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It’s fair to say that EA Mobile is doing well in the mobile gaming landscape. With Spore Origins, Boom Blox and Tetris Pop doing well, they seem to have hit their stride with the release of SimCity: Metropolis.

The new game certainly borrows elements from its predecessor SimCity: Societies, but according to producer Oliver Proulx, adds far more depth to the franchise.

“SimCity Societies was really a casual game when you think about it,” he says. “It was less about building a big city, and more about your management style and decisions, and the moral behind those decisions. With the new game, we wanted to get back to building a big city while keeping the casual gameplay that we think worked pretty well in Societies.”

The game puts you in charge of a small, but massively industrious town, and tasks you with the building of a bustling metropolis.

“You really feel like your city is growing,” he says. “And we’ve managed to cram in close to 120 buildings, with about 40 in each district. At the end of some scenarios you get to unlock hero buildings which have a big impact on your city. So there’s a lot of depth to it.”

Proulx says there have been a few improvements in the graphics engine to make the game feel more realistic.

“We’ve added cars moving round, little construction animations and other things so the game feels a bit more alive,” says Proulx.

“The three districts look pretty different too. The industrial area looks a bit dirty and polluted, at least initially, while the commercial district has more banks and huge condo centres. The residential district has more cafes, shops and little houses. Societies felt more like a suburb, but this game feels like a real city.”

The humorous elements that made the games predecessors great to play are still present, with aliens, superheros and a mad scientist who regularly blows buildings to pieces: “It’s not a big effect, since you have such a large city, so it’s funny to see it happen,” says Proulx.

EA Mobile is hoping that SimCity Metropolis will have as wide an appeal as possible, taking in both newbies and SimCity veterans.

“We wanted to come back to the roots of the franchise a little bit,” says Proulx. “Hardcore SimCity players might prefer this game to Societies, because it’s much more about building this big city. But we hope that the easy game mechanics, the storyline and the quirky events will appeal to casual gamers too.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 16th, 2008 at 12:06 pm and is filed under Game Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.