Will Wright just wanted to be left alone to finish The Sims. The developer had been working for four years on a life simulation, ever since shipping SimAnt in 1992. But, alas, after the huge success of SimCity 2000, Maxis had been struggling to come up with an identity for its series of Sim titles. In 1996, the company was not doing well financially and desperately needed some of that Wright magic. The developer mentions how, at that time, he had been keeping busy on three different projects, one of which was going to be The Sims, the third being a smaller game which Maxis asked him to complete in time for Christmas, SimCopter. The idea behind the game was that the player would be flying around in a helicopter in SimCity 2000 maps solving issues such as fires, transporting sick people to the hospital and arresting criminals.
Ocean Quigley, lead artist, remembers that back in the mid-Nineties Maxis was still quite an experimental company. “I think it was mainly about figuring out what was going to happen, mainly trying not to go out of business! Maxis was super-creative, but quite chaotic.” John Lewis, who worked on the 3D engine for the Mac version of the game, mentions being at Maxis for a few years by the time was started. “Originally, I was hired to write which I commonly describe as the kids’ version of or as a .” Jason Shankel, who worked on translating maps from to the 3D engine, had started working at Maxis around 1994, keeping busy with the network code in . Jason mentions how was born mainly out of Will Wright’s love for helicopters, “He paid a lot of attention to the flight model to make sure the simulation felt right and provided lots of useful feedback, but it did feel like his heart was more invested in his two other projects.”
