SimCity 3k in 4k (2025)

I love this game so much. One of the reasons I started to make a city builder* is because I don't like where the genre is going.

The focus on photorealism in modern city builders took away the apophenia, or "food for imagination" that was a core element since the first SimCity. As a matter of fact, Will Wright used to say that the real simulation runs in the player's minds (or something like that).

Sure, there's something great about Cities Skylines that (at least with very powerful hardware) can look and feel like reality. But at the same time the game engine, in order to make this photorealism of terrain elevations with infinite possible shapes of infrastructure, is so complex that the actual simulation is sloppy, and feels to me like a big downgrade from SC3000.

Traffic, economics, zoning, crime, pollution. are so much practical to simulate (both in the computer, and in our mind models) in this classic isometric style.

* https://microlandia.city

edit: spelling

This was one of my favourite games. City simulators took up an enormous amount of my childhood and I still dream about arcologies. When I see a modern development like Brentwood in Canada's BC or some older ones like along the river in Chicago it reminds me of the wonders we can build.

As an aside since it's in the article, what are other cultures' irreverent targets? e.g. Anglo-cultures seem to casually joke about disasters like he does here about 9/11. Somewhat diminished by the fact that he's British, not American, but Americans do it too, and the American-British interaction involves this and Irish Car Bombs taken rather lightly. I find that curious. Do the Quebecois joke about Opération Satanique and the French have likewise a thing they make fun of the Quebecois for? Or is this an Anglo-culture thing? Obviously, I principally read in English so this might be specific to my language.

SC3K had a masterfully executed advisor system that felt both classy and warm. Ditto its music and art.

Unfortunately for SC4, they proceeded to make all the advisors 3D-rendered Sims. For SC2K, well:

https://www.somethingawful.com/news/simcity-advisors/4/

(that was the least offensive page to link; for the canonical experience start at page 1)

SC3K’s art was not “crafted pixel by pixel.” It was rendered from 3DS Max. Maxis released a version of G-Max called the Building Architect Tool that included a template with the same lighting rig that they used for the in-game assets. This tool rendered and exported the various zoom levels and orientations.

> SimCity 3000 is the best SimCity

I disagree! SimCity 2K FTW. :)

Best balance of complexity IMO and ran pretty well on my old Mac. I'd love a retro-futuristic reboot.

What a strange person, from the same author: https://www.thran.uk/writ/yarn/2025/03/road-rage-maxxing-or-... I don't understand how you can feel morally superior by blocking the overtaking lane and letting people through if they're respectful enough.

I also love this game. I was so hoping someone had managed to port this to WASM.

Sim City 3k is my least played Sim City game, but this is inspiring me to take another look. I really like the sweaty micromanagement and bigger scope of 4, but maybe I will prefer 3k's simplicity in my old age.

The picture caption with a 9/11 joke is a little off-putting, but it's at least proof that this isn't AI generated content...

Will Wright handed the original Maxis SimCity 3000 team a great design for the next SimCity (which I think they should have called SimCity 2001 instead of SimCity 3000, to more realistically set expectations).

But they ignored him, and went off on a tangent trying to design their own ultimate totally general purpose virtual reality (and we know how well Second Life has done ;), without much thought to what was actually possible, playable, or fun on current computers.

They gave some demos of the 3D prototype to reporters, then Maxis ran out of money because it was nowhere near shipping, then EA bought us, then fired the people who were out of control, and Luc Barthelet announced to the reporters that SimCity 3000 wouldn't be 3D, but it would be 2D and beautiful.

Here is a little nugget I saved from that time: Guru's infamous SimCity 3000 design document, from when the 3D design was really going off the rails:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rnvzKdJp9tyEJwEGxsIjoHnT...

Ocean Quigley says that Guru was really sincere and believed what he said (and was not just on mushrooms).

I have to admit, that if that's true, then that Guru dude was 15 years ahead of his time, and not just a crackpot! But he should have mentioned something about the fact that it would take 15 years to develop those ideas into a shipping product!

- Peak hubris / scope explosion:

“It is possible to bridge the chasm of expectations and technology in the forthcoming year in a realistic and economical manner.”

“The Real Time Render mode shall define a visual paradigm hitherto unseen in any game or product.”

“Hence attempting to assault the cliff of expectations of the visual paradigm by means of the linear ladder fails.”

“There is a whole think tank of concepts and ideas which shall be explored and implemented…”

- Hardware reality fighting back:

“Needless to even state this is impossible performance for a delivery Pentium 75 within one year.”

“Terrifying thought. Cut the flexibility we say ! Let’s govern the flexibility I say.”

“That’s a tall order, admittedly, but then, this is an ambitious project !”

- Glorious jargon poetry:

“The semi-digested spatial data is nothing more than just that.”

“This data simultaneously suffers further transformation…”

“The motion window is always stabilized and will ‘fly’.”

“The Snapshot Port — a.k.a. The Portrait of Reality”

“causation of an event singularity for the common reference of the simulator and the visual computing system”

- The “there / that / do this” interface:

“Once ‘that’ has been identified to be able to ‘do’ ‘this’ to ‘that’…”

“The user can merely point ‘there’: and place a building. The user can point to ‘that’ building and delete it.”

“A single pencil beam shot back into the scene from the point of the mouse…”

- Biology metaphor goes full Spore:

“The species of the virtual world… shall be encoded for spatial representation as chromosomes…”

“The species itself shall be represented in its completeness as a self descriptive cell.”

“Needless to add… if transfer RNA were metaphorically the lifts of the building…”

“The other facet… is the ability to create more species by crossbreeding and mutation of species.”

- Buildings become existential -- this is the crown jewel:

  “The behavioral transformation over time has a standard pattern

   Now I’m a cylinder and Now I’m an egg
   Now I’m smooth & shiny and Now I’m not
   Now I am mottled and Now I’m not
   Now I feel mottled and Now I do not
   Now I’m here and Now I’m over there
   something or the other blah blah”

“Once the Simulator and the VC shell agree that there is a building called Big Joe’s Shark Tent…”

“yes I have neon lights, I have thirty bulbs all having high level scripts…”

“aaah OK ! you got it ! the script is queued, bye”

- Voxel fever dreams:

“This throws up the possibilities of bulldozers actually bulldozing soil. And Mining community towns actually mining inside a silver mine !!!!”

“Voxel space animation methods can actually cause earthquakes.”

“The display of a building or a city block being engulfed by splitting seams of the earth is not an impossible target…”

- Favorite one-liner:

“Modelessness is messy.”

I must also admit to preferring Sim City 3000 over 4. I don't know if I can handle a 4K user interface without a magnifier, however.

My favorite SimCity game by far. The aesthetics are flawless.

I was so happy to score the physical “Music From SimCity 3000” soundtrack CD at the Alemany Flea Market fifteen or so years ago: https://www.discogs.com/release/794952-Jerry-Martin-Music-Fr...

> Some of the music from the original release is missing from an .ini file, even though it is present in Unlimited.

Article neglects to mention that the tracks which are included in Unlimited are lower-bitrate and monophonic compared to the same songs in stereo from the 1.0 release. Copy the same-name files from the original CD instead :)

Unlimited is sad because data-mining shows that it was almost multiplayer à la SC2k Network Edition: https://tcrf.net/SimCity_3000_Unlimited/Unused_Multiplayer_T...

I was surprised to see SC3k described as isometric like 2k. I recall versions after 2k being "look anywhere" 3D, but I guess I missed some versions. So many games, like Railroad Tycoon post RRT2 and Worms went full 3D and gameplay was never the same.

I actually keep a Basilisk II System 7.5 Mac environment just so that I can play SC2k from time to time ...

Back when SimCity 2000 was released, younger me somehow found a phone number for Maxis and actually called them to rave about it. At some point in the message, I very confidently told them to make “SimCity 3000.”

When SimCity 3000 came out, I couldn't help but wonder if I inspired them. "Remember that kid was really stoked about 3000."

Signs that you are old: I saw "in 4k" and thought that it was in 4 kilobytes, not 4k resolution

Diablo 1 in 4k - https://i.imgur.com/4ResbPc.jpeg

Loved SimCity growing up.

Would it be possible to automate porting the windows version into a mac or web version? Like giving a long-running agent the task and some tools to check/play the game on both platforms?

Great, and how does that translate if we want to run it 4k in Linux?

> Risky biscuits: building 1WTC and 2WTC but no hospitals or fire stations. I like to tease fate.

Too soon, too soon..

Sweeet well done, especially with the audio. I like this patch method much more than the HD Patch I've been using the last few years.

We played SimCity in my shop class at school on olds macs and i like picking it back up every now and then. It still holds up better than most new games.

> I will not pay for the same game twice.

I firmly disagree with that point. If the game is well-made and enjoyable, the developer probably deserves some extra cash thrown their way. Games remain one of the best bang-for-your-buck when it comes to entertainment anyways. ($50 can get you DAYS of enjoyment, compared to going to a movie theater, theme park, or other paid attractions)

So yes, go ahead and purchase an enjoyable game multiple times if it's a good game. I certainly have!

So many hours, this was my SimCity experience and I still can hear the jazz.

This and Rollercoaster Tycoon and Doom II was my jam.

Another factor was that although both SimCity 3k and SimCity 4 both had a maximum of 256x256 tiles for their cities, the scale was different.

A SimCity 3000 tile edge was equivalent to 64m, whereas in SimCity 4 it was 16m. The scale of the city in SimCity 3000 was bigger as a result.

Hoping to test this principle of largest possible map sizes out soon.

4K screen resolution, not a 4KB intro.

What A View! Sims Thrilled As Local Landscaping Artist Hosts DIY Expo

I'd love to see to see this game remade and released. I'd buy it in a second.

I hope GOG makes this all an easy to install mod/patch.

what would be really cool is a first person world generated from simcity maps and you can walk around and go inside buildings etc

I liked the SimCity franchise. However had, while the graphics improved a lot, the first SimCity is still my favourite, largely because the actual gameplay was quite simple and efficient to use. I always found this strange, because the graphics got better but the actual gameplay itself got worse. I also noticed this even more so with civilization; playing the first part is super-fast and super-easy; later parts required so much more computational calculations, there was more lag, and more annoying UI animations (not all were annoying, but when I want to make a move, I want to make a move, not wait until unit xyz has to do a break for smoking for the next 10 minutes).

I'm surprised a bunch of tech professionals are totally fine with downloading random .dll's and patching executables. How do you know this is safe?

Genius!

Uhh... in 4k glory. This is one of my top games ever. Just bought the book "BUILDING SIMCITY" from MIT Press and I have it next to me to keep me company.

Call to Vinnie and build the mythical SIM Castle...

Man, I played the fuck out of this game in my teens, it's in my top 5 best games ever made.

[flagged]

Obnoxious author. Refusing to 'pay twice' for a game they care enough about to go through all this trouble + deeply obnoxious bit about Windows 11 at the end of of the post.