Thankfully his old stomping ground at Maxis has ‘reinvigorated’ SimCity for him, as Wright describes his likes of the new approach. He says it’s ”very well struck” between immersion and city planning.
The Q&A chat between Wright and Quigley is just around the 11 minute mark. There’s a ”visceral, emotional connection” when down at the neighbourhood level, he said.
Wright loves the feeling it invokes when going to that street level and ‘exploring’ what it would be like to live in that neighbourhood before pulling out and carrying on your Mayoral duties. This kind of experience he ‘never had’ with any previous version of SimCity.
Quigley quips that ‘guilt’ is an ”under-exploited emotion in video games” and part of the design in the new SimCity is to make you care more for those little Sims that make up your town. Wright joins in saying he’s made it a ”guilt-driven experience”, which is perhaps unique to the video game space as books or film ‘don’t touch on it’.
Wright also admits it was ”quite challenging” in the beginning and also said at first it ”felt kind of constrained with the small plot” - but that it’s ”much more about quality than quantity,” which he called a ”really good design decision” because it ”focuses you on the depth of the simulation.” The intent was to ‘get lost in the resolution’ of the cities, added Quigley.
SimCity releases on PC March 5th in the US, 8th in EU. It’s just two weeks away.