SimCity

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SimCity is one of the oldest and grandest of Maxis games. A Linux port by Don Hopkins has been released under a free license for distribution on the XO.

Sources

The current XO activity bundle is here : SimCity-1.xo. However, installation of activity bundles is broken in Sugar, and will produce odd results. It is not clear to me how to suggest that you get a working copy of SimCity just yet.

The OLPC version of SimCity came from the original SimCity, through a complex lineage.


Don Hopkins breaks it down like so:

I ported the Mac version of SimCity to SunOS Unix running the NeWS window system about 15 years ago, writing the user interface in PostScript. And a year or so later I ported it to various versions of Unix running X-Windows, using the TCL/Tk scripting language and gui toolkit. Several years later when Linux became viable, it was fairly straightforward to port that code to Linux, and then to port that to the OLPC.

More information

Ideas

"The goal is to enable the open source community to renovate SimCity and take it in new educational directions" [1]
  • Simutrans and Lincity graphics could be used to enhance SimCity where appropriate.

Game examples

  • A SimCity-based engine could be used for games along the lines of
    • Genius Politik: The player is a politician and has to mediate between different political currents and make decisions about city planning and urban management, following proper political procedure instead of a "point and click" decision-making process. (Citizenship education)
    • Genius - Task Force Biologie: The player is a biologist and works for the UN to restore lost biotopes around the world.

See also

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