A New Yorker article published in 2006 quoted Will Wright as being an advocate of the Montessori method of teaching. Wright argues that kids given sufficient materials and left to their own devices will educate themselves far more thoroughly than any structured program.
SimCity was apparently born from the legendary game designer's love for self-discovery:
”SimCity comes right out of Montessori—if you give people this model for building cities, they will abstract from it principles of urban design.”
Which is a valid point of view if you're a genius like Wright, but the average SimCity player is eventually just going to write “PENIS” with railroad tracks before giving up, Montessori education or no Montessori education.
I am very much an average Sim player. I did well enough with SimCity for the Super Nintendo and (gasp) Commodore 64. When I picked up SimEarth for the SNES (developed by FCI instead of Maxis), I expected the game to merely be a global re-imagining of SimCity, intuitive and easy to jump into. Instead, I was met with something almost completely different that required a bit more book learning than “Commercial zones do really well next to residential zones.” SimEarth is full of controls, dials, variables, and there is little graphic reward: you won't see massive cities bristle from the wilds as civilisation progresses, and full-scale nuclear war is disappointingly toothless. Yet, something about the SNES installment of the earth simulator is laid-back to the point of being almost therapeutic. I never developed my totalitarian Tyrannosaurus Rex empire because I largely had no idea what I was doing, but I was content to try over and over.
SimEarth actually encourages you to take your time and slap around Gaia to your liking. “Energy” replaces money as the means with which to build your ecosystem, but on the Easy setting, Energy is unlimited and you are free to experiment.
There's also less pressure to succeed, unless you tie yourself down with a scenario (want to terraform Venus? Be my guest). When a fire breaks out in SimCity, it's a disaster that needs to be dealt with ASAP. When a fire breaks out in SimEarth, it's the natural way of things—or a means to an end (more on that in a bit). The fire leaves a scar, but the Earth, if healthy, will heal itself with pretty trees. The people of Earth are also largely unaware of the player's existence. Though people curse God on a daily basis, you won't hear it in SimEarth. But if the people of SimCity hate you, you're going to hear it, Mr (or Ms) Mayor.
I also remain fond of SimEarth's music, particularly the gruff, thudding Geologic time scale piece. This is the music that starts you on your quest to evolve intelligent life. At this point in the game, Earth's surface is nothing but molten rock; Takane Okubo's composition almost carries a dare. “Hey jackass, evolve this!”
You take that challenge, and life evolves from the primordial soup. And the game's music brightens. “Yatta! Let us work towards prosperity!”
There are several videos on YouTube of players attempting the game's scenarios. These are pretty basic: cool off a desert planet until it can sustain mammal life, nurture humanity until it can fly to the moon and become some other race's problem, etc. The very last scenario is the most interesting one: robots have taken over the world Terminator-style, and you must purge them and re-instate biological life.
How do you get rid of a metallic empire? You melt it down to scrap.
Yay! You are good at being God!
Except those filthy robots.
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