SimCity
↘ 3.6%
😊 7.8/10
(Super Nintendo - US, Strategy)
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Developed_By:
Intelligent Systems
Published_By:
Nintendo
Released On:
26 Apr 1991
Also available on:
SimCity (1991-08-13) is the successor to the city simulation game Sim City. You are once again the mayor, but this time you can fully customize the terrain before building your city. The graphics are isometric, whereas the original had graphics displayed in a top-down fashion.
This title adds numerous features over the original such as the ability to build "light" zones, subways, hospitals, colleges, zoos, and arcos which are actually cities in cities. You can now give names to places, and your city is surrounded by neighboring towns with which you can trade goods. Finally, instead of the poll in the first game, you now have the option of reading several newspapers to get an idea of your progress.
SimCity (1991-08-13) is a strategy game where you must balance the needs of your city's residents with the need for economic growth. You'll need to manage resources, build infrastructure, and make tough decisions to keep your city thriving.
eBay Product ID:
4101 (United States)
UPC-A:
785138330112 (United States)
EAN-13:
7896273600107 (Brazil)
ASIN:
B00002STZH (United States)
Nintendo Media PN:
SNS-AWWE-USA (United States)
Part #:
SNS-SC (USA)
Nintendo Media PN:
SNS-SC-USA (United States)
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Media Type:
Cartridge
Color Depth:
8-bit (256 colors)
Number of Players Supported:
1 Player
Input Devices Supported/Optional:
Mouse
Miscellaneous Attributes:
Battery Backed RAM
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Manual
Game Guide
Extracted from the original game manual
This text presents a series of scenario-based challenges for a city-building simulation game, where players step into the role of a mayor tasked with saving various troubled municipalities. Across different levels, players must manage urban crises such as severe traffic gridlock, rampant pollution, economic collapse, and devastating natural disasters. To succeed, players must strategically zone land, manage budgets, and construct vital infrastructure like mass transit and emergency services to restore prosperity to each unique city.
Story
The Wright Files: Pigiron
Pigiron, PA wasn't always an industrial wasteland with pollution so thick you can stab it with a fork and criminals under every rock. One hundred years ago it was a well balanced community of homes, shops and industry. Then one day Mayor Gil Eyesore returned from a trip to a widget factory.
He was a changed man. He had a vision of Pigiron becoming the widget capital of the world! As a result, he zoned every available piece of land for industrial use. He practically spent all the money he had, but he figured that industries and people would soon flock to Pigiron and begin manufacturing widgets.
Industry moved in and the skies darkened. Then crime raised its ugly head and Pigiron soon led the nation in the rate of stolen Nintendo Power Magazines. Even worse, as far as Mayor Eyesore was concerned, was that none of those dozens of new factories manufactured widgets. He left public life a crushed and widgetless husk of a mayor.
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Pigiron becomes an industrial city.
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Industry brings crime and pollution.
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Land values and the tax base are low.
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Pigiron needs a major clean up.
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Traffic jams are constant.
The Wright Files: Gearhead
Everybody wanted to live in Gearhead, California—to be close to the surf, the sun, the beautiful people with green hair—and to drive their cars all day long. Polly Piston, the mayor of Gearhead and the proud owner of an '88 Vette was no exception.
While mayors from Boston to Tokyo encouraged Polly to build a mass transit system in her booming town, she wouldn't hear of it. As the years passed, the roads of Gearhead became swamped with cars. They were so crowded you could walk on top of them from one side of town to the other.
No one could get to the beach or the mall anymore, and the air turned as green as people's hair. Polly decided to build more roads. Unfortunately, people just bought new cars and filled up the new roads overnight. Soon Gearhead simply ran out of gas.
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Gearhead wasn't always a nightmare.
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New roads didn't help the problem.
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Pollution increased due to the cars.
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Now Gearhead gridlock never ends.
The Wright Files: Goldrush
For years and years Goldrush, Nebraska had been a sleepy town surrounded by fields of golden corn. Upon being elected, Mayor Milo Cobb—the largest land owner in the area—changed all that.
He immediately tried to attract people and jobs to Goldrush, hoping that he could boost the value of his corn fields and then sell them, but his lack of planning proved disasterous. All along the Silver Plate River, industries sprang up like weeds and the surrounding Land Values dropped.
Since city taxes also dropped, Mayor Cobb didn't have enough money to build the Police Stations, roads and parks his expanding town needed. The problems got worse and worse and the Land Values continued to drop until a prime acre of farmland cost the same as a fudgecicle. Mayor Cobb's gold mine turned out to be full of fool's gold.
The Wright Files: Lonestar
Lonestar, Texas was the home of rugged individualists who didn't like living in crowded cities. They wanted the feeling of the wide open plains in their backyards. If mankind had been meant to have crowded cities, they argued, he wouldn't have been given Texas.
Irma Biggs, the mayor of Lonestar, took pains to isolate every zone from every other zone to keep her voters happy. Well, when the skyrocketing bills for road maintenance came in, the voters weren't so happy.
The traffic jams were also bad, mile after mile of dusty pickup trucks baking in the hot Texas sun. Unlike Dallas or Houston, no one ever built a skyscraper in Lonestar, or a big factory, or a zoo for the kids, because the town couldn't grow large enough to support them.
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What are the worst problems?
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29% TAXES
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29% CRIME
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17% POLLUTION
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Roads deteriorating, due to lack of funds.
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RATE OF GROWTH
The Wright Files: Hoocares
The people of Hoocares, Florida never thought a disaster could happen to them. They lived in a beautiful town with lots of sunshine and orange juice. Life was good. Their shorelines were wild and undeveloped, which made for excellent fishing.
The airport was located conveniently in the heart of the city, and the Nuclear Power Plants kept the skies clear of smog. The yahoos who tried to sell the city fire trucks were just wasting their time.
Then the earthquake of '59 hit them like a herd of buffalo stampeding over a sandcastle. Of course, the earthquake caused numerous fires and a nuclear meltdown, which would have been bad enough, but a tidal wave flooded the city, as well, and with all the smoke and confusion, airplanes kept slamming into the skyscrapers downtown.
The one Fire Station couldn't cope, perhaps because it had been wiped out in the earthquake, and practically the entire city of Hoocares was lost.
Bern
Bern, Switzerland developed without a road plan and now traffic is threatening to choke the city. You must create a mass transit system and bulldoze the unnecessary Roads. It will be expensive and the citizens are already opposed to taxes.
Rio
Due to greenhouse warming in the 21st Century, Rio is about to be flooded. Developing the waterfront is the mayor's first task, then dealing with crime, pollution and brownouts.
How to Play
Welcome to SimCity
Welcome to SimCity. My name is Dr. Wright, and I will be your guide and teacher as you set out to create bustling cities or sprawling urban wastelands. As mayor, the choice is yours.
Let's start off by destroying Tokyo. Studies show that nine out of ten new mayors begin their careers with a frenzy of destruction, using monsters, earthquakes and other disasters to reduce their cities to rubble. After that's out of your system, we'll move on to the real challenge of building a thriving metropolis.
How to Begin the Destruction of Tokyo
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Insert the Game Pak, turn on the power, and push START at the title screen.
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Move cursor arrow to SCENARIO and push START.
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Move highlighted box to Tokyo 1961 and push B.
The King Comes
Bowser, King of the Koopas, is looking for his arch-rivals Mario and Luigi. Leaving no building unturned, Bowser will wander aimlessly through your city knocking down planes, smashing ships and leaving a path of destruction behind him.
Contain the fires he has set and repair the damage as quickly as possible before he decides to come back. You have 5 years to accomplish this task. Push the B Button to see Tokyo BK-Before Koopa!
Take a Quick Tour of Tokyo
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Use the Control Pad while holding down the Y Button to scroll all over the map.
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The Imperial Palace: See it now, but not for long.
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The Airport: About to be closed, permanently.
What's on the Map
When you look at Tokyo, you see many structures. There are stadiums, police stations and public buildings, but also places where people live, work and shop:
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A residential area
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Industrial factories
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Commercial shops
Accessing Submenus
The submenus have information in many forms including maps and graphs. They also allow you to control game options like how fast time passes or how much money you want to spend on fire protection every year.
Move the cursor to one of the symbols on the green top bar, then push B to access a submenu.
How to Save the City from Yourself
If you want to put the pieces back together, you can do so using the Edit Icons, which are the little pictures on the left side of the screen. Using the icon that looks like power lines, you can reconnect power to buildings where a ⚡ symbol indicates loss of electricity.
Move the cursor over the icon using the Control Pad, then push Ⓑ. The icon is now highlighted. Now move the cursor over the map until an edge of the cursor box touches the edge of a powerless building. Push Ⓑ and a section of power line is built, costing you $5.
Build power lines from the disconnected building to a building with power. After a few moments, you'll see that both buildings have power. Rebuild roads, airports, etc. the same way.
Activating Disasters
The designers of SimCity included six fun-filled ways to wreak havoc on your hapless population: fires, monsters, floods, tornados, earthquakes and plane wrecks.
To activate them, move the cursor to the green bar at the top of the screen. The box becomes a hand. Move the hand so it points at the footprint and push Ⓑ. Simply point at the disaster(s) of your choice and push Ⓑ to activate them.
Starting Up Practice City
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Insert the Game Pak in the Super NES Control Deck and turn on the power.
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At the title screen, push Start or Ⓑ.
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Move the cursor with the Control Pad to the Practice City option, and push Ⓑ.
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Push Ⓑ to clear the telefax message and begin the game.
The Landform
The area where you build is the Landform. Right now you see only blue water, brown fields and green forests, which change with the seasons. The Practice City Landform is a small island, but there are 1000 challenging Landforms to choose from when you start a new city.
Starting in Regular Mode
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Choose Create New City from the main menu.
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Select a Landform. Use the map displayed by pointing at OK and pushing Ⓑ, or point at NEXT and OK to see the next map. You can also choose a Landform by number using the counter arrows at the bottom of the screen.
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Enter the name of your city on the following screen.
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Pick one of the three game levels and verify that everything is okay.
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Push Ⓑ and the game begins.
Power to the People
No one wants to move to a town without power, so to get started you need to build a Power Plant. Build either a nuclear plant ($5000 and nonpolluting) or a coal power plant ($3000 and highly polluting) which you connect to the Zones with Power Lines.
Zones without power display a blinking ⚡ symbol. A Zone placed beside a powered Zone doesn't need Power Lines.
Step-by-Step: First Power and Industry
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Move the cursor to the Nuclear Power icon ☢️. Push Ⓑ to select it.
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Move the cursor over the Landform and a box appears indicating the space needed. Build it by pressing Ⓑ.
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Build an Industrial Zone 🏭 using the same steps.
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Choose the Power Line icon ⚡ and build Power Lines between the Power Plant and Industrial Zone
Enemies & Characters
Bowser
The King of the Koopas who is on the loose, destroying the city, starting fires, and tearing up roads while looking for Mario and Luigi.
Controls
Control Pad
Moves the cursor around the screen or menus.
SELECT
Jumps cursor to the left side bar or back to the Map of the city.
START
Activates some menu options and jumps cursor to the menu icons at the top of the screen.
X Button
Hides or displays the side bar and top bar, closes menus or returns to previous menus.
Y & A Buttons
Use while pushing the Control Pad to scroll rapidly over the Map of the city.
B Button
Choose icons or menu options and build selected structures and zones on the Landform.
Tips & Maps
SAVING & LOADING
SimCity allows you to save two different cities, including your own designs, the Practice City, or Scenario cities, using the Load/Save Menu.
HOW TO SAVE YOUR CITY
To save your city, select Save from the Load/Save Menu, choose save position 1 or 2, and press B to confirm.
HOW TO LOAD A CITY
To load a previously saved city, select Load from the Load/Save Menu, choose the city from position 1 or 2, and press B.
THE WRIGHT FILES: DOODLE
Doodle, Connecticut is a chaotic, poorly planned suburban community with scattered zones, inefficient roads, and high traffic due to the lack of a zoning plan.
STAGE 3: CITY ANTICIPATING PROBLEMS
As your town grows toward a City level, you must plan ahead for rising concerns like crime, pollution, and traffic to maintain your growth rate.
TRAFFIC JAM WARNING
Heavy traffic clogs roads, upsets residents, and increases pollution, indicating it is time to introduce a mass transit program.
CRIME WARNING
When the city's crime rate rises beyond acceptable levels, residents demand action, requiring you to quickly build police stations.
POLLUTION WARNING
High pollution levels deteriorate air quality and cause citizens to leave, which can be improved by spreading out industrial zones and reducing traffic.
Q&A: DEAR DR. WRIGHT: WHAT PROBLEMS DO I TACKLE FIRST?
Mayors should have a comprehensive plan to prevent problems, or address the highest-rated issue in the Voice Screen Public Opinion poll.
STOPPING CRIME
Crime is highest in Industrial Zones, so you should build Police Stations nearby and place parks in empty spaces to help reduce crime rates.
STEP-BY-STEP
Build new Industrial Zones while considering pollution and crime, and place a Police Station nearby to keep the area protected.
BUILDING BLOCKS
Grouping Commercial and Residential Zones into blocks maximizes land use, shares power, and reduces road costs, while Industrial Zones should be kept separate.
DOUGHNUT BLOCKS
A highly efficient block pattern consisting of eight zones around an open center, where placing a Gift or parkland stimulates rapid development.
STAGE 5: METROPOLIS
Reaching a Metropolis population of 100,000 requires utilizing all land, adjusting tax rates, and preparing for disasters like earthquakes.
Q&A: DEAR DR. WRIGHT: HOW DO I KEEP MY POPULATION GROWING?
To sustain growth, analyze maps and graphs for issues like housing costs or unemployment, and consider dropping your tax rate to keep citizens happy.
FILLING IT UP
Make use of the remaining empty areas of the Landform by placing all types of Zones, with more Residential than Commercial or Industrial. Convert parkland space and forests, and place Gifts inside appropriate doughnut holes.
LANDFILL
The Landfill is a useful Gift that allows you to create a Zone-size piece of land over water for $100. It appears when virtually all Landform space is used, allowing you to build extra Zones or structures.
MAKING EXTRA LAND
Building parks and other structures along the edge of the water creates a small section of land. This method can gain enough land to build additional Power Plants and Industrial Zones to avoid Brownouts.
MORE SHORELINES
You can develop seemingly worthless areas near the water, like peninsulas, by building a Zone and running Roads or Rails along the outside of it in the water. This provides the Zone with transportation access so it can develop.
MODIFYING THE CITY
Small modifications like switching undeveloped Zones, bulldozing hospitals and schools, or bulldozing and rezoning half of a Top tower can help you get the most out of every space. Bulldozing too many hospitals or schools may cause a disaster.
THE INSPECTION ICON
The Inspect icon on the top bar allows you to see the stage and level of development of every Zone in your city. Commercial Zones have five levels of development, while Residential and Industrial Zones have four.
EVALUATING THE CITY
To reach the Metropolis stage and boost population, you can squeeze in a few more Industrial Zones and lower your tax rate to 0%. Techniques like stacking Zones and forcing Gifts can also be used to increase population.
VIEW
The View Gift is a special, commemorative model of your city viewed from an angle, accessible from the Information Menu. You can scroll around the model, but you cannot make any changes to it.
WRIGHTON
Wrighton is a masterpiece city built on the mainland with a river running through it, featuring a centralized core of Residential Zones ringed by Commercial Zones. Industrial Zones are clustered at the edge of the Landform to diminish the effect of pollution.
SIMCITY TIME
Time is required for Zones to develop and for mayors to solve problems, with the game allowing thousands of years of play. Over time, you can watch the seasons change and see graphical changes in structures like the stadium.
MAINLAND CITIES
Mainland cities feature rivers that act as dividers and allow building right up to the edge of the Landform, requiring straight, efficient lines of Zones and transportation. Building Industrial Zones along the edges keeps half of their pollution off the map.
STACKING ZONES
A method to pack more Residential Zones into an area by bulldozing single family houses on one side and placing a new zone over the bulldozed area.
FORCING GIFTS
A strategy where you build excess infrastructure or meet specific conditions to trigger a Gift, after which you can bulldoze the excess structures.
THE GREEN SCHEME
Using parkland to keep Land Values high, reduce crime and pollution, control shoreline flooding, and help zones develop.
EVALUATION OF MEGALOPOLIS
Strategic guidelines for reaching Megalopolis status, such as using Nuclear Power Plants, placing Industrial Zones along edges, and using Rails instead of Roads.
THE WRIGHT FILES: PLANLESS
A case study of a city that failed to reach its full potential because it lacked a master plan, resulting in scattered clusters of industry.
REDMOND
A green and pleasant city representing the headquarters of Nintendo of America Inc. that suffers from traffic problems due to high visitor numbers.
PATCHWORK CITY
A city built by a mayor with a strong sense of color and composition rather than a firm grasp of practical planning.
ROUND BUTTE
A city in Utah built in a circle that has grown steadily despite a piecemeal transportation network and high pollution.
DR. WRIGHT
An urban self-portrait that functions as a visual demonstration rather than a working city.
LANDFORM MAPS
A selection of the 1000 available Landforms in SimCity, which offer varying amounts of forest, water, and land to challenge players.
Items & Weapons
ZOO
Best built in Residential areas. It provides $100 a year to the city with no cons.
AMUSEMENT PARK
Best built in Residential areas. It provides $100 a year to the city with no cons.
LAND FILL
Can be built anywhere. It creates land over water with no cons.
POLICE HQ
Best built in Industrial areas. It provides wider police coverage but requires $100 funding.
FIRE HQ
Can be built anywhere. It provides a wider range of fire coverage but requires $100 funding.
FOUNTAIN
Can be built anywhere. It provides $100 a year to the city with no cons.
CASINO
Best built in Commercial areas. It provides $100 a year to the city but causes crime.
TRAIN STATION
Best built in Commercial areas. It provides better transit service with no cons.
EXPO
Best built in Industrial areas. It increases tax dollars with no cons.
LIBRARY
Best built in Residential areas. It leads to higher Land Values with no cons.
WINDMILL
Best built in Commercial areas. It increases tax dollars with no cons.
CITY PARK
Can be built anywhere. It provides $100 a year to the city with no cons.
YOUR HOUSE
Best built in Residential areas. It raises Land Value with no cons.
MARIO MONUMENT
Can be built anywhere. It raises Land Value with no cons.
BANK
Best built in Commercial areas. It allows you to take out loans with no cons.
COMMERCIAL ZONE
Costs $100. Business goes on here, but some people live here too, with development ending in skyscrapers.
INDUSTRIAL ZONE
Costs $100. Products are manufactured here, beginning with workshops and ending with factories.
POLICE STATION
Costs $500. It reduces crime rates in nearby Zones and requires $100 yearly funding.
FIRE STATION
Costs $500. It provides protection against fires in nearby Zones and requires $100 yearly funding.
NUCLEAR POWER PLANT
Costs $5000. It provides electricity for 120 Zones, but a meltdown makes a large area useless for decades.
AIRPORT
Costs $10,000. It helps Commercial Zones develop, but causes high pollution and the possibility of plane crashes.
GIFTS
Costs $100. There are 15 Gifts that appear from time to time which the mayor can present to the city.
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