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SimTower
What is it?
I am not interested in games with such concepts as scoring, game over, endings, clearing levels, etc. I would continue to make games without end, that become a part of the user's life. Something that, in the same way as a word processor or network software, stays on the hard disk for years.—Yoot Saito in an interview about his latest game, Seaman
This game was developed by Yoot Saito in 1994 and originally
published by OPeNBooK, the company he founded for the occasion,
under the title Tower
. There are only two versions, one for
the Macintosh and one for Windows 3.1, which are identical but
for a few OS-related details.
Maxis licensed this game for distribution outside Japan,
called it SimTower: The Vertical Empire
and tried hard to
create the impression
that it was them who created it. Indeed it did fit snugly into
their line of sim games, both from theme and interface, which
is nearly identical to the one in SimCity, but on closer look
you will notice the differences. SimTower is a very strange
game indeed.
It has often been criticised in sim games, from SimCity to the City Builder Series, that they just let you watch most of the time. SimTower takes this to the extreme. The author of one fan page wrote he often leaves the game running when he goes to school to accumulate the funds needed for investions.
So it should be really boring and annoying, shouldn't it? Astonishingly enough, it isn't, or rather, it can be, but is strangely fascinating and addictive at the same time. Though I hate this phrase, you have to try it to understand.
I would say that the system requirements for SimTower are about the same as for SimCity 2000, on both platforms. I have played the Macintosh version on my Performa 630, where it performs well (uh—huge temptation to insert lame joke here).
Officialy, the Windows version is supposed to run on a 386 with 4MB RAM, but I would not want to try that. I would suggest a Pentium at least. I played it on my regular computer, a Gigahertz Duron, and noticed that unlike most other Windows games, this one runs far to fast on a fast processor. Taking in account the weird gameplay, this is not necessarily bad.
The Windows version requires wavmix16.dll, which may have been part of the original install but is otherwise nearly impossible to dig up—except here, of course.
Though I think SimTower was more popular with Macintosh people, these pages are mostly about the Windows version. But it does not really matter because gameplay is identical. It's an interesting fact that Mac people write more reviews, but hardly ever a fan page for a game.
I am a simulation game guy. I don't do RPGs. I don't do shooting games. So, in simulation [games], you have to tell stories without giving users one linear story, but by giving users a simulation model, so that users can select which way they want to go. In a role-playing game, at certain points, the game designer is going to provide two choices—go to the right or to the left. But in a simulation game, you have to provide an unlimited number of selections, because it's a simulation model. So this kind of framework… may I mention my last game, Sim Tower? It's a free-format game. You can build a skyscraper as you like, and it doesn't have a goal or an ending. It's like a sandbox, where you can create anything you like. Only, this game simulates elevators and [human] traffic, so it doesn't have any concept of air conditioning or earthquake protection. It didn't have any of those kinds of elements - only traffic. You have to decrease the stress of the people waiting for the [elevator] cars. So the mission of simulation game designers is to not add new things, but to remove things from reality, like a sculpture, so that only the required elements remain. So, first of all, to start designing a game, you have to get rid of things out of the chaos.—Interview for Sega