Sim-Sim, open! Traveling the world of non -traditional simulators
With the word “Simulator”, players usually recall air battles in IL-2, tense races on super-speed car in series F1 or the roar of stadiums at matches for the virtual FIFA Cup. The helicopter SIM TAKE On Helicopters, the SIP Simulator Civil Court Simulator and other successful, but too niche games are much less common.
Someone will probably remind arcadors, but still exactly the simulators of life like The Sims. But in fact, all this is just the top of a huge iceberg – the genre of simulators is much larger and deeper than it might seem at first glance. We will tell you about the most exotic.
Professional simulators
Many have probably heard at least one representative of a huge series of simulators of professions – the simulator of a farmer, policeman, trucker or bus driver. There are almost hundreds of such games! In the assortment of the British publishing house Excalibur Publinging There are more than 50 items of various simulators that allow anyone to try on many most unusual professions.
[[Bullet]] Stone -ore in Stone Quarry Simulator. Well, how to resist the desire to manage such a handsome man?
In the simulator, a quarry Stone Quarry Simulator You can manage a giant stone -prolonged machine that cuts out of a cliff with two -meter incisors hefty pieces of stone, which are then loaded into career dump trucks and are taken to a stone -eater. However, in the game there is also the opportunity to work with a banal junk hammer and even lay a couple of dynamic checkers.
Recently released Airport Firefighter Simulator offers to test himself as a fireman of the airfield service. Private refueling of the aircraft can turn a calm airfield into a glowing hell: sparkling with flashing lights, special vehicles immediately rush to the rescue. The intercontinental liner is burning? A special mechanical manipulator several meters long will allow to direct jets of water and foam to the very focus of the fire, without enduring people. The container is burning? Here a hand -treadmill will also cope. Want to take a walk around the garage or visit a meeting room? You can.
But one of the most cult games of the “professional” series is the simulator of the driver of the garbage cleaner Street Cleaning Simulator. The press quite reasonably put up extremely low grades to the game, or even ignored the release of this “hit”. But on the network the absurdity of the game, as well as an unusually successful YouTube video called Street Cleaning Simulator: The Simulationing made it extremely popular. Fans even organized a small flash mob in the form of a mass raid on the Metacritic website, where the playing rating of up to 9.1 points lifted up to 9.1 points. Real game of the year!
[[Bullet]] Demolition of the next high -rise building in the city -destructive simulator Demolition Company. Who did not evict, I'm not to blame!
Of course, all these games are more likely interactive manuals telling about unusual professions, or simple entertainment for incidents: if an arcade SIM garden flourishes on Facebook, why not interest someone about the game about driver of the London metro or drivers of asphalt rollers?
By the way, Excalibur Publishing also has a garden simulator, and quite serious. With it, you can, for example, estimate the plan of the real site – determine the place for landing, put the greenhouses and the house, spend water, and then take a walk through virtual possessions, watering the beds in anticipation of the crop. Very soothing. In terms of relaxation with this game, only a simulator of heavy technology for demolition of buildings can argue – Demolition Company. Normal graphics and excellent physics highlight this game among brothers: the house can be disassembled literally by bricks. You can act with a manual chipping hammer, and a healthy jack of “sledgehammer” on the bar with several tens of meters, which the special machine is able to reach the upper floors of high -rise buildings. Well, the best, of course, take the good old crane with a multi -ton “pear” suspended on the arrow or explosives. Pressed on the button – and ready!
Who does it?
Most niche simulators do not shine either with graphics, nor gameplay, nor particular reliability. Having looked at the videos, many can be terrified at all – who plays this? As developers have not yet ruined? We can reassure: many play, and developers in this matter make a very good money.
Chapter Excalibur Publishing Robert Stalbrak In an interview, he told the simple story of the success of his company. They started with the creation of mods for Microsoft Flight Simulator And Microsoft Train Simulator. Three years ago Microsoft She covered the bench, and the studio was left without work, but with a team of sensible developers who can create Sims. So the studio was reborn to the publishing house, and it turned out – their games are going on!
Simulator of a tractor plowman Farming Simulator Distolled with a circulation of 1.8 million copies! For such a game, this is just an astronomical figure. Truck simulator Euro Truck Simulator recorded half a million copies on his account. After such success, Excalibur Publishing put the production of sims on the stream and established connections with other studios. Sales go mainly through retail chains: people come to the store and choose a disk, focusing on the name and cover. Robert admits that they only sell games through online services – they would have burned out a long time ago.
Around sports
Sports simulators are very popular: football, hockey, basketball, Formula 1, golf … For fans of popular sports there are no problems choosing a game to their liking. But there are entertainment for exotic lovers. For example, gaining popularity of kaitesurfing – swimming on a board under an air sail, kite (a cross of air snake and paraglider). Company Flysim I created for passionate sports for this dangerous sport and just lovers to see the Simulator competition Kitesim. With its help, you can master the basic theory of kait management, learn about threatening dangers and learn the rules of conduct in difficult situations. The same company also released a fish fishing simulator with an overlap – with a realistic physics of casting a fly, advanced intelligence of each fish, as well as detailed modeling of river currents.
[[Bullet]] Dive to the Titanic reproduces the famous study of the remains of the sunken Titanic using the guided mini-Submarin.
Well, if you throw the board and take a larger “sail”, the kite turns into a real paraglider on which you can make long air walks. The Kyiv Paraplaner Club developed a simulator Demofly. It would seem that there is nowhere easier – you scatter and take off into the sky, watching the landscapes floating below, “spied” by Google Maps. But in reality, this is a serious simulator in which the “squat winds” incomprehensible to the layman “horizontal winds” and even a completely terrible “thermodynamic model of thermal flows of the lower level” are reliably simulated.
Toys for the government
The American government also loves simulators. More recently Epic Games sold the United States License for the Unreal Engine 3 engine – with its help studio Virtual Heroes will supply cadets of the FBI Academy with a realistic simulator of the crime scene, and for military doctors will prepare the field for work in the field.
Moreover, it is quite possible that the graphics there will not be like in civilian sites, but at the highest level: practice shows that modern soldiers who grew up on all kinds of Call of Duty or Battlefield , sitting behind the simulator with ancient graphics, they simply lose their concentration. Their brain does not perceive the picture as real, but to achieve maximum results, a complete immersion in the virtual environment is necessary. However, this problem is relevant for tactical sims on which soldiers are trained, and in the case of FBI agents and doctors, they can also be chewed.
Kiting is an extreme sport, but there are classes and worse. Russian company Gaijin Entertainment Skydive: Proximity Flight. On the one hand, nothing special is a special costume with “wings”, which allows you to greatly slow down the fall, turning into a kind of leteaga squirrel. Usually with it they jump from airplanes, but real extremals combined jumping in Wingshuettes with bazzhamps – jumping from high mountains or skyscrapers. Some fly so low to the ground that they almost touch the tops of trees or stones with their hands. Even in the video it looks simply fantastic, and how it feels in reality … Gaijin Entertainment is going to fasten the support of the Kinect controller to make management more realistic.
However, not everyone is fans of extreme sports. To experience your strength, it does not necessarily take the line between life and death. And in general, as a rule, not those who are fond of sports, but those who want to relax, play simulators. Something beautiful is suitable for them-it seems like a submarine hunting simulator who came out recently Depth Hunter From the Russian studio Biart. Having picked up a harpoon gun, the player dives to the bottom a small lagoon flooded with rays. Get so half the fish that you like, you also need to drag it to you, carefully following the strength of the fishing line and the efforts of resisting fish. They say that the Biart leadership itself is fond of diving, so the studio is interested in the romance of the depths of the depths.
[[Bullet]] Feeling of height in Skydive: Proximity Flight is remarkable. In aviations, a kilometer is almost a shaving flight, and here is a jump into the abyss.
It is especially worth noting the Sailing Sports simulator Virtual Skipper , created by the French studio Nadeo , the one that makes a series of racing arcades Trackmania. The hand of professionals is felt right away. The game has excellent graphics, carefully recreated copies of real yachts, realistic physics and management – and all this is adjacent to a fairly simple management that can be mastered even by a person who is not too fond of marine theme. Although completely newcomers will have to undergo solid training, where they will be told how to set a sail, withstand the course and monitor the direction of the wind. They say that at yachting courses new apologists are recommended to master the game so as not to give extra lectures.
If there is not enough money for a yacht and you prefer to swim, say, on kayaki – the game industry and is ready to help here. Kayaking simulator, Kayak Extreme , I went out back in 2000, but, given the rather modern schedule at that time, it looks good today and today. Moreover, the main advantage of the game is gameplay: actively working as a virtual oar, the player gets acquainted with the unpredictability of stormy flows, learns at maximum speed to rush past dangerously close rocks and calculate the result of the jump from the waterfall in advance. Jokes jokes, but most importantly, the game is very reliably simulated in the game. On it, you can actually teach future kayakers to read white water-where the maximum depth at the barrel, how to calculate the stones-coatings, where it is better to cross the jet and so on.
Let's go!
The genre of space simulators is usually represented by fantastic games – in the distant future, in a distant galaxy … But there are people who are more interesting than modern cosmonautics, which have recently been pretty much forgotten. A hardcore simulator has been created for them Orbiter , The maximum realistically modeling work of modern spaceships. The game can recreate both real scenarios and fantastic ones – flights to other planets, testing the ships of the future.
Here, even reading instructions does not always help – you need knowledge in physics, astronomy, mathematics. Although there are tasks and simpler. For example, created by users in honor of the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin Mod "Vostok" completely recreates this famous event from start to landing. Like a real Gagarin, the player can only observe what is happening, hoping that the automation will not let you down. “Preliminary step … intermediate … Home … rise!" -" Let's go!"
The most unusual
Many Sims are so unusual that they are difficult to attribute to some category. Let's start with something simpler-for example, a very realistic, detailed and authentic simulator … elevator. The project is called Skyscraper , But, unfortunately, a couple of years ago the whole thing was stalled at the stage of alpha version. And it was a pity, it turned out very interesting – it was possible to join the buttons, travel between the floors of the skyscraper, take a walk around the building and even look into the mine. Initially, the developers planned to make a building simulator, but there was only enough strength for a detailed study of the elevator.
Another masterpiece of the genre, EJECTIONSEAT SIMELATOR , will introduce all those who are curious to the work of the catapult seats of six different models used in American military aviation. Like real catapults, it functions simply: pressed the button and free. But the subtleties of the operation of each device are clearly spelled out. The developer admitted that there were no problems with the seats and catapults themselves, it was most difficult to create a realistic simulation of the parachute work.
[[Bullet]] If you thought that you can deal with any game without instructions, the Samulator anti-aircraft missile system will quickly put you in place.
For an American pilot to eject from an airplane, you need a very good reason. One of these reasons is missile defense systems. Hungarian programmers wrote a hardcore game Sam Simulator. In fact, this is not a game, but absolutely accurate, up to the last button, a virtual copy of the workplace of the operator of a mobile anti-aircraft missile system https://captain-marlin-casino.co.uk/. The assortment of the game has three Soviet-made air defense systems: S-75 "Dvina", S-75M "Volkhov" and S-125 "Neva". Everything is like in real life: we take readings from the radar, enter the data, prepare missiles for launch, twist the levers and press dozens of buttons. You cannot take it without instructions and a step, but there is documentation in Russian. The game also has several scenarios reproducing real combat situations-for example, the famous interception over the Sverdlovsk American spy of Pauers on the U-2 reconnaissance aircraft conducted by our air defense forces in 1960.
[[Bullet]] Surgery Simulator. No pills are sick, we have surgery! Now we will cut off, sew it – and as if there was nothing.
By the way, it was then, in the late sixties and early seventies, in the United States the movement of hippies flourished, which practiced the use of "horizons of" substances. And so, fifty years later, the situation is repeated: with the advent of Barack Obama in America, the movement for the legalization of marijuana was activated in America. The police now drive drug addicts not as actively as before, and some doctors (especially California) even prescribe “jambs” for medical purposes. Is it worth it to be surprised that the simulator of raising marijuana HighGrow He is very popular here and is actively developing – to date, the program has already reached version 4.20 and includes the results of several years of research on the cultivation of first -rate hemp. When growing virtual bushes, players learn to properly care for seedlings, maintain the desired temperature, illumination and acidity of the soil, determine the desired irrigation mode. It turns out that getting high -quality raw materials for a "jamb" – this is not a cactus to grow. Need a scientific approach! Do not forget that in Russia such actions are illegal, but the very fact is that such a simulator is undoubtedly interesting.
War and terror on the other side
Games about military conflicts and terrorists can hardly be called unusual – thanks to the success of Call of Duty, this topic is very popular among developers. But here you can find completely unusual representatives of the simulator genre. For example, the 9/11 Survivor mod to the jocus unreal Tournament 2003 recreates the events of the attack on September 11, 2001 from the point of view of one of the employees of the World Commercial Center: 87th floor, ordinary day in the office, and then a terrible blow, fire, smoke, the ceiling collapses … and we must decide what to do next. The player even has the opportunity to jump out of the window, as many real victims of the attack did it. Otherwise, you will have to look for the path to salvation through endless dark stairs, invalid escalators, breaking out closed doors, fleeing the fire and water flows. Another example is the simulator of the journalist Global Conflicts: Latin America. Arriving at a hot point, you need to establish relations with local residents, find out as many information as possible and try to get “fried material” from key participants in the conflict. The game model situations that took place with real journalists in Bolivia, Mexico and Guatemala. Along the way, the player is introduced to the terrible living conditions of millions of people living in these poor regions.
And one more very funny game – The Bathroom Simulator , Simulator of a public toilet. It is proposed to go through 20 levels, in each of which the player will have to solve a complex problem: which pusser to choose to secure a maximum of comfort. Whether to squeeze between two men or prefer a place from the edge? Or is it better to go to a closed booth? It takes only five minutes to pass this flash game, and after it you are ready to visit any public toilets. Except ours. For our toilets, unfortunately, we need to prepare a new simulator – taking into account local features. Instead of choosing pussyar, there will be necessary to choose bushes on the City Hall flowerbed, the entrance of a standard high-rise building or a wheel-on-on of that bmw.
Excalibur Publishing, with the products of which this article began, also has a small surprise in stock. Making a tower crane operator simulator is one thing, but a surgeon simulator? This is completely different. IN Surgery Simulator You have to bandage burns, sew wounds, quickly decide what to do if a red thing begins to crawl out of the patient’s abdomen, looking like a stranger from the film of the same name ..
[[Bullet]] Simulator of American slides Nolimits Roller Coaster Simulator allows you to create the most incredible routes, but with full observance of the laws of physics.
The theme of medical games, I must say, is very popular – probably because in healthy people, medicine is associated with alcohol, blood and pretty nurses. Back in 1997, the famous studio Bullfrog Created a humorous hospital simulator Theme Hospital , And in 2007 Codemasters I released a simulator very similar to her Hospital Tycoon. The Japanese decided to do Trauma Center – a nurse with a plot and anime heroes. The series started in 2005 and has five games already.
Zoo Minnesota and Studio Eduweb We decided to combine the pleasant with useful, creating a completely unusual wolf simulator called Wolfquest. Players try on the role of a wolf living on the territory of the Yellouston National Park: they need to learn how to hunt by smell, look for a couple, start a happy family, and then protect the wolf from different dangers. In online mode, you can collect a whole flock of five wolves and drive a few ungulates. Wolfquest gameplay is not just unusual, but also very exciting. It’s interesting even to play even people who are completely interested in zoology.
So our little walk came to the end along the outskirts of the genre of simulators, rich in different wonders. Many games mentioned in the article can be deservedly scolding for a low level of quality, because some of them were written “on the knee” programmers-single, others were created in the studios for meager budgets. But the number of players in the modern world is so large that even the most niche game can find its audience. And vice versa-the number of simulators in recent years has increased so much that even the most picky player will be of no will interest at least one of them.
All of the listed games are unusual enough to look at them with at least one eye – or at least tell friends about them who are also fond of games. You have enough knowledge now.
From fire to snowploring work
Fire Aerodrome Service Simulator – these are just flowers. But the simulator of the employee who removes snow and ice from the aircraft body – this is a real rarity! It was made specifically for training cleaning operators, and the game controller is very serious. This is not a gamepad or a mouse, but a special platform with two joysticks and a bunch of buttons. Operators are taught how to clean and treat the anti-icing fluid of intercontinental liners, so that, God forbid, do not fall off somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Moreover, the system takes into account all the data – and how much expensive liquid the operator spent on the processing of the site, and soon the time, and how high -quality he completed the work. A very boring game, and the graphics are so nightmare!