The Game That Never Was : SimsVille

[LetsRaceBwoi]

Not much is known about this game; however, it is known that it was going to be a full 3D game, like The Sims 2, and was going to be a crossover between SimCity and The Sims. Some elements were later reused in SimCity 4 or SimCity Societies, but it would have looked like a 3D version of SimCity 4 with smaller towns / villages instead. It would probably have been quite a good game; there are many videos and lots of information on the internet.
Here is a demonstration:

A compilation of resources, trailers, images, and information:

It can be noted that it did have a UI that was almost the same as SimCity 4, but was different in the demonstration and in some images and therefore can't be regarded as consistent - there were colour and layout changes between the two. It was likely cancelled because of negative criticism in one of the meetings, or perhaps because of the sluggish framerates.

 

[Rhys]

Looks like framerate was their real issue (alongside the game looking terribly boring). Back then they had no way of sustaining a simuation that in depth in 3d on consumer hardware. The Sims 3, while still not simulating all houses at once came a lot closer to realizing this idea by utilizing the advancements in hardware since, and even then that still runs pretty shakily because CPU single core performance has hit a plateau.

 

[yoyo]

Hmm. The only way this could be fun would be if it was like a mix between The sims 1, 3 and SimTown. That way you would have the power to lay down roads and lots, and then have fun micromanaging your sims inside individual houses. Like a small town simulator that keeps track of individual sims and the town as a whole. Also it looks like besides the general concept of "a town full of your own sims," there wasn't much else to do. It looks like all I could do was plop houses down, see sims move in, and just imagine what they are doing while they are inside the house, reminded by a notification here and there that I am actually doing something. Unless it was like SimGolf and they had little stories to flesh out, or like roller coaster tycoon and have awards to win or VIP's to impress or something.

Totally looks like some kind of beta for Simcity 4's MySim mode lol. I kind of wish it Simsville was a game, but I don't think we missed out on too much. Maybe they could remake it, computers could handle much more nowadays