It’s not that bizarre when you think about it. As a technical piece of software, Sims is actually quite complex.
You need a sophisticated character editor with a vast array of clothing options. You need a house editor that allows you to build any house you can imagine. You need a huge array of possible interactions between people and all kinds of objects. You also need lots of randomized interaction and AI (as in traditional game AI) to control NPCs. You need to have all these things be affected by the characters traits and you need them to go through life stages while still being interesting.
It’s a whole lot. It’s basically impossible to build a game like that as an indie developer. You really need a large team and that means funding. And that’s where it gets hard cause you are up against Sims and I don’t imagine many sources of funding want to make that bet.
It’s not that bizarre when you think about it. As a technical piece of software, Sims is actually quite complex.
You need a sophisticated character editor with a vast array of clothing options. You need a house editor that allows you to build any house you can imagine. You need a huge array of possible interactions between people and all kinds of objects. You also need lots of randomized interaction and AI (as in traditional game AI) to control NPCs. You need to have all these things be affected by the characters traits and you need them to go through life stages while still being interesting.
It’s a whole lot. It’s basically impossible to build a game like that as an indie developer. You really need a large team and that means funding. And that’s where it gets hard cause you are up against Sims and I don’t imagine many sources of funding want to make that bet.