I love SimTower. Look, no, you’ve gotta understand. I LOVE SimTower. I was thoroughly obsessed with Maxis games in my youth, and one of the greatest disappointment of modern gaming for me is the absence of those classic economic sims.
The just-announced Project Highrise might be exactly the skyscraper-managing sim I’ve been waiting decades for. Much like in SimTower, you’ll build a mini-ecosystem consisting of shops, offices, and retailers while making sure you’ve got an efficient transportation system to get consumers and workers up and down your ever-growing skyscraper.
The official press release detailed a few more of the game’s features:
- Variety of tenants – A wide variety of business, leisure and utility units are available, with much more to be revealed
- Manage your utilities – your building will require a carefully balanced mix of utilities, such as electricity, gas, water, TV and internet access, along with the necessary infrastructures to support these systems
- Political and civic challenges – your tower will fall under various restraints (height, population, work hours etc) that you will only be able to overcome by earning political favour in the city
- Sandbox or story – start from scratch and create to your heart’s content, or play your way through a set of optional scenarios
Project Highrise is being developed by SomaSim, whose previous work includes a Gold Rush-themed city builder called 1849, and it will be available for PC and Mac this summer and boy oh boy I hope it’s good. Only time will tell if this economic sim will live up to its obvious inspiration, but it’s not exactly as if Yoot Saito is busy making a sequel. (Please be good, Project Highrise. I want to love you.) The game will be demoed at GDC, so hopefully we’ll hear some hands-on impressions soon.
