Will Wright

Will Wright striking a pose for a camera-man who just happened to be in the same place at the same time.

• Name: William Ralph Wright

• Notable creations and work: Raid on Bungeling Bay, SimCity, SimCity 2000, SimCity 3000, SimEarth, SimLife, SimCopter, SimAnt, The Sims, Spore

• Born: January 20, 1960

• Died: ---

Biographical Summary

Wright's interest in games was first birthed by his childhood interest in building models. This eventually lead to his interest in robitics, which were, "kind of a different form of modeling" (Cagle). Wright would use his first computer, the Apple ll, to program instructions for his robots, and eventually this lead to t making models only on and for the computer. This was a new way to "make the models that I'd kind of grown up making, except these models had dynamics underneath them rather than just static structure" (Cagle). Wright's passion for dynamic systems grew out of this interest, and since games were absorbing so much of his time after college, he decided that perhaps making games was the way to go. These factors ultimately lead to his successful career as a game designer, with such games as SimCity, The Sims, and Spore. This success became even more tangible when in 2001 Wright was given a "Lifetime Achievement Award" at the Game Developers Choice Awards, and in 2002, he became the fifth person to be inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences' Hall of Fame.

Work

Many of Will's methods and design sensibilities are focused on keeping the players interest by keeping "life at the edge of chaos" (Kelly). For Will, a great game means that a player has "a certain amount of control, but then there's a certain amount of entropy in the system, and it's balanced just right between the two" (Kelly). So, to keep "life at the edge of chaos", Wright will tend to engineer a lot of low level variables within the system to try to coax emergent behavior from the system; this tactic gives his games that edge of chaos feel, effectively keeping them from getting boring.

Projects

Will Wright is seen as the principle designer of all of the games below, therefore, his impact on all of these games is enormous and can not truly be measured in quantitate terms.

Raid on Bungeling Bay

Raid on Bungeling Bay is the first game designed by Will Wright and was made for the Commodore 64. It has the player controlling a helicopter with the intent to destroy everything surrounding Bungeling Bay. In the game there is a carrier, which serves as the player's home-base, as long as he manages to protect it from being destroyed. The main goal in each level is to destroy a main factory, which requires a steadily increasing amount of bombs to destroy as the level progresses. Enemy forces include ships, planes, tanks, anti-air guns, and eventually, a large battleship.

SimCity

SimCity is the game that launched Wright's career as a game designer. It was released in 1989 for several different platforms and acquired critical acclaim. SimCity makes the player the mayor of a new municipality, with the responsibility of building and maintaining a place where citizens can move to and work and be happy. The first task is to place essentials such as housing, transport links, schools, factories and shops. There are 50 types of these, allowing for homes of all standards and different types of businesses. The player then involves himself in a delicate balancing act of opposing forces to maintain the efficiency and survivability of the city.

Doing this successfully will cause the small village to grow into a town, then a city, and finally a metropolis. As the city's size grows so do it's needs, making the game increasingly engaging as time goes on.

The game includes 8 pre-defined time-limited scenarios, with specific challenges and targets, with the environment being varied in each game.

SimCity 2000

SimCity2000 is a direct sequel to the original SimCity. It came out in 1993, again for several platforms. The only real difference between this game and the original SimCity is the fact that the player can form the environment before he starts, and the graphics are now isometric instead of top-down.

SimCity3000

SimCity3000 is a continuation of the SimCity franchise, and was released only for the PC and Mac. In this installment, the element of zoning is introduced to allow for more comprehensive and realistic city planning. The player can also be fired for doing a bad job, which is most definitly not a feature that Will Wright endorsed, as he often stated that, "It is just as much fun to lose as it is to win."

SimEarth

The most ambitious of Maxis’ Sim lineage, SimEarth puts the player in charge of an entire planet throughout its 10 billion year lifespan. The ultimate task is to guide the planet’s inhabitants into the stars, from its humble single-celled roots.

The main threats to this goal include pollution, disease, famine, war and global warming. The controls available include the chance to move mountains and continents, creating different levels of species, and unleash tidal waves and earthquakes so as to reshape your planet. All of these things take from a limited amount energy, which must be replenished.

SimLife

SimLife was created in 1992 for computer systems. It was a complex game in which the player could create ecosystems, animals or vegetables, then watch them eat, evolve, mate, or die.

An interesting element was the different weird creatures that could be created. For example, a giant snail that would have to eat several trees each day to survive - or a small kangaroo that would lay eggs and eat only bugs. This was possible because the player can even edit the DNA code of the animals, which would cause the animals to mutate.

SimCopter

SimCopter is a light helicopter flying simulator closely related to Sim City 2000, and was released in 1994 for the PC.

The player assumes the role of a rookie helicopter pilot that must make his living by transporting passengers and help the city authority in several tasks, including rescuing sims from fires and boat accidents, divert cars from traffic jams, aid on putting out fires and arresting criminals, controlling riots and MEDEVAC injured sims to nearby hospitals.

The player starts with a basic helicopter, and by completing missions, earn money that can be used to buy larger and faster helicopters and equipment required to deal with more advanced problems (such as a water cannon to put out fires without having to fly directly over the fire and disperse a crowd, tear gas or a megaphone), as well as points to advance to the next level in career mode. The opposite also happens: if a player takes too long to solve a traffic jam, he gets penalized in points.

There are two game modes: Career makes the player jump from city to city, while the Free mode allows to play on any city, as well as any city created in Sim City 2000.

SimAnt

SimAnt was released in 1991 for several computer systems of the day.

In this game, the player takes full control of an ant colony. The player must build up his colony to conquer the other colonies in the yard. Foes include spiders and humans. A Quick Game option focuses on battles with other groups of ants, and a full Tutorial mode is provided. Biological detail of real ants is provided, to help make the package more educational.

The Sims

The Sims is a real-time simulation game released in 2000 for several platforms where the player simulates the lives of one or more people in a family and their social activities in their immediate neighborhood.

Characters of the family may be custom created (including physical features) or simply chosen from pre-generated families. All the characters also have different age groups, ranging from toddlers, children, teenagers, adults and elders. Each age group has different lifestyles, priorities and interests.

As described on the game documentation website MobyGames:

"Game play in the Sims may be classified as the following:

[1] Life Simulation

This revolves around simulating their day-to-day lives. From eating, sleeping, entertainment, socializing and romance, you are in complete control of their actions if you choose to. Each Sim has a statistics that may be developed. Some of which identify certain desires the Sim in mention may require. Your role in simulating their lives is primarily to keep them happy by fulfilling their desires.

Controlling the Sims people is optional, as they follow their own Artificial Intelligence unless commanded otherwise by the player.

[2] The Architect

Designing and furnishing your home is an integral part of the game play. Pre-generated houses may be purchased at the beginning of the game, or you can design and build your future home from scratch. Furnishing consists of acquiring various items that may be manipulated by your Sims to fulfill their needs. Designing houses and furnishing costs money, which may be obtained through jobs.

[3] Character Development and Careers

Adult Sims may acquire jobs to pay for the many necessities of living a simulated life. There are several different job track available, from Entertainment, Law Enforcement, Politics and even a life of crime! Promotion in a job requires the Sim to advance in certain statistics (e.g. Charisma, Strength) which may be done so by manipulating the various items available for purchase."

Spore

In Spore the player has to accompany a new race through five stages of it's evolution.

These stages are:

• • Cell phase - where the player guides a cell's growth in a primordial soup

  • Creature phase - the player guides a small colony of creatures through a land environment populated with other creatures that must be conquered or befriended

  • Tribal phase - the player takes control of a smarter, tribal version of his creatures as they begin to form a civilization, must deal with rival tribes.

  • Civilization phase - the creatures evolve and begin to form a civilization, complete with a building and vehicle editor, the player must try to conquer or befriend other nations

  • Space phase - the last and longest stage, player must attempt to colonize or conquer the galaxy and provide his planet with enough food.

References

Cagle, Kurt. "Web 2.0 Expo Preview: Will Wright, Sims and Simulations - O'Reilly Radar." O'Reilly Radar - Insight, Analysis, and Research about Emerging Technologies. Web. 04 Apr. 2010. <http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/03/interview-will-wright-sims-a.html>.

Kelly, Kevin. "Wired 2.01: Will Wright: The Mayor of SimCity." Wired News. Web. 04 Apr. 2010. <http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.01/wright.html?topic=&topic_set=>.

Wright, Will. "Lessons From Game Design." Lecture. SD Forum. Computer History Museum, Silicon Valley. 20 Nov. 2003. YouTube. Computer History Museum. Web. 4 Apr. 2010. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdgQyq3hEPo>.

Images and content in the Projects section:

MobyGames - A Game Documentation and Review Project. Web. 04 Apr. 2010. <http://www.mobygames.com/>.

Description of The Sims gameplay taken from:

"The Sims - MobyGames." MobyGames - A Game Documentation and Review Project. Web. 04 Apr. 2010. <http://www.mobygames.com/game/sims>.