Sim City Inside The Sims - Russian Doll Effect?

Ant writes "According to Wired News: 'It was bound to happen. First there was SimCity. Then there was The Sims. And then came a series of highly successful expansion packs like Hot Date, Livin' Large, House Party and others. Now comes a fan-made plug-in that allows Sims characters to effectively play SimCity inside The Sims. The Sims franchise has gone meta.'"

The Ultimate Paradox

[ten000hzlegend]

Ok... so the Sims sit in their little homes and play Sim City, what if those Sims within the Sims Sim City started developing a plug in to play the Sims? Then those Sims Sim City Sims Sims started playing Sim City after using the Sims Sim City Sims Sims Sims plug-in... then Maxis does a Cybernet and takes over...

Hmm... my brain hurts, more than an intravenous injection gallon of blueberry squishee

Re:The Ultimate Paradox

[Mod Me God]

Perhaps we are Sims in some kid's bedroom but we just don't know it.

I'll take the blue pill.

Re:The Ultimate Paradox

[krelian]

I think i am controlled by a geek, all he wants me to do is read /. all day long.

Re:The Ultimate Paradox

[theefer]

What do you mean, (Score:3, Interesting) ?
I'd have modded it +1 Funny ...

Lucky nobody modded it +1 Informative though.

Re:The Ultimate Paradox

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

You don't seem to understand what the word 'paradox' means. For instance, the Liar's Paradox is: "This sentence is false." You see how because of the self referencing the statement can neither be true nor false?

Your statement does not even comse close to being a paradox.

Re:The Ultimate Paradox

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. The parent is clearly describing recursion, not a paradox.

Re:The Ultimate Paradox

[Random832]

except, the paradox implies that no-one has a beard (since everyone either shaves himself or is shaved by the barber)

Re:The Ultimate Paradox

[Gothic_Walrus]

So after a few more plugins, we'd get...

Nah...let's not go there. How about we just call it Sim Video Game?

Re:The Ultimate Paradox

[bsartist]

So after a few more plugins, we'd get...

Cenobites. Trust me - that's one puzzle box you don't want to open.

Re:The Ultimate Paradox

[SuDZ]

You just blew my mind.

SuDZ

Question

[Anonymous Coward]

does this mean the matrix is real now?

13th Floor?

[00420]

Hmmm... sort of like a low tech Thirteenth Floor [movieweb.com]

Re:13th Floor?

[DavidLeblond]

Does that mean the Sims will come out of the computer and start going to people talking gibberish?

Re:13th Floor?

[Kris_J]

Should I get in a car and keep driving straight until I crash through a few road closed signs?

Re:13th Floor?

[Robmonster]

Nah, its an 80's film so you'll probably drive through a sheet of glass thats being carried across the street for no apparent reason.

How sad it must be...

[DangerSteel]

How disconnected from the real world is my life if I have to play a video game whose players I watch play a video game?

In Soviet Russia....

[MMaestro]

...The Sims play YOU!

Ouch!

[jaaron]

They maybe able to build an interesting Sim plugin [simslice.com], but sure can't build a website [simslice.com]!

Someone needs to teach these people some basic HTML and site design skills. This hurts my eyes almost as bad as the Slashdot Games color scheme!

Re:Ouch!

[superpenguin]

Ahhhh! [Gouges out eyes]

Re:Ouch!

[theantix]

Even better is the quote at the bottom of your linked page: "Windowcat Designs, Inc.: Do you need help starting a new website, or someone to host your existing site? Check out www.windowcat.com for full-service web site development services and affordable hosting options by familiar folks."

Yes, after seeing an example of their mad HTML skillz I'm dying to pay them to design sites for me. Hell, I know people who design better looking sites than that who are literally colourblind. And I'm not going to touch on "NETSCAPE USERS: This site is best viewed using an IE 6.0+ browser. Click here to get one free". Fucking twits.

ugh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing screams "I need to get a life!" more than roleplaying somebody who roleplays somebody else (and thus also needs to get a life).

Dark Life in Second Life

[Critter92]

In a similar way, some Second Life [slashdot.org] users decided that they wanted to be able to play a traditional RPG within Second Life. The result of their creation was Dark Life [secondlife.com], captured in SL's New World Notes [blogs.com]. The Dark Lifers have been quite successful and have drawn many players into their game, including many new users. In addition to the usual creature killing, magic spells, healing and leveling, they have also introduced some very interesting twists on traditional RPG gameplay.

It's only a matter of time...

[MrDickey]

before the sims are polluting the sim earth and stepping on sim ants "All I caught while fishing was this tin can, old boot, and book of cliches"

Not that new

[BobTheJanitor]

LucasArts's Day of the Tentacle is the sequel to the classic Maniac Mansion, and if you go into Weird Ed's room (in Tentacle) and use his computer, you're presented with a 100% complete version of Maniac Mansion. So, Weird Ed plays Maniac Mansion on his computer.

Re:Not that new

[Bagels]

And DK64 had the full original Donkey Kong in it (as well as Jet Pac). Best part of the game, IMHO.

Re:Not that new

[molafson]

And IIRC, Super Mario 3 included the original Mario Bros. game. And didn't Tekken also include Galaxian?

Re:Not that new

[malign]

that was ridge racer, could access it during the load up sequence

Someone should write a book about that...

[Anonytroll]

...seriously.
What we have here is a game that has been merchandised and capitalised almost to death (how many expansion packs are out again? 4?) and now they have been crossing the borderline from gaming to metagaming. I'm pretty sure a lot of those who metaplay would make interesting vic... patients for modern psychologists.

Re:Someone should write a book about that...

[mabhatter654]

There are 6! Livin large, house party, hot date, vacation, unleashed, superstar, & makin magic. Plus a really lame attempt at MMORG. Frankly though Maxis missed the boat with sims. Stuff like this is what they SHOULD have been doing...with the ability to have multiplayer in the normal game.

The Sims has the right mix for a great multiplayer if they'd just get back to basics! The lack of interaction with your sim is the best feature of all...you have to PLAY the game rather than play social games.

7 expansion packs + many more custom objects

[SimHacker]

Maxis has shipped 7 Sims expansion packs, and re-issued The Sims twice with some of them built in. But the number of objects in all the official expansion packs combined is quite small, compared to the number of user created objects.

By a large factor, players have created far more custom objects for The Sims, than the 1500 or so that Maxis has produced in 7 expansion packs. It's hard to estimate the exact number of player created objects, but it's interesting to note the number of "magic cookies" register

Meta

[stud9920]

The Sims franchise has gone meta

It's been meta for ages. How you think we are able to play Sim City ? Well posting isn't everything, now I will go peeing for 2.5 hours, eat a sandwich for one hour and have a chat with each of my friends for 2 hours, because even a long-term relationship will fade if I don't do this every three days, and that will get me to lose my job

Re:Meta

[bsartist]

I will go peeing for 2.5 hours

You need to see a doctor - NOW.

Shenmue

[Stormwatch]

In Yu Suzuki's masterpieces Shenmue and Shenmue 2, hero Ryo Hazuki can play Yu Suzuki's early arcades: Hang On, Space Harrier, Out Run, and After Burner 2. Also, he can buy collectibles based on other Sega games, such as Sonic, NiGHTS, and 18 Wheeler.

this has been done before in reverse

[kommakazi]

Anyone else remember the games Streets of Sim City, where you could import your SimCity save files then drive/walk around in the city you made. This game was way ahead of it's time...think VIce City/GTA3 except it game out in 1997 so the graphics weren't quite up to par but the gameplay was quite similar. There was also SimCopter where you got to fly helipoter missions around in SimCities you built and imported.

Re:this has been done before in reverse

[lpret]

Woah, i completely forgot about that game. I remember building cities in SimCity just so that I could wreak some serious havoc on the streets. If I remember correctly, the point was to be a firefighter and get to the scene, or paramedics or whatnot. It was pretty entertaining...*looking through old games for it...nope...*

Re:this has been done before in reverse

[kommakazi]

My fav was stealing the apache helicopter from a military base in SimCopter then wreaking havoc on my cities. :D

I had this idea many years ago...

[bersl2]

Way before The Sims. I thought it would be cool if all of the sim games were integrated into one big one. Needless to say, that idea was unfeasible and is now downright impossible.

Re:I had this idea many years ago...

[moonbender]

I had that idea, too. I think so did everybody who played the Sim Earth and Sim City games. :)

mod me offtopic, but...

[SanityInAnarchy]

That page had a flash ad WITH SOUND! And I though FireFox's popup blocking was enough...

OB PVP link

[satanami69]

Start [pvponline.com] from the first comic

and

End [pvponline.com]

Re:aww man not again...

[francium de neobie]

Then you'll have to play it for 600 years before Neo comes to see you, Architect.

Prior Art

[planetsphinx]

I'm sure there was something even before my example here.. but in Day of the Tentacle [mobygames.com] you could play the prequal game, Maniac Mansion [mobygames.com] on a computer inside the game.

Too Many Sims

[Embedded Geek]

A lot of people have commented about how sad it is to play a game that simulates people playing a game. I kind of found the reverse: I stopped playing "The Sims" when I realized my Sims had more social interaction, time spent putdoors, and generally nicer lives than I did.

I always considered it a wake up call, but in retrospect maybe it was just jealousy.

Neil Gaiman/Gene Wolfe Recursion

[Embedded Geek]

The delightful "A Walking Tour of The Shambles" [american-fantasy.com] details a (presumably) fictional region of Chicago filled with amusing/disturbing/terrifying sights and characters inspired by Charles Addams and Edward Gorey. In it, there is a description of Number Eight, Old Street, which...

"...houses an interesting store in which this guidebook and many other useful and curious items may be obtained. (Notice that this book is in the shop, which itself is in the book -- an infinite progression)."

Sims Proposals

[SimHacker]

Sims Proposals [donhopkins.com]

Here [donhopkins.com] are some proposals and documents I've written, describing the work I've done and projects I've proposed with The Sims character animation system, plug-in objects and tools. After four years, a great deal of useful information has been reverse-engineered by independent third-party developers and open source projects like The Sims Technical Library [sourceforge.net]. I hope these ideas will inspire more tool developers to contribute their programming skills to the Sims community.

Will Wright's origina

Third Party Content Authoring Tools for The Sims

[SimHacker]

This is a propsal I wrote to Maxis after The Sims was released in March 2000, outlining some of my ideas for third party content authoring tools that I could develop. This led to The Sims Transmogrifier [thesimstra...rifier.com], but it touches on several other interesting tools and projects that Maxis never got around to.

A Proposal to Develop Third Party Content Authoring Tools for The Sims [donhopkins.com]
by Don Hopkins, March 2000

Problem Definition:

There is a strong demand many from third parties who want to develop their own custom co