SimCity 2000 (Mac OS Classic)

The second game in the SimCity series. In addition to improving on everything that was in the original, it adds an incredible number of new features and swaps the top-down perspective of the original for an isometric view.

Debug Display#

While holding down the ⌘ Command key and clicking on a tile with the Query Tool, some additional information is included in the description: "X/Y" tile coordinates and "Txt" for the ID of a label associated with the tile (or 0 for no label). Labels 0x33 and 0xF1 through 0xF9 are unused, label 0xFA is used to signify a neighbor connection, and labels 0xFB through 0xFF signify that the tile has a disaster tile overlaid onto it. The Y coordinate will also display the word "flip" after it if the "rotated" flag is set on the tile in the map data (used for highway onramps, runways, and piers).

Debug Menus#

Among other things, the Debug menu allowed testers to invoke the special disasters not listed in the Disasters menu.

A separate, enormous menu was devoted to testing each type of newspaper article.

Shortly after the game's release, a player directly asked Will Wright about these menus and was told that the code that drove them was removed before shipping.

In version 1.2, the unused menus were themselves deleted.

However, a working debug menu with the extra disasters would be left password-accessible in the Windows port.

Revision History#

Title Screen#

Changes in Version 1.1#

The 1.1 patch comes with a list of its improvements, which is reproduced below:

• The budget should work properly now, transit figures should be correct (and stay that way).
• The Bulldoze Tool should always default to Bulldoze instead of whatever tool was last used. This should prevent accidental mass destruction caused by forgetting that the last bulldoze tool being used was Raise/Lower/Level Terrain.
• Airports should build correctly now (the ratio of towers to runways should be better).
• Several problems that show up with more than 7 stadiums/teams should be gone.
• Figures in the Analysis window (from the City Hall query window) should stay correct.
• Sometimes, destroying bridges would leave an un-usable shoreline tile. This should be fixed.
• Querying on certain tiles of the Forest Arcology in certain situations would report bare land, this should not happen.
• Arcologies that do not have micro-simulators attached should now affect population (populations far greater than 9.1 million should be attainable).
• There is a new button when using the query tool on a library. [That would be the "Ruminate" button, which displays this essay by Neil Gaiman.]
• Placing highway and re-enforced bridges now charges the user correctly.
• Schools should work properly at population levels above 60,000.
• The date should now properly display above 9,999 years.
• The power graph should be more accurate.
• This Read Me file has been updated.

There's also a new quasi-ending: if the year is at least 2051, and your city has at least 301 launch arcologies, they'll take off into space and refund the money used to construct them, accompanied by a pop-up announcing that "the exodus has begun".

Changes in Version 1.2#

The Read Me only cites three new features: PowerPC native code, support for the Urban Renewal Kit, and African Swallow Mode (which fast-forwards the game as fast as your computer can possibly go). Subtler changes included some modifications to the credits:

SimCity 2000™
has been copyrighted by
Maxis in 1993.

SimCity 2000® 1.2
has been copyrighted by
Maxis, 1993-95.

Mick Foley shot shapes and
packed them into a city,
while Justin McCormick
went bug hunting and
caught the big nasty ones.

Mick Foley shot shapes,
packed them into a city,
and moved SimCity 2000®
to the Power Macintosh,
while Justin McCormick
went bug hunting and
caught the big nasty ones.
John “USPA87419” Lewis
even helped a bit. (He’ll do
anything for some free
caffeine.)

Newspaper pics provided by
Lori Reese & Archive Photos
of New York City
(an upcoming scenario).

Newspaper pics provided by
Lori Reese & Archive Photos
of New York City.

Our good friends: "Big Al",
Rose, Kurt, and the rest at
Ottino's for lunch, dinner,
dessert, TV, and popcorn.

The gang at MindVision software 
(makers of Developer Vice 
installation software) for 
service above and beyond 
the call of duty.

All the great folks at SkyDance
SkyDiving in Davis, CA who let
John Lewis hurl himself out of
their fine airplanes. (This may seem
strange, but he says it helps him
relax. Something about work not
mattering much when hurtling
towards the ground at 120+ MPH.)

These credits were compiled
by a team of one hundred
during a ten minute break

These credits were compiled
by a team of one hundred
during a ten minute break.

References#