One SimCity Per Child 253
SimHacker writes "Electronic Arts has donated the original 'classic' version of Will Wright's popular SimCity game to the One Laptop Per Child project. SimCity is the epitome of constructionist educational games, and has been widely used by educators to unlock and speed-up the transformational skills associated with creative thinking. It's also been used in the Future City Competition by seventh- and eighth-grade students to foster engineering skills and inspire students to explore futuristic concepts and careers in engineering. OLPC SimCity is based on the X11 TCL/Tk version of SimCity for Unix developed and adapted to the OLPC by Don Hopkins, and the GPL open source code will soon be released under the name
"Micropolis", which was
SimCity's original working title. SJ Klein, director of content for the OLPC, called on game developers to create
'frameworks and scripting environments — tools with which children themselves could create their own content.' The long term agenda of the OLPC SimCity project is to convert SimCity into a scriptable Python module, integrate it with the OLPC's Sugar user interface and Cairo rendering library. Eventually they hope to apply
Seymour Papert's and Alan Kay's ideas about constructionist education and teaching kids to program."
cruel and unusual (Score:5, Funny)
Great... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Awesome (Score:4, Funny)
Really now..-Wants and needs. (Score:1, Funny)
Maybe we should ask were the OLPC project and Simcity falls on Maslow's hierarchy of needs?
Re:Linux?!? (Score:4, Funny)
Do we want a world full of jerks? (Score:5, Funny)
Great! (Score:4, Funny)
Rails not roads (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Do we want a world full of jerks? (Score:3, Funny)
Oops, wrong OS.
Whats that overhead? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Do we want a world full of jerks? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:More SimCity links (Score:5, Funny)
I have a toaster that doesn't run it yet.
I you do that port, I can pay you in... um, simtoast.
Socialist propaganda (Score:1, Funny)
However, I'd be hesitant recommending it as an educational game, as in that capacity it is essentially socialist propaganda. That of course is a consequence of the nature of the game itself; if common law replaced city planning, and services like roads, mass transit, healthcare and education were privatized, then there wouldn't be a lot for a Sim City gamer to do.
Essentially it'd boil down to administration & law & order - which are the proper functions of Government, but don't exactly make for a thrilling game
Re:What's next? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:SimCity not all that constructionist... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nonsense. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Whats that overhead? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:More SimCity links (Score:3, Funny)
Once the dust settles, I'd love to port SimCity to the TomTom GPS navigator device. TomToms run Linux, of course, so it won't be very difficult.
Then you could operate the bulldozer by driving your car around! It would be safest to play it in the desert, so you didn't run into any real buildings.
Disclaimer: I work for TomTom, and we're looking for some great Linux hackers! It's a great company to work for. Please send me email if you know Linux well, want to live in Amsterdam, and hack Linux on TomTom GPS navigation devices!
-Don
Re:SimCity not all that constructionist... (Score:3, Funny)