmeder, Brolin Empey, Chris Martin, Maw, Mu77etOfDeath, PCGamer77, Pseudo_Intellectual, Ricky Derocher, Sciere, WildKard and Zack Green

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  • MobyGames ID: 848
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Brian Hirt.

Commodore 64 added by PCGamer77. SNES added by Kartanym. FM Towns added by Sciere. CDTV, OS/2, Amiga, Symbian, Electron, Amstrad CPC added by Kabushi. ZX Spectrum, Atari ST added by Martin Smith. Wii added by gamewarrior. Acorn 32-bit, Macintosh, Sharp X68000 added by Terok Nor. Palm OS added by Игги Друге. BBC Micro added by formercontrib. PC-98 added by Unicorn Lynx.

Additional contributors: Robert Morgan, Unicorn Lynx, Sciere, Martin Smith, Pseudo_Intellectual, Игги Друге, formercontrib, Neville, Trypticon, Patrick Bregger, Lugamo, Jo ST, FatherJack, Skippy_Chipskunk.

Game added February 10, 2000. Last modified January 14, 2025.