AntigOne

Mayor Diary 150px Link SimCity 4 Devotion General Information Author Badsim Status Active Tags Hall of Fame · Eye Candy · Custom Lotting · French · Canals Awards Hall of Fame · OSITM Language {{{language}}}

AntigOne is a Mayor Diary by Badsim

Badsim's reaction to HoF

I can't remember precisely my first contact with SimCity's world. It must have been in 1995 with a free demo version of SC2000 in a computing magazine. I remember being bored with it quickly.

I gave SimCity a second chance when I bought SC3000 a few years later, but I disliked immediately its "fake plastic" look, although I’ve changed my point of view since. Then SC4 came out. I played a lot more with it before getting bored again after starting dozens of similar cities and achieving success with none of them.

I could have forgotten SC4 just like I've forgotten so many others games if I hadn't had the curiosity one day to visit Simcity.com. It was a great day when, browsing the links there, I discovered at the same time Simtropolis and most of all Gothia, SAC's website about Olympia! It was in the middle of 2005 and I will never forget the excitement I felt - like a divine revelation!

Olympia inspired me immediately to buy Rush Hour and install Lot Editor. While I was downloading tons of custom content from Simtropolis, I felt like a child in a candy shop who has been told, "Take all you want!"

I already knew I would build AntigOne - my Olympia - and show it to the world. It was my first CJ/MD, and it will be the last. But I would never have started it if I’d know how much work would be involved. Learning to use the Lot Editor and iLive Reader was such a pain, mainly because English isn’t my native language, but also because there is just fragmented information here and there – no complete tutorials. But I never asked for anything, I just searched doggedly and taught myself - I’m proud of that.

I worked privately on AntigOne for six months to have pictures to start this MD and clearly show its purpose. My very first intention was an exclusively European-looking city - if not Parisian. But talented BATters never cease to create gorgeous buildings from everywhere, so they let me go where inspiration led me.

It is an idyllic world replying to a real world which is far from being idyllic – I’m a dreamer about a better world. Antigone is the myth by Sophocles about a woman doomed to death by her own stepfather for breaking the patriarchal rules. There are also freemason symbols. Gustave Eiffel and Frederic Bartholdi (Statue of Liberty , NYC) were freemasons.

I have no idea anymore when AntigOne will be finished. Last year I estimated it would be 2010 when I would fill up the large main city tile. Now I’m sure it will be later. It is now a giant jigsaw puzzle approaching 900 pieces (custom lots) which have taken an average time of four hours per lot. And as everybody knows, there’s an inescapable real life outside.

Am I satisfied with it? How can you be satisfied with your region after seeing a region view from ejc? That’s my greatest frustration with AntigOne. My weakest point is my transport system – I will work on that subject in the suburbs.

The thing that keeps me going is the egotistical urge and pleasure of creating lots and listening to music at the same time. And I’m proud when someone tells me I’ve influenced their work and I can see it in their own MD. Inspiration, this mysterious alchemy, is at the heart of everything.

The number of views is the only thing that truly means something from my point of view, and I simply thank all of you for the success of AntigOne – for these numbers.

--Badsim (edited by Jmouse) June 3, 2008