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SimCity for PalmOS Platform
JohnnyZed wrote to us with the link to Atelier a company that's released the original SimCity (SimCity Classic) for the PalmPilot. I don't usually like product plugs, but I had way too much fun with this game when it came out - now I can play it on the plane! Or the bathroom!
yes it ran on the C=64, but it was a stipped down version. almost no color, no choice in power plants. no graphics to speak of. It pretty much sucked compare to the PC version.
I suppose you could make a multiplayer only version, but the idea of people having to gether round and keep their IR ports aligned while playing beggars belief!
Wow, you just reminded me of one of my first handheld multiplayer electronic games, Head to Head Football, from about 1980.
It was one of the red LED games simulating football on a field 5 LEDs high and 12 long, with nintendo like controls.
The very cool part was that you played live against someone, the LEDs were in the middle, with controls on each side. As the offensive player you controlled the quarterback/running back or receiver, as the defensive player you controller a linebacker. It was a neat game, but I think the strong homophobia of early teen boys made it a poor seller.
Apologies to any non North Americans if my terms are unclear, I'm talking about American Football.
George
...how would I go about using the infamous shift-FUND cheat in SC for Palm? Would I have to write it with my right hand, or something?
;)
Thanks, Matt. This game rules. I remember wasting days on this crap on a DOS machine. It's nice to be able to waste away billable hours anywhere I go.
My strategy, buy Coke. Can you ever go wrong?
Now I'm going to start tinkering with SimCity on my PalmIII. I'll probably set up a city again, spend many hours developing my town when I probably should be reading a good book or magazine (isn't that what YOU do on the throne?). I'll probably leave my Pilot chugging away for hours to let my city thrive.
All this expense going to Mr. Duracell because I had to let my petri dish past-time city tell me that I have a traffic jam.. Jeez.. Why don't you just put a Tamagotchi on my pilot instead?
(Scary side note: a tamagotchi program DOES exist and it DOES wake up your pilot about 30 times an hour telling you to press the calculator button so it can :FEH: eat!)
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
I think Lemmings would be an even better classic game to bring to the Palm Pilot. It doesn't really need a high screen resolution, and is small and portable. I know this would keep me entertained for hours on long trips. :-)
I'm off to buy it now... I'm only concerned with performance... Is it going to be slow as a dog, or stay at the pace of the original? Their animated screenshots would seem to indicate the latter but that doesn't say much.
:)
:)
I think this is a really good thing for the Palm. What the Palm needs are some "brand name" recognizable apps... It has very few recognizable brands or programs avilable for it.
That isn't to say there aren't any *good* apps, I mean, of course there are, but it lends yet more credibility to the system to have this on it. Quicken is the only other example of a recognizable brand/product on the Palm...
And let's not forget that this will demonstrate the Palm's true potential as a portable gaming platform... Even if the controls are unsuitable for MegaMan...
That's an idea! An attachment that provides GameBoy style controls which map to the basic buttons... Perhaps calc/menu can be the mappings for start/select? Add a gameboy emulator, or some game ports, and there ya go!
-JF
Jon Frisby, Senior Internet Software Engineer,
Personal Site (MrJoy.com)
MrJoy.com -- Because coding is FUN!
Simcity was already ported to Psion 5 many months ago... :-)
See: Purplesoft's simcity page
Well, this SimCity game looks nice... but if you're in the mood for something a bit more... free, then check out:
dopewars.cjb.net
Now all we need is Civilization for the PalmPilot; then productivity can go completely down the drain.
They even did a version for the BBC Micro -
it had 32K of memory, 10 of which had to be used by the screen (when you were in 4 colour, 160x256 screen mode)... I read an interview with the guy who did the port (He was porting from the ST version) - he said that the array in the ST version that held which buildings were connected to electricity took 32K up by itself...
Now, forgive me if I am incorrect here, but a Palm organiser is not that underspecced compared with the original computers Sim City came out on? For example, apart from the 386s that it ran on, it ran on the Amiga 500 (7.2MHz 68000), Atari ST, Amstrad CPC (64K, Z80) and probably the Sinclair Spectrum and C64. So saying that it wasn't possible on the Palm is a bit silly! They only had to overcome the low-res screen, which can't have been that brain-straining...
I wonder if they will do an updated version for the colour Palm machines coming out soon? That would be worth it.
Is there a version for the Psion, because it would really kick ass on that, as it is more powerful and has a higher resolution screen.
Sim City does kick ass though, even the original all othose years ago. A great way to waste time instead of doing something useful. I am afraid this could set a lot of projects back in many companies :-)
Electronic Arts actually happens to be mentioned at the bottom of the press release, and they also reference the game as SimCity™, emphasis on ™. This suggests that there was actually some cooperation going on between the two companies -- I wonder how much of the $29.95 goes to EA instead of Atelier?
How legal are all of these game clones coming out for the Palm, Handspring, Psion, etc.?
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E2 IN2 IE?
Now, of course we can't have something this cool without making it useful in the most obscene manner.
Doom gave us the process manager from hell. (Literally.) Come to think of it, SimCity *could* make an interesting process manager, with change in logsize over time representing trash, and erroring processes on fire.
What else could we do to make SimCity a useful environment? Accurate maps of cities merged into SimCity might be a fun toy, particularly with a HandSpring Visor supplied w/ GPS functionality.
That'd be interesting--walking around a SimRealCity...
All we need is a module interface.
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
--bdj
SimLaptop
Want to play tons of games with speed and resolution - BUY a laptop.
Personally, I'm waiting for the PalmPilot PalmReader. "Yes, I see a long lifeline, a marriage in your future, and your SimCity is in desperate need of a capital gains tax."