Assassins Creed and Timeless Architecture

Climbing a tower in Assassins Creed 1. Image from Ubisoft.com

Leaping from a tower in Assassins Creed 1. Image from Ubisoft.com

I couldn't talk about architecture in video games without mentioning the Assassins Creed series. The first of the series came out in 2007 and offered an interesting plot by having the protagonist play a simulation of the life of his ancestor through the 12th century Holy Land events. Although there was nothing new in the interactivity of the open world in Assassins Creed, as these types of worlds already existed in Tomb Raider, Grand Theft Auto and other RPG and first person action adventure games; however the technological advancement of graphic cards in personal computers and consoles allowed an incredibly detailed world to be presented in past time for players. Who wouldn't want to play a character in a city during the crusades or in Milan, Rome or Venice during the Renaissance or in Paris during the French Revolution, or in London during Industrial Revolution. Sure there was a plot to it but as an architectural student I enjoyed traveling to different locations through different times and studying cities and landmarks of cities at best times of recreation and revolution. All while interacting with the architecture, climbing the buildings, going inside them, discovering hidden rooms and tombs underneath the landmarks, solving puzzles, or even just reading about the different districts or works of arts, crafts and architecture all within the game database. Basically for me it was like travelling into those cities and seeing the landmarks without ever leaving my room.

Scenes from Assassins Creed 2 in Venice in 16th century. Image from Push-start-play

Here is a wiki on the entire series of Assassins creed.

Simulations and Architecture

Microcity on Commodore 64. Image from arstechnica.com

Simulation games are not too far off from strategy genre, as some simulate city building, war waging or managing an economy. However simulations are more about the continuous management of the assets rather than completing story-lines or defeating an opponent. Simulation games can continue indefinitely if there are no objectives set for an end-game, so if the simulation has an aspect of city or architectural design, the growth and expansion of the city or architecture could be continuous and infinite.

SimCity. Image from arstechnica.com

Simulation games existed in the earliest days of computer gaming, however many credit the development of architectural simulations to a game called Micropolis released in 1989 on Commodor 64 and re-released as SimCity on Macintosh. Players would essentially become the civil engineers and urban designers of a virtual city, managing every aspect of it from street layouts, different types of buildings, infrastructure management, disaster prevention, etc. The game spawned an entire world of simulation sequels and spin-offs such as SimAnt and Sims. I particularly enjoyed playing Sims 2 for its ability to design houses for virtual dwellers by managing income and buying furniture and home extensions with the earned money.

Home design in Sims 2. Image from WikiHow.com

Berlin City in Pizza Tycoon 2. Image from GOG.com

Basic startup restaurant in Pizza Tycoon 2. Image from GOG.com

Another simulation that I remember playing long hours was Pizza Tycoon 2 (the first version of which came out in 1994), in which you would not only make different pizza recipes but also build and manage restaurants with every single detail from furniture to layouts to even what type of music played in it. The entire city was available and visible in the game with patrons walking in the street going about their business, showing their moods. Any building in the city could be potentially turned into a restaurant while analyzing the surrounding neighborhoods for potential customers. There were competitor restaurants in the game as well and options to sabotage them with rats and cockroach infestations. Many aspects of this simulation game were so lifelike and incredibly detailed that could be a learning tool for real-life situations. I've played many similar games such as Gangster 2 (first one released in 2001) in which the player takes on the responsibilities of Mafia boss managing underground worlds of entire cities. Another simulation type game worth mentioning is Anno, which allows management of cities in different eras in each sequel.

Chicago city in Gangsters 2. Image from gamepressure.com

Anno 1404. Image from alternativeto.net

Read more about simulation games and history of it here:
From SimCity to Real Girlfriend, 20 years of sim games by Richard Moss (June, 2011) arsTechnica

Strategy and Architecture

Image from soft32.com

For me the next innovation in terms of architectural design in video games came in strategy games such as Age of Empires and Cossacs. For a while architecture became a background for linear arcade or fighting games such as Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter, which was a major step-back from being used as tools of interaction. Even in adventure games, architecture was merely an object for the main characters to interact with or to move upon. However with strategy games the architecture became part of the character of the game. Architectural objects were used to make cities or to spawn soldiers with which to fight with or as food production depots. Age of Empires, released in 1997, was one of the first games of its genre of history based real-time strategy, though it was influenced by similar games such as World of Warcraft (1994) and Civilization (1991). It's market success prompted sub-sequential release of many expansion packs and sequels and influenced many other strategy games and simulations.

Image from pop-verse.com

The architecture was dfferent for each type of building, for each time-frame and for each nation or civilization. Players would need to familiarize themselves with specifics of each civilization, architectural features, advantages and disadvantages, build times and strength factors of buildings and compete with other civilizations, manage economies and wage wars against enemies. So essentially players would need to design cities to withstand economic growths, time limitations, war efforts and population demands. Players would become urban designers in a sense by creating virtual cities and managing the citizens within it.

Image from gamersgate.com

The game Cossacks first released in 2001 was the Ukrainian equivalent of Age of Empires, but equipped nicer graphics and was set in historical events of 16th and 17th centuries. The game was one of my favourite strategies to play as each nation that I could play for had unique architectural style and detailing reflecting the actual real world national architecture.

More about Age of Empires here:
Age of Empires by Wikia
And Cossacks here:
Cossacks - European Wars by Wikipedia

Architecture of Tomb Raider

Image from Cweiske.de

The advancement of gaming console technologies and improvement of graphics lead to bigger action-adventure games with bigger worlds and bigger graphics. And one of those games that used the advancement of the technologies of its time was the release of Action-Adventure-Shooter-Puzzle game called Tomb Raider in 1996 by PlayStation console. And indeed this game presented a next level type of interaction with its environment that included known and made up landmarks. Tomb Raider encouraged the ability to freely explore the worlds within it in three dimensions, and to complete certain tasks using the digital world, such as climbing, jumping, sliding, swimming, crawling and swaying. One could truly immerse into the story and the world offered by the game and even feel the dangers, excitement and difficulties of each level. The multiple series that followed ever since continued to use latest advancements in console technology and computer graphics to offer more realistic worlds, more interactivity, better stories, more puzzles, more landmarks and more adventures. Even though stories and some of the worlds were fictional, nonetheless they were based on real landmarks and there was some history lessons in the game. Tomb Raider was one of the fist games that allowed to explore and learn about true historical sites and stories without leaving the comforts of a home.

Image from Ar12gaming.com

More information about the game series can be found here:

History of Tomb Raider by Rick Marshall (March, 2013) Digital Trends
20 Years on, Tomb Raider Story by Wesley Yin-Poole (October, 2016) EuroGamer.net

Architecture in Pacman, Donkey Kong and Mario Bro's

Image from IGN.com 

Of course the chronology of history of architecture in video games should start with arcade games and first home consoles such as Sega and Nintendo, as these were the first outlets of mine into the world of architectural design, even though I did not realize that at the time.
I will skip through the history of early arcades such as the pinball machines, as these did not have a substantial architectural value although these taught about physical effects of the ball and the environment and the interaction of solids and voids. I will also skip games that either had extraterrestrial themes such as Galaxy, Space Asteroids or Pong, but I will not refute their importance in influence on games that came after. Here is a chronology of arcade games:

Check Out This Glorious, Colorful History of Arcade Games by Peter Rubine (June 2014) Wired Magazine

Image from GitHub

The first arcade game that included some sense architectural graphic and indeed the first video game that I've ever played was Pacman. And it should be of no surprise that this was my first game and that I played it when I was five years old, because this game did not need any tutorials or explanations of how to play. One look at the game should give a an idea of how it works, what to do, where to go and where not to go. Granted some of the learning came from trial and error, however the user interface was designed to be so simple and intuitive that even a 5 year old could understand it (5 year of 1990's, and not of these days, as kids are being introduced to smartphones and computers earlier in their development). The game was created by Japanese game designer Tory Iwatani in 1980 and was the first maze chase game ever created. And it was included in my list of architectural games because of its simplistic use of walls to create mazes and an opening for a transport from left side to the right side and vice-versa. Here is a website article that has the history and interesting facts about the infamous game:

The history of Pacman by Tegan Jones (August, 2013) Today I Found Out

Image from Google

On it's 30th anniversary in 2010, Pacman was made available on Google Doodle, and can still be played here. On April 1, 2017 Pacman showed himself on Google Maps, making any city grid playable against the infamous ghosts - Inky, Pinky, Blinky and Clyde.

Image from ClassicGaming.cc

The simplicity of the user interface in Pacman inspired games that came after and spawned a design language that would use architectural elements to have a familiar environmental interactivity by the user. Elements such as trusses, ladders, ropes, elevators and ramps were used in Donkey Kong first released in 1981 by another Japanese game designer, Shigery Miyamoto, under the flagship of Nintendo. And the main protagonist was Jumpman, later to be known as Mario, fighting against the King-Kong like character to save the princess by climbing up ladders, ropes, elevators and ramps by jumping over barrels that Donkey-Kong would throw. Compared to first version of Pacman, Donkey-Kong introduced differing levels by changing the configuration of this architectural elements, instead of changing the speed of opponents or the layout of the walls.

More info here:
How Donkey Kong and Mario changed the World by Jennifer Latson (June, 2015) Time Magazine

Image From Fraghero.com

And from the jump that Nintendo made from Jumpman to Mario Brothers in 1983, we've also seen an introduction of more architecture and more interactive elements: pipes, castles and worlds. Although the different worlds of levels each with its own architectural features were impressive innovations, the most creative innovation for me were the use of different materials or textures to convey different type of interactivity. Such were bricks that you could break or boxes you could open or stone blocks that you could not. After trying to hit each block with Mario's or Luigi's head, player would have the general idea of interaction for rest of the game.

More information about the infamous plumber/dragon slayer can be found in:

The origins and history of Mario by Justin Pot (July 2012) MUO

If you have caught the nostalgia bug I suggest finding flash versions of the games here.