![]() ![]() Thus, the game’s creators have attempted to break out of “just” a game, instead striving towards realism and utility as a simulation tool. The game has been increasingly used as an education tool in schools, from high school classrooms to the budget “One Laptop Per Child” (OLPC) computer that was shipped by the thousands to children in developing countries. ![]() In each new version of the game, the makers of SimCity promise an increased sense of realism, each time attempting to step towards becoming less of a game and more of an actual tool to imagine how cities are built. Through constant experimentation and engagement with the simulated model, SimCity attempts to offer players a kind of“systems literacy” to build this intuitive cognitive map about the complex systems and rules that lay beneath entire cities. As a sandbox game, SimCity doesn’t have one “goal” per se, but rather attempt to propose that complex social systems can be simulated. Ted Friedman suggests that simulations like SimCity can become one solution to building cognitive maps that allow a spatialization of this flux. In “The Condition of Postmodernity” he questions how we might design new modes of thought to represent or spatialize the kinds of flux and change that have become challenging to visualize. Geographer David Harvey describes spatialization as a means for constructing cognitive frameworks to understand these complex systems, a task that has become increasingly challenging under late capitalism. A player is often simultaneously engaged with many projects at once, saving up money, expanding the city, dealing with fires, and tearing down buildings and roads. Spending time with the game, players constantly re-optimize their city layout, toying with the virtual conditions for the simulated individuals that live in the city in a kind of “sandbox” format. Much like a three-dimensional lego set, players take on the role of a mayor, earning virtual money to lay down (or “zone”) infrastructure, setting down spaces for roads, homes, commerce, and industry. It is not a game that plays like an adventure game or first-person shooter, but rather forces a constant flow of interaction between the player and computer as the player manages many projects at once. As such, its underlying mechanics have deeply contributed to the popular knowledge of how cities are designed as well as how flows of individuals, energy, and goods are managed. SimCity is unique in that it has provided the single most well-known representation and understanding of the profession of urban planning. “When does a game cease to be a game? Is it when the computer feels like an organic extension of your consciousness or when you may feel like an extension of the computer itself?” – Ted Friedman ![]()
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