Having played Sims myself, through the patient interface of my wife, I can say that it is absolutely nothing like alter ego. Or rather, it is many times more complicated.
Yes, part of the game is designing and defining esthetic characteristics surrounding your sims family's life, placement of furniture, appliances, colors of walls, pictures, etc. all such things have a baring on how well your sims function. I think the way you could best characterize the sims is not a pet or buddy that you interact with but a community of people which you directly control. It is highly entertaining, because of the random attributes you don't give them, as well as the attributes you set them up with at the start of the game. With six different personality characteristics and only thirty points to divy out, I believe, there are many combinations of personality profile, from the drably ordinary to the dangerously insane. the trouble with the game is this. It is, in fact, a very good game, worth playing, and highly expandable via a large community of modders and designers. It is also a game which the v.i. community would be extraordinarily hardpressed to play, with greater difficulty as sight level decreased. As I said, I only played it through the patient assistance of my wife, and also, a while before that, a good friend. I played using their games, in their sims neighborhoods. I would not feel it necessary to buy my own copy, just to ask someone else to play it with me. The trouble is, having looked at many possibilities, I can not find an interface that would allow a blind-accessible sims style game to be developed. The timescale of at least one minute per second in game means that snap decisions have to be made and executed. We simply don't have enough keys on the keyboard to make every option available that would fall under such categories. Furthermore, objects behave fairly realistically, with fairly realistic physics. Programming all of the objects, behaviors associated with those objects, and even just the tendencies of certain sim types to use those objects is the work of a company of programmers. Everyone, then, would have to work on this one project in one programming language and with one specific goal only. This is a game that I strongly wish we had, but the truth of the matter is that we don't have enough programmers to pull it off within anything approaching a reasonable timeframe. We don't have the technology needed to interface with such a game, at present, and we tend to summarily dismiss anything we can't play as not worth our time. I've met several people that just hated the sims, but when I told them about it, they decided that they'd love to play it, and it was too bad the interface was so complicated. Signed: Dakotah Rickard On 3/22/10, Bryan Peterson <[email protected]> wrote: > I can't say I'd actually have been interested in a game like that either. > But it was sort of amusing when my mother's character would get depressed on > a whim and fall asleep on the floor, thereby missing her ride to work. Or > attempt to cook a meal and instead set the kitchen on fire. And the voice > acting was all done in this funky fake language with subtitles for us > English speakers. > Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of pizza? > Vender: No pizza. Only Khlav Kalash. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "dark" <[email protected]> > To: "Gamers Discussion list" <[email protected]> > Sent: Monday, March 22, 2010 12:19 AM > Subject: [Audyssey] sims was Toc observation > > >>I must confess I've never really seen the point of such games myself, I can >> >>see the point in something strategical such as sim city, but things like >>the sims have always struck me as basically a glorified tamagochi. >> >> In terms of audio interface, ---- well there are already textual versions >> of such things (check out the alter ego game at >> http://www.theblackforge.net/ for instance, and there are probably >> others).. >> >> I suppose something with audio events and acting could be created, ---- >> though as I said I must admit I've not really ever seen the point in such >> things myself, ---- I suppose though I've always been a bit more hard core >> >> in my gaming and wanted more exploration personally. >> >> Of course, this isn't to say it's a bad idea, ---- just a concept i've >> never really found personally interesting, --- but that of course is just >> me. >> >> Beware the grue! >> >> Dark. >> ----- Original Message ----- >> From: "Bryan Peterson" <[email protected]> >> To: "Gamers Discussion list" <[email protected]> >> Sent: Monday, March 22, 2010 4:00 AM >> Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Toc observation >> >> >>> It'd be interesting to see if a game like The Sims could be created, >>> where rather than building a city you create an individual character and >>> try to build a life for that character with house, job and things like >>> that. I remember we bought a Game Cube version of the game for my mom a >>> few years back. It was quite funny since if you didn't do things exactly >>> right the character would get depressed and fall asleep at odd hours of >>> the day and things like that. >>> Homer: Hey, uh, could you go across the street and get me a slice of >>> pizza? >>> Vender: No pizza. Only Khlav Kalash. >> >> >> --- >> Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] >> If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to >> [email protected]. >> You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at >> http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. >> All messages are archived and can be searched and read at >> http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. >> If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the >> list, >> please send E-mail to [email protected]. >> > > > --- > Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] > If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to > [email protected]. > You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at > http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. > All messages are archived and can be searched and read at > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. > If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, > please send E-mail to [email protected]. > --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [email protected].
