Possible split: Simulation Game

Simulation Game is really way too broad, AFAICT. What do Dungeon Keeper, Nintendogs, Gran Turismo, Operation Flashpoint and Drakengard have in common enough to make a coherent genre?

So, I'm suggesting a split, into a few subgenres, and leaving the original as a Super-Trope / Definition.

Is this a good idea?

Thanks
Luc "Definitional" French

edited 20th Dec '11 1:08:56 AM by Luc

The description as written is pretty much all about resource management sims (Sim City, etc), with only a side-note in the end that oh, there are flight simulators, too. Index decay?

Meh, creating subtropes...sounds like a YKTTW issue, not TRS. *shrug*

edited 20th Dec '11 1:51:57 AM by troacctid

I'd say strip examples that don't fit the definition. In the description, it makes the distinction that simulation games aren't really "games" in the technical sense — they may have win and lose conditions, but it's more about messing around with it to see what you can do than progressing toward an actual goal. Thus, things like Sim City would certainly count, but stuff like the Ace Combat franchise would definitely not.

I think there's just a lot of bad examples here. For instance, Dungeon Keeper is not a simulation game but a real-time strategy.

Agree. The page is a mess because it's trying to lump a lot of distinct genres together. Take the individual genres (racing, flying, etc.) to YKTTW.

edited 20th Dec '11 7:49:25 AM by Stratadrake

All right, so splitting is definitely a good idea; next item, and the one that was the reason I took this to the forums, rather than just YKTT Wing it directly: What to split it up into?

My idea is to divide it up into "Management Sim Game", "Vehicle Pilot Game", and leaving the stuff that doesn't fit in either in Simulation Game.

Anybody have better possibilities for such a split?

Thanks
Luc "Aiming For Coherence" French

edited 20th Dec '11 8:57:41 PM by Luc

Just a quick note: I made a Crowner here.

Thanks
Luc "Classification" French

Bump, in hopes of getting either more votes, or alternate options, in the crowner (and, hey, could a mod attach that crowner to this thread?)

Thanks
Luc "It's now after the New Year" French

Hit the Holler button on your crowner post and include a description like "crowner to attach".

edited 4th Jan '12 12:23:57 AM by Stratadrake

I've always just used the term Simulation Game for the resource-management sandbox types (Sim City, Sim Earth, Sim Life, Theme Park, etc.)

There seem to be several different articles for the same basic thing floating around. There's Simulation Game, but also Raising Sim and Space-Management Game. We should probably combine them all into a single page and split subtropes off as necessary.

Speaking of: probably the best thing to do with the crowner is to have an option for each suggested subtrope and people can vote them up or down depending on whether they think it's worth splitting off. Here's what I've got for subtropes:

• Simulation Game
  • Business Sim: eg, Railroad Tycoon, Rollercoaster Tycoon (basically anything with "tycoon" in the title)
    • Sports Sim: eg Football Manager, often a component of a more traditional Sports Game.
  • City Sim: eg Sim City (obviously) but any sort of municipality, from Dwarf Fortress to Startopia, would count
  • Life Sim (Social Sim?): eg The Sims, Animal Crossing
    • Dating Sim: Already exists, probably good as-is.
  • Raising Sim: Already exists, but definitely needs clean up.
  • Vehicle Sim: Sims about driving stuff. Probably exampleless, most stuff would go in subtropes.
    • Driving Sim: Already exists as Driving Game, but that may not be the same thing — I'd say that Vehicular Combat games probably don't count.
    • Flight Sim: eg Pilotwings. Like Driving Sim, I'd say that combat-focused games wouldn't count.
      • Space Flight Sim: the same as a Flight Sim, but IIIIIN SPAAAAAACE.

edited 4th Jan '12 10:43:04 AM by NativeJovian

Bump. What do you guys think?

Also Dating Sim [edit] Whoops, you have that already. Sorry.

Otherwise, I like it.

edited 18th Jan '12 2:20:04 PM by lebrel

A driving/racing game, for example, is only a Sim when the focus is on accurately simulating the vehicles' characteristics. Add turbo powerups and banana peels, it's no longer a simulator.

edited 18th Jan '12 8:11:07 PM by Stratadrake

Jovian, I can't figure out where Sim Earth, Sim Life, and Spore would fit in that scheme.

edited 18th Jan '12 10:52:32 PM by ArcadesSabboth

Or Populous, Black & White, many Creator Sims.

...oh! it's Raising Sim. That's where.

edited 18th Jan '12 11:07:04 PM by rodneyAnonymous

I thought Spore was an RTS?

No, Spore is at least half Simulation Game. The only RTS elements come very late in the game.

I'd put Sim Earth in City Sim (basically anything where you have a particular plot of land that you have to develop would fall under City Sim), but things like Sim Life and Spore I'm not sure — mostly because I'm not very familiar with them. The idea is that you're developing and advancing entire species, right? That'd probably go under Raising Sim, but we'd have to expand the definition to fit. But since we have to revamp Raising Sim's definition anyway, that's no big deal.

Question: how do we want to fit Space-Management Game into all of this? Right now it seems to be mostly a replication of Simulation Game (complete with several soft-split subtropes), but I think it can be salvaged into something distinct. Something akin to the Inventory Management Puzzle writ large?

Where do games like Farm Ville fit? Raising Sim?

Probably a Business Sim, seeing as the primary goal of the game (as much as there is one) seems to be making money. But again, I'm not very familiar with it, so someone else might correct me.

I think the goal of games like that, such as it is, is to have the biggest, shiniest farm/zoo/fishtank/whatever with the best/rarest crops/animals plus a little bit of Gotta Catch 'Em All and An Interior Designer Is You. Money is used towards those ends, though.

So I suppose they are similar to Business Sims like Railroad Tycoon, except there is no failure condition or game over - there's usually no possible way to run out of money and be unable to make more.

But they're also similar to Raising Sims, since they usually involve animals you need to raise to adulthood.

It might be its own category. Farm Ville clone sims.

edited 19th Jan '12 1:08:50 PM by ccoa

A Raising Sim is about taking an individual or group and molding it in a direction of your choosing. Unless you can actually direct the development of your livestock somehow, going from "baby" to "young" to "adult" wouldn't count as a Raising Sim.

Bump. I think I've covered most everything in post 12, but it's a big enough change that I don't want to do anything with it until there's some kind of official consensus.