2006 Sim Game of the Year by Game Tunnel

2005 Sim Game of the Year

2006 Sim Game of the Year

Simulation games is a category where Independent Games always have some of the most interesting titles. Indie developers' innovative approach leads to simulation games that are typically quite different from the standard fare found in more mainstream games.

This year there was a solid focus on physics with 3 of the games all featuring physics in their play. The other two were more classical sims that each have strong merits and solid pedigrees.

5th Place - Toybox

Developer: Soup Toys		Players: 1
Website
System Requirements: Windows 2000/XP, P 600 or better, 128mb Ram

Like many other great games it's hard to figure out just exactly how to categorize Toybox. It really isn't a game.

Instead it is the ultimate desktop toyset. Much like the toys that so many of us enjoy keeping around our actual desks, Toybox takes your computer screen and makes it fun.

There isn't any goal per say other than to amuse yourself. Players are given a variety of different objects that all react to normal physics.

The objects can be placed anywhere to create a specific playground that can be interacted with or just watched after making the first move to set off a chain reaction.

The layout created can be saved as a playset and then shared with others through the website. Toybox has quite a few playsets included with it and the website has added many more playsets to help make your afternoons a bit more amusing.

When we first reviewed this game it was selling for $19.95, but since then the price has been dropped to nothing. Making the 'game' free makes it too good a deal to pass up for anyone who is looking for a bit of playset designing fun.

4th Place - Toribash

Developer: SXP		Players: 1-2
Website
System Requirements: Windows -or- OSX -or- Linux, 1ghz CPU, OpenGL

Toribash is a totally freeform fighting game. This isn't a fighting game the way you're used to thinking of it (insert, "This isn't your older brother's fighting game," tagline here). In Toribash, you control, in essence, a faceless rag doll with joints. By clicking on the many joints in your ragdoll's body, you give it form and movement and hence, fighting.

The bodies of the fighters are composed of the basics of human anatomy. There are limbs and joints that respond when prompted. Clicking each joint multiple times will scroll, in succession, through the options each joint can be set to. Joints start out in the single player mode (more on this later) as relaxed. Clicking on, say, the knee joint will set it to "Extending", clicking again will set it to "Contracting", clicking again will set it to "Holding", and then a fourth time sets is back to "Relaxing". This can be done to all joints, though some have additional options such as "Lowering" and "Raising" and rotating to the left or the right. This system, applied to about 20 joints across your fighter's body, allows for a great freedom of movement.

However, Toribash is physics-based... sort of. The game is based on complete ragdoll physics. If you set your fighter's joints to relax, he crumples completely to the ground. If you punch your opponent, you sail backwards through space with no way to correct yourself, like an astronaut going independent. So, working within this unique physical space takes a great deal of work as actions don't have reactions like their real-life counterparts. Along these lines, limbs can be broken and pulled clean off an opponent's body for big points, and a large part of the game is learning what kind of attacks and leverages will bring this about. Practice and experimentation is essential to success.

All in all, it's a refreshing take on the fighting genre. For those gamers with the dedication to learn how to play Toribash, it's great fun. There are little to no restrictions on what the gamer can do, and that's always a good thing.

3rd Place - Armadillo Run

Developer: Peter Stock		Players: 1
Website
System Requirements: 500MHz Processor, 64MB Memory, OpenGL-compatible graphics card or motherboard OpenGL acceleration

Armadillo Run plays very much like a tech demo in realistic structure physics (well, as realistic as physics in a vacuum can be). The foundations for Armadillo Run feel very technically grounded. The game is built to allow for realistic structural physics. You can't just build a bridge of metal panels to get your armadillo from point A to point B. It needs to be supported properly. If not supported well, the strain on your supports will be too much and the structure will snap into pieces. Too much slack in your support ropes, the bridge will sag and bounce about, affecting your �"dillo's journey.

The structural components are pretty limited, but there are nearly endless ways to construct them. Since the main environment for the game is nothing but a blank white canvas, the levels are quite literally an artist's playground. The game looks crisp and is deliciously tricky. Levels can be anything, and can take any shape or scope. The basic tools to use to construct your armadillo's escape are: rope, cloth, metal sheets, metal bars, elastic, rubber and rockets. That's it. Sounds pretty easy, right? Wrong. Armadillo Run is wickedly challenging for two main reasons.

One: You have a budget. Each bit of material costs you some precious cash and you don't have very much. Each level has a specific value budgeted, the more money you save, in essence, the higher your score. All items were not created equal, and neither are they priced that way. All the primo stuff (elastic, rockets, rubber) is very expensive and totally out of the question for use in early levels. And the cheap stuff is cheap for a reason, it's not terribly forgiving. Precision and creativity are key in Armadillo Run.

Two. Tensions and timers. Any connector in the game (ropes and elastics) can have its tension adjusted, which will drastically alter the behavior of your structure for better or worse. As if just trying to find a cheap, simple structure to build wasn't hard enough, now you have a whole different field of variables to consider. Timers allow the gamer to break certain structural elements after a set period of time, allowing them to trigger events in a Rube-Goldberg inspired fashion. This means even more trickiness to consider. Oh, and did I mention adding timers and adjusting tension costs money the same as using materials? It does. Enjoy.

The game's focus on fairly realistic and therefore fairly rigid physics and complex level solutions may leave many gamers feeling like they're staring at a science project more than a game. However, the more determined and experienced puzzle gamer should be in heaven. This is a sim puzzler's playground.

2nd Place - Kudos

Developer: Positech Games		Players: 1
Website	Download		Purchase
System Requirements: Windows 98/2000/XP, 500MHz processor, 256 MB RAM

Kudos is an ambitious project from the creator of the engaging political sim, Democracy. In Democracy, the goal of the gamer was to constantly adjust different societal factors in order to best please the voters at large. Each decision involved a different level of push and pull across a multitude of special interest groups and the game gave a great sensation of how difficult it can be as a politician to make everyone happy.

Kudos aims to take a similar principle (how different actions will boost and reduce stats) and apply them to the life of a human being.

For that reason many players have looked at the game and dismissed it, comparing it to the Sims. Certainly the focus on both improving your character's employment and well-being while maintaining a focus on their relationships does seem to ring true to the Sims, the games really aren't all that similar.

The fundamental difference between them is the focus of each game. The Sims is focused on the player working with a group of people, controlling multiple people at the same time. Kudos is really about one person. The more individualistic approach gives players a lot more granular control over the life of the person they are playing. Everything from what book the person is reading to what television shows they are watching is within your control.

The ultimate goal is really to experience another life. What would it take to become a lawyer or a scientist or a journalist. Schooling and working your way up the career ladder are definitely places to start, but without balance in life things it can be hard to really feel successful and 'happy.'

A good piece of that balance comes in hanging out with friends, but of course that must be managed as well. You won't always have the money to go out and even when you do, you need to make conscientious decisions about what you will be doing and who should be invited. Who haven't you hung out with for awhile and what do they like to do? Honestly, if everyone put as much thought into their day-to-day relationships with each other as they do into their virtual relationships in this game, the world would be a better place.

Ultimately, what makes both Kudos and Democracy really fantastic games is the amount of variety to be found in the game. There are many options available that create a near limitless number of paths to explore. Kudos is everything a sim game should be. It creates a situation that sucks you in and puts you in the position of really simulating what isn't real, but feels entirely real at the same time.

2006 Sim Game of the Year - Virtual Villagers

Developer: Last Day of Work		Players: 1
Website	Download		Purchase
System Requirements: Windows 98/2000/XP/Me, 96 MB RAM, DirectX 7+, 300 mhz processor

Living on an undiscovered island with a small group of people who are trying desperately to survive is an adventure that most everyone dreams about at one time or another. Virtual Villagers lets players live that dream as they control a small struggling group of survivors on a nearly deserted island.

In a lot of ways Virtual Villagers shouldn't work. It isn't a game in the way you normally think of a game. Much like its predecessor Fish Tycoon, you don't really play Virtual Villagers. The game is built to run in real-time, which means that your little sim islanders are carrying out their business while you are watching TV, at work and even when you are sleeping. All you have to do is give them a nudge in the right direction. Don't get too comfortable though, leaving them alone too long without direction is a good way to find the village covered with bleached bones when you return.

Virtual Villagers is designed to be a sim game with puzzles. There are 16 puzzles that need to be unlocked by your villagers. To unlock the puzzles you will need to raise your villagers up to specific ability levels, complete the prerequisite puzzles, build up to specific tech levels and keep a watchful eye on your villagers. It's especially important to watch how the villagers react to different objects in the village.

You give the villagers their instructions by grabbing them and moving them around the world map. They can then be dropped in various locations to encourage them to interact with the object that they are dropped on. For example, dropping them on the berry bush will encourage them to forage for berries, dropping them on the wreckage on the shore will encourage them to clean it up, and dropping them on each other will encourage them to ... um ... increase the number of babies in the village.

A major piece of the game is researching. Assigning villagers to do research will increase the player's tech points, which allows for the unlocking of new abilities such as farming and ancestor burial. However, players have to be judicious about where their villagers are 'dropped.' Assigning out too many villagers to tasks such as research and healing may leave not enough people to gather the food, and when the food is gone the villagers will soon perish.

Virtual Villagers tops it all off with a bit of randomness to keep the game fun and variable. Each of the villagers has their own personality with likes and dislikes that can be viewed from the villager detail screen. They may like running, which will be apparent on screen as, with a watchful eye, players will notice the villager pick up and run across the screen for no apparent reason. The inclusion of this detail adds a lot to the variety of the game and makes each little villager feel more real.

The game also has random events, such as crates washing up on the beach. How players respond to these events will completely alter how the game progresses. For example, choosing to eat the whale will certainly give a lot of food, but returning it to the ocean so that it can live may increase your tribe's spirituality tech level. Between the real-time play of the game and the soothing music that so well captures the feel of relaxing in a beautiful place, Virtual Villagers is a wonderfully crafted game that has won over many people and captured our 2006 Sim Game of the Year award.

Sim Game of the Year Award History

History:
2006 - Virtual Villagers
2005 - Democracy
2004 - Outpost Kaloki
2003 - Dope Farmer

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By: Russell Carroll
Posted: Friday December 15, 2006