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	by MrPowerGamerBR 53 days ago
	Just a fyi for anyone that doesn't know: A few years back Don Hopkins got the permission from Yoot Saito to open source Yoot Tower, SimTower's sequel: https://github.com/YootTowerManagement/YootTower ...however I don't think that the source was ever published anywhere, considering that the repository still doesn't have the source code yet. ("Please check out the YootTower repo, where I'll publish the source code once it's cleaned up, reviewed and approved by Yoot, and relicensed with the MIT licensed.")

2 comments

DonHopkins 52 days ago

I spoke with Yoot about it recently. There are some issues with Nintendo and licensing that may take some time to work through. My fingers are crossed, but it might take a while and require patience. We all want it to happen though!

Meanwhile I'm working on Micropolis (based on the original SimCity Classic code, cleaned up, and compiled with Emscripten into WASM), and also reimplementing The Sims character animation system and content management and creation system in TypeScript with WebGPU and MOOLLM. ;)

Micropolis WASM + WebGL tile renderer demo:

https://micropolisweb.com

MicropolisCore repo:

https://github.com/SimHacker/MicropolisCore

Micropolis design docs:

https://github.com/SimHacker/MicropolisCore/tree/main/design...

Sims character animation demo with WebGPU renderer:

https://vitamoo.space

Source code:

https://github.com/DnfJeff/SimObliterator_Suite/tree/main/vi...

Design docs:

https://github.com/DnfJeff/SimObliterator_Suite/tree/main/vi...

Designs for creating LLM driven Sims content editing and creation tools, uplifting and simulating The Sims in MOOLLM, and downloading The Sims content back into the original game:

https://github.com/SimHacker/moollm/tree/main/designs/sim-ob...

>"What would your Sims say if they could finally talk to you?"

>Two-way bridge between The Sims 1 save files and MOOLLM. Characters, objects, and pets step between a 26-year-old game VM and an LLM-powered universe, retaining and synchronizing their parallel existences.

>The One-Line Version

>Drag a 25-year-old Sims save file in. Watch the character wake up. Have a conversation with them. Send them home changed.

The Uplift: Sims ↔ MOOLLM Character Bridge

https://github.com/SimHacker/moollm/blob/main/designs/sim-ob...

It's all still a work in progress that I hack on when I have spare time (and spare money for tokens), so no ship date known! ;)

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DaiPlusPlus 52 days ago

> I spoke with Yoot about it recently

(I said "Wow!" in my head, if that means anything; I'm just used to games-designers of mid-1990s all being virtual recluses by now - or long into retirement).

May I ask a few things about SimTower that have been stuck with me since I was 9 years old (and my apologies if these questions have been asked already):

* What's stopping the source-code to the Win95/MacOS SimTower being released? I assumed Yoot retained core IP rights because Maxis was largely a re-packager and distributor... but if Maxis did buy the copyright to the source then it would sit with EA now - and EA themselves have been surprisingly cool with open-sourcing lately (Command & Conquer, etc) so could we see something happen on this front?

* Why did SimTower's ground lobbies and sky-lobbies get completely different artwork - but only for the first few hundred pixels - if you build offset from the left-edge of the map? And what are the different objects in the lobby artwork meant to be? I'm not sure if I'm looking at a row of green cash-registers or payphones - or something else.

* What inspired the endgame victory condition? (...do any towers in real-life have a consecrated cathedral on their summits? it just seemed an odd thing overall, even moreso given that Japan and Japanese urban (and urban-planning) culture doesn't make me suddenly think of Christianity.

(I now feel embarrassed for getting all fanboyish around you, lol; sorry!)

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ndiddy 52 days ago

If there's legal problems with releasing the Nintendo console ports, would it be possible to just release the code for the PC/Mac versions?

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DonHopkins 52 days ago

Also, Fabian Wesner's posted about using Claud Code to analyze the original micropolis repo's code and documentation to generate a new version.

Here is a deep dive "podcast" he generated (presenting Claud's analysis in a conversational format) that describes the work. I listened to it, and it got the important trademark and licensing issues right, was quite comprehensive and technically accurate, up until the end where they said maybe there's something to learn about city planning from SimCity! ;)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SGAkLIb4CQMPKU7TJ2sRdEjc0Dh...

It pretty much parallels the analysis docs in his repo, which are also quite accurate:

https://github.com/FabianWesner/micropolis/tree/master/docs

This lightning talk I gave at HAR 2009 goes into what you can actually learn from playing SimCity/Micropolis (and reading and extending the code), thanks to Seymour Papert's and Alan Kay's philosophy of Constructionist Education, and it's much wider and more generally useful than just city planning:

https://donhopkins.medium.com/har-2009-lightning-talk-transc...

To save you the indignity of LinkedIn scraping your browser extensions, here is a copy of Fabian Wesner's post and my response with the link spying urls resolved:

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/fabian-wesner_micropolis-simc...

Fabian Wesner | CTO | Passionate about AI and Entrepreneurship | 1 month ago

Claude Code is extremely good at documenting legacy software. That's a huge blessing, especially when the original developers are no longer around or are finally ready to retire.

If you haven't tried this, you might be missing out. So I did it for you.

#Micropolis is the open-source release of the original #SimCity, published by Electronic Arts in 1989. EA released the source code under GPLv3 in 2008 for the One Laptop Per Child project. The codebase is decades old, and there's likely no one left who knows it inside out.

SimCity was one of the very first games I played, back in 1990 on my father's 286. Just a few months after the Wall fell. So this one is personal.

I let Claude Code read the entire codebase and write a full documentation. As far as I can see, it looks correct and complete. I'm no expert on this particular codebase, but that's exactly the point: there might be no expert left on earth. I have tried this on other software where I am an expert, and the results are surprisingly accurate.

You can find the resulting docs and the prompt here: https://github.com/FabianWesner/micropolis/tree/master/docs

I also converted the docs into a podcast episode for easier consumption:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1SGAkLIb4CQMPKU7TJ2sRdEjc0Dh...

Enjoy!

I know I’m not the first to use Claude Code on this treasure and - of course - I already rebuilt the game with JavaScript.