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The Inevitable Follow-Up
The next generation of SimCity would not be without its design problems. When Haslem finally delivered his prototype of the next SimCity, "We realized it just wasn't working," explains Wright. "He had chosen a bad perspective and was using unstable SimEarth code in the game." A sense of panic set in. Although still riding the wave of success from SimCity, players were demanding a new version of the game and writing thousands of letters to Maxis pleading for a sequel.
When it was clear that the first crack at a SimCity sequel wasn't going to pan out, Wright had a change of heart. He somewhat reluctantly decided that he'd have a go at recreating SimCity with new graphics in a new isometric perspective. "I was really trying to avoid it," he says in retrospect, "but looking back, I had a lot of fun doing the game again."
Maxis' SimCity 2000 was the top selling PC game for the first six months of 1994.
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Wright spent more than a year getting SimCity 2000 ready for release. The visual look was much different - a prerendered isometric 3D landscape as compared to the top-down view from the first game. But players and critics alike were incredibly receptive to the design. Most applauded Maxis for not breaking what worked in the first game, but rather augmenting it with a new graphic style and a streamlined interface. SimCity 2000, released for DOS in January 1994, would be the number one selling game for the first six months of the year, selling some 300,000 copies in the first four months alone. It was a certified hit. Maxis had done it again. SimCity was a golden goose.
"My plan was to create a freeform adventure game meshed with a flight simulator."
- Will Wright on his ill-fated Hindenberg game
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After SimCity 2000, Wright was "simed" out and ready for a new design challenge. At the time, he had three ideas competing for his attention. One was a vision of a game involving airships. "My plan was to create a freeform adventure game meshed with a flight simulator," Wright recollects with a gainful glee. The game would be called The Hindenberg Project and be based around the famous World War II-era dirigible that blew up over New Jersey. His idea was to randomize the top 10 theories about why the airship blew up and make players discover which theory applied to their game.
Unfortunately, Wright's ambitious idea hit some snags. "One problem was that the Hindenberg had a swastika on the tail," he acknowledges. And even if they removed the logo, people would still associate the ship with the Nazis.
BEHIND THE GAMES
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The Hindenberg Project would have been a far step away from the joviality of SimCity with its Gershwinian music and open-ended play mechanic. As such, the game never made it past the initial stages of design.
However, beneath the surface, The Hindenberg Project was an important milestone for Maxis. The concept symbolized Maxis' longing to diversify beyond a simple line of Sim-this and Sim-that products. In that spirit, outside investors were brought on to help seed the company with the capital needed to grow and diversify. How would game design be affected by such a move? Maxis thought it could continue to cultivate its design focus on a larger scale and still answer to its investors. In practice, this ideological intention would prove to be very different from the harsh reality.
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Raining on the Parade
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