5 ms·

The Sims Game Design Documents (1997)

282 points by doppp 9y ago

frik 9y ago
Was on HN yesterday, see also for insightful comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14997725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14997725
- synthmeat 9y ago
  These PDFs, as contrasted by the brevity of the Motive.c, is story greater than the sum of its parts.
elcapitan 9y ago
Wow, this is super cool. I wish there were repositories of older, well known games and their design documents.
- fancy_pantser 9y ago
  There was a site, gamepitches.com, that wanted to archive these types of documents but it only existed for a few years. Here's a Wayback Machine link to the document archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20150406082704/http://www.gamepitches.com/game-designs/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150406082704/http://www.gamepi... Some classic design documentation is available for Karateka and Prince of Persia by the creator: http://www.jordanmechner.com/backstage/journals/ http://www.jordanmechner.com/backstage/journals/ Gamasutra postmortems are a good resource for modern games. They don't usually have design documents but they often talk about their plans and how they had to change during development: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/postmortem/ http://www.gamasutra.com/features/postmortem/
  - jameskegel 9y ago
    Wow that's a valuable resource; were you the author?
    - fancy_pantser 9y ago
      Sorry, no. I believe it was Gabriel Pendleton (@GabeTHEGeek).
- Impossible 9y ago
  The Infocom archive is really good for this https://archive.org/details/infocomcabinet https://archive.org/details/infocomcabinet. The Deus Ex design doc was released http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/285520/Annotated_version_of_an_original_Deus_Ex_design_doc_surfaces.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/285520/Annotated_version_... along with some other in development Ionstorm games that never shipped. Nintendo released some early design sketches for classic games like Super Mario Bros and Zelda which are interesting to look at. https://www.nintendo.co.uk/News/2016/December/Take-a-look-behind-the-scenes-with-design-documents-from-The-Legend-of-Zelda--1169414.html https://www.nintendo.co.uk/News/2016/December/Take-a-look-be....
OtterCoder 9y ago
MaxisSimRules.pdf is a gold mine of distilled wisdom all by itself.
- kakarot 9y ago
  Thanks for the heads up. You're right. There are gems like, "Players occasionally need to abandon long term strategy in favor of short-term success." and "Because of the interleaving data sets in the simulators, players may not initially understand why certain actions have unexpected effects. One of the compelling reasons to play is to discover and understand various causes and effects." Good advice for any game designer.
  - elcapitan 9y ago
    > "Players occasionally need to abandon long term strategy in favor of short-term success." That reminds me in a way of this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/opinion/28radosh.html http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/opinion/28radosh.html "Like cinema, games will need to embrace the dynamics of failure, tragedy, comedy and romance. They will need to stop pandering to the player’s desire for mastery in favor of enhancing the player’s emotional and intellectual life." It's true, games often cater to this expectation of gradual, linear improvement without major setbacks. One thing that is nice about the Sims is that it allows for a longer developing series of ups and downs. It's kind of like feature movies (linear games) vs the more recent TV series in that regard.
    - sololipsist 9y ago
      I don't like the way it's phrased like an exclusive dichotomy, and that games must stop "pandering" to mastery to "embrace" intellectual life. This reads like someone who just likes film but doesn't like videos games turning their nose up at something they view as aesthetically inferior, as if their shitty aesthetic opinions are informed by universal objective truth itself. Yeah, absolutely, video games that enhance the emotional and intellectual lives of the audience are better for it, but games that give the audience a sense of accomplishment and reward curiosity are also better for it. There is no reason to stop doing one to do the other. Video games don't need to be movies.
zamber 9y ago
Awesome. Finally I know how to summon Satan (TheSimsPieMenus.pdf)!
Dowwie 9y ago
Don is an active member of the HN community. Hi, Don!
qatanah 9y ago
Interesting enough they considered implementing feng shui in Ch09-Architecture.pdf. Feng Shui Analysis TBD.
- DonHopkins 9y ago
  Effectively, the Sims themselves are the Feng Shui analyzers, in the way that the layout and open spaces of their house and the objects in it affects the routing efficiency and creates flows and bottlenecks, which affects how much time they have for other more productive uses of time than walking across the house to the bathroom, queuing to walk through doors, navigating through crowds, which indirectly affects their overall happiness and other motives scores. To show how happy your Sims are, the antlers of the Beaver Pelt Moosehead occasionally moves up and down to reflect the overall happiness of the family members! http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Beaver_Pelt_Moosehead http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Beaver_Pelt_Moosehead If your Sims get really depressed, and have a Tragic Clown Painting on the wall, a real Tragic Clown arrives and performs annoying tricks that make you even more depressed, and he is very difficult to get rid of. http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Tragic_Clown http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Tragic_Clown

282 points by doppp 9y ago

frik 9y ago

Was on HN yesterday, see also for insightful comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14997725 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14997725

synthmeat 9y ago
These PDFs, as contrasted by the brevity of the Motive.c, is story greater than the sum of its parts.

elcapitan 9y ago

Wow, this is super cool. I wish there were repositories of older, well known games and their design documents.

fancy_pantser 9y ago
There was a site, gamepitches.com, that wanted to archive these types of documents but it only existed for a few years. Here's a Wayback Machine link to the document archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20150406082704/http://www.gamepitches.com/game-designs/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150406082704/http://www.gamepi... Some classic design documentation is available for Karateka and Prince of Persia by the creator: http://www.jordanmechner.com/backstage/journals/ http://www.jordanmechner.com/backstage/journals/ Gamasutra postmortems are a good resource for modern games. They don't usually have design documents but they often talk about their plans and how they had to change during development: http://www.gamasutra.com/features/postmortem/ http://www.gamasutra.com/features/postmortem/
- jameskegel 9y ago
  Wow that's a valuable resource; were you the author?
  - fancy_pantser 9y ago
    Sorry, no. I believe it was Gabriel Pendleton (@GabeTHEGeek).
Impossible 9y ago
The Infocom archive is really good for this https://archive.org/details/infocomcabinet https://archive.org/details/infocomcabinet. The Deus Ex design doc was released http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/285520/Annotated_version_of_an_original_Deus_Ex_design_doc_surfaces.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/285520/Annotated_version_... along with some other in development Ionstorm games that never shipped. Nintendo released some early design sketches for classic games like Super Mario Bros and Zelda which are interesting to look at. https://www.nintendo.co.uk/News/2016/December/Take-a-look-behind-the-scenes-with-design-documents-from-The-Legend-of-Zelda--1169414.html https://www.nintendo.co.uk/News/2016/December/Take-a-look-be....

OtterCoder 9y ago

MaxisSimRules.pdf is a gold mine of distilled wisdom all by itself.

kakarot 9y ago
Thanks for the heads up. You're right. There are gems like, "Players occasionally need to abandon long term strategy in favor of short-term success." and "Because of the interleaving data sets in the simulators, players may not initially understand why certain actions have unexpected effects. One of the compelling reasons to play is to discover and understand various causes and effects." Good advice for any game designer.
- elcapitan 9y ago
  > "Players occasionally need to abandon long term strategy in favor of short-term success." That reminds me in a way of this article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/opinion/28radosh.html http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/opinion/28radosh.html "Like cinema, games will need to embrace the dynamics of failure, tragedy, comedy and romance. They will need to stop pandering to the player’s desire for mastery in favor of enhancing the player’s emotional and intellectual life." It's true, games often cater to this expectation of gradual, linear improvement without major setbacks. One thing that is nice about the Sims is that it allows for a longer developing series of ups and downs. It's kind of like feature movies (linear games) vs the more recent TV series in that regard.
  - sololipsist 9y ago
    I don't like the way it's phrased like an exclusive dichotomy, and that games must stop "pandering" to mastery to "embrace" intellectual life. This reads like someone who just likes film but doesn't like videos games turning their nose up at something they view as aesthetically inferior, as if their shitty aesthetic opinions are informed by universal objective truth itself. Yeah, absolutely, video games that enhance the emotional and intellectual lives of the audience are better for it, but games that give the audience a sense of accomplishment and reward curiosity are also better for it. There is no reason to stop doing one to do the other. Video games don't need to be movies.

zamber 9y ago

Awesome. Finally I know how to summon Satan (TheSimsPieMenus.pdf)!

Dowwie 9y ago

Don is an active member of the HN community. Hi, Don!

qatanah 9y ago

Interesting enough they considered implementing feng shui in Ch09-Architecture.pdf. Feng Shui Analysis TBD.

DonHopkins 9y ago
Effectively, the Sims themselves are the Feng Shui analyzers, in the way that the layout and open spaces of their house and the objects in it affects the routing efficiency and creates flows and bottlenecks, which affects how much time they have for other more productive uses of time than walking across the house to the bathroom, queuing to walk through doors, navigating through crowds, which indirectly affects their overall happiness and other motives scores. To show how happy your Sims are, the antlers of the Beaver Pelt Moosehead occasionally moves up and down to reflect the overall happiness of the family members! http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Beaver_Pelt_Moosehead http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Beaver_Pelt_Moosehead If your Sims get really depressed, and have a Tragic Clown Painting on the wall, a real Tragic Clown arrives and performs annoying tricks that make you even more depressed, and he is very difficult to get rid of. http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Tragic_Clown http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Tragic_Clown