SimCity BuildIt Disasters Update Now Available (Q&A)
dmcdonagh
2015-05-12
Get ready, Mayors! The Disasters update for SimCity BuildIt is now live.
You can upgrade Dr. Vu’s tower and unlock 16 new achievements, experience all new road upgrades like Boulevards, Avenues and Street Car Lanes and check out the new Houses of Worship.
Want to learn more? We sat down with the game’s creative director, Petri Ikonen, to dig in.
What new disasters are in the update?
The new disasters are Tornado, Lighting Storm and Robot. In addition, we have redesigned and re-implemented the whole disaster feature. Mayors can now interact and have more fun with Dr. Vu’s Tower. Then, by launching more disasters you will be able to collect Vu Points, which allow you to upgrade the Vu Tower and unlock more disasters of various magnitudes.
How have you determined which disasters to include?
The team brainstormed a long list of possible disasters and we picked the ones we felt would be really cool for Mayors to play with.
What’s the creative process like behind some of the more untraditional disasters?
The idea of the giant robot emerged as an answer to a question: What would be the coolest creature to attack a city? One of our artists created some quick concept sketches of the robot and we realized that this would be a really fun idea to implement.
Actually adding the robot attack to the game was a bit trickier and it took some hard work, but we are really happy with the outcome!
Who is Dr. Vu?
Dr. Vu is a very mysterious person. What we know is that he is well-educated and very intelligent, but he also has a shady, hidden personal history. We are currently conducting a big investigation on him and so far it has turned up nothing. Naturally we will let the world know when we learn more about him.
We do have plans to infiltrate Dr. Vu’s secret meetings in the future.
Why is he important?
Dr. Vu has a long history in SimCity. He’s been a main villain for a long time. There are no boring moments with him, right? You never know what can happen when he’s aboard.
Why should Mayors wreak havoc upon their cities?
These disasters are meant to be pure fun. In the 25 year history of SimCity, disasters have been featured as a way for players to engage with their cities and their feedback has reinforced that they enjoy, experimenting with and choosing what disaster to release and when to unleash them. Then it’s up to the player to figure out the best way to rebuild afterwards, presenting a new challenge with unexpected results.
You, as a Mayor, just need to fix the destroyed buildings by rebuilding them. And the best part? You’ll be able to earn Golden Keys at the same time. As you know for sure, Golden Keys are used to build cool specialization buildings.
Do you have a favorite disaster in SimCity BuildIt?
A great question! Actually I really like the Lighting Storm. It’s awesome! It’s really scary to me. It reminds me about huge lighting storms that I have encountered during my fishing trips when I was a child.
What else is new in this update that Mayors should know about?
Visiting other cities is exciting. Look for opinion bubbles with a gift icon when visiting other cities. Sims will have comments on the visiting Mayor and the Mayor may receive a gift, too. The gift might be SimCash, Simoleons or Items.
We’ve also added a few different kinds of new roads (Boulevards, Avenues and even Street Cars) as well as a variety of different Houses of Worship.
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