(This sense was no doubt added to, mind, by the inclusion of an editor called the Urban Renewal Kit with some editions of the game – enabling players to customise the look of buildings and objects further. The isometric landscape made for a truly immersive environment, fostering in players a much greater attachment to, and fondness for, their creations – lending an even greater sense of heartbreak when the game’s increasingly devious ‘disaster’ scenarios struck with devastating destructive effect. While not the first isometric strategy game – Peter Molyneux’s Populous had beaten it to the punch as early as 1989 – the release of SimCity 2000 in 1994 heralded a seismic shift in the genre. The series itself, meanwhile, showed an ability to adapt as top-down strategy games quickly became a relic of the past in the early 1990s. It even made it to the peerless ZX Spectrum in the end. It wasn’t until a tiny publisher called Maxis saw potential in the idea that versions of the game were finally released for the Amiga and Mac in 1989, followed swiftly by PC and – finally – C64 editions. Publishers Broderbund rejected Wright’s pitch – unconvinced by the notion of a game with no fixed end ‘goal’ – and so the initial C64 version languished unreleased. Like so many revolutionary ideas are, however, SimCity was initially unappreciated. Reasoning that others might also enjoy building towns and terrain in this way, he decided to turn that experience into a game of its own – immersing himself in urban planning culture and eventually completing, in 1985, something that started out under the name Micropolis but would ultimately be known as SimCity. Having created a bespoke editor to assist in the creation of maps for the game, however, Wright found that he was taking far more enjoyment out of building these maps than developing, or playing, the game itself. In the early 1980s, developer Will Wright was working on an otherwise inconsequential shoot-em-up game called Raid On Bungeling Bay for the Commodore 64. For something that would eventually launch one of the biggest franchises in the history of gaming, it’s interesting to note that SimCity’s creation was essentially the result of a happy accident.

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