The original inspiration for
The Sims was
Christopher Alexander's 1977 book on architecture and
urban design,
A Pattern Language. Game designer Will Wright was inspired by the book's focus on functionality in architecture, as Alexander based his design principles on structural usability rather than aesthetic values. Wright wanted to create a simulation game about enabling human behavior and interaction through design.
Scott McCloud's 1993 book
Understanding Comics became a big influence on the design of
The Sims later on, as it advocates a certain type of "collaboration" between designer and consumer and outlines the value of
abstraction for getting readers or players involved with a story. Will Wright started working on
The Sims after releasing
SimAnt in 1991. however, the game's concept was very poorly received by a
focus group, so Wright had difficulty getting the project off the ground. He managed to convince his company to let him work on the project (codenamed "Project X" at the time) in the background while developing
SimCity 2000 and
SimCopter. He was lent one programmer for the project, Jamie Doornbos, who went on to become the lead programmer for
The Sims. During the first few years of the project, Wright and Doornbos were primarily developing an open-ended system of character behavior. As the project continued, Wright found that the social aspect of the game turned out to be highly engaging, and the team started to focus more on the characters of the game, such as by letting Sims visit one another's houses and by implementing long-term relationships. A demo of the game was presented at the 1999
Electronic Entertainment Expo. During a displaying in front of the press, two female characters at an in-game wedding fell in love and kissed each other. After the event, the relationship mechanics were further modified so the character's
sexual orientation was determined depending on the player's actions.
The Sims uses a combination of
3D and
2D graphics techniques. The Sims themselves are rendered in 3D, whereas the house and all its objects are pre-rendered and displayed
diametrically. For the game's Japanese release, the game was renamed to
SimPeople (シムピープル) to match the naming conventions of the other
Sim games from Maxis.
Music The game music was composed by
Jerry Martin,
Marc Russo, Kirk R. Casey, and Dix Bruce, with additional participation from jazz pianist John R. Burr for the songs used in the game's Build Mode. The game disc contains 37 tracks, of which 15 were published in 2007 as an official soundtrack album. Most of the tracks contain no vocals, but some of them feature Simlish lyrics. In recent years, critics have praised and noted the game's use of new age and jazz music.
Modding scene The Sims is credited with opening up modding to a new demographic, making it easy enough for "casual modders" to modify the game.
The Sims was designed in a way that it would be easy to add user-created content (also known as custom content or "CC") to the game, with Will Wright stating in an interview that he wanted to put the player in the design role. Websites for downloading CCs and mods include The Sims Resource and
Mod The Sims. Maxis released
modding tools for
The Sims before the game itself, resulting in a suite of fan-created mods being available at launch. ==Expansion packs==