First it was SimCity in the 80’s, the game where you assumed the mayor’s role and created and managed cities.

Ten years later, Electronic Arts launched The Sims, the biggest success of the world of games, where the players control the life of virtual people, called Sims, and determine which activities they have to make. The objective is to make the Sims happy.

Now, Simslice has created a plug-in that combines the two games into one,creating a game within a game. The game is called Slice City and it allows the Sims to play a videogame where they build mini-cities. Now, besides going to work or make out, The Sims can turn as many game nuts as possible, and let the girlfriends waiting for hours while they exhaust themselves playing games.

“One of the best aspects of Sim games is the concept of managing and manipulating a mini-world. I thought that if I could add a level of play (where the Sims themselves can run a mini-city) it would make that aspect of the experience even more enjoyable.” Said Steve Alvey, 35, the designer of Slice City.

Alvey was a SimCity fan that evolved to be a fan of The Sims. “SimCity was the first PC game I ever bought. Back in 2000 when I heard of The Sims and the idea that one could create simulated people from the personality on up and then put them in custom-built living environments, it seemed very interesting to me” he said

Alvey decided to develop Slice City when he learned that Simsville, a similar game, was not going to be released. But it took same time for him to start contributing to The Sims.

It was a lengthy project and it took several months to complete the first beta versions. We tested it first in our forums, where we often beta test new creations. Initial feedback was much more positive then we even expected. So I added new features and released version 1.1. The most current version is 1.2, which has even more features than the prior version. Version 1.3 is already in the process of being developed,” he says.

One of the most interesting aspects of the game is the interaction between the citizens and the Sims. “I wanted to create a cause/effect relationship between the Sims and the citizens. The Sims must routinely refurbish the city buildings to keep the citizens happy. If they let the buildings deteriorate into disarray or eventual rubble, then the unhappy citizens will move away from the city. Happy citizens will go to work, earn profits and pay taxes which the Sims then collect as daily revenue.”

In the game, to confuse citizens and Sims; catastrophes, strikes and even terrorist attacks may occur. But the beauty is to keep the city in order. Slice City can be downloaded from www.simslice.com.

-- by Guilherme Werneck