A prototype copy of SimRefinery has been found!

[BakaOsaka]

Back in the early 90s Maxis made a vast number of Sims games - But they also made a few commercial games, mainly for training and educating employees in certain fields. One of these games was SimRefinery - Which as suggested puts you in control of an oil refinery.

There's a much better write-up on what this game is here, it's well worth a read.
https://obscuritory.com/sim/when-simcity-got-serious/

And the disk image is available here.
https://archive.org/details/simrefinery

 

[NeXT]

My question on this discovery is: so?

Before this exploded last week I had only heard of SimRefinery once previous and it was a month and a half ago. I guess previously there was scant bits of history behind it but otherwise it's the equivalent to the OS/2 demonstration floppy. It's almost entirely a static proof of concept that in comparison to the previous mentions of the game adds nothing. I really don't see why I should be running around screaming that this is the fifth coming of christ and neither do I see why everyone else is running around excited either. It's kinda useless.

 

[VERAULT]

Yeah I agree. Didn't ID games make a Doom military training game as well? Its an interesting snippit to read but ultimately who cares. Besides the game in practically in alpha anyway. So using the term "Game" is a stretch.

 

[DragonCaesar]

That is really exciting just for the sheer fact this was presumed lost to time. Thank you for sharing!

 

[NeXT]

Sure enough, you run around screaming you have prototype software from a major studio you collect some heat after EVERYONE reports on it.
Apparently it's been pulled by the uploader.

This item is no longer available.

Items may be taken down for various reasons, including by decision of the uploader or due to a violation of our Terms of Use.

 

[LiqMatrix]

@BakaOsaka

Not a genre of gaming I get into, but I fully appreciate the historical significance of getting this properly archived. So for that, awesome! You'll find more people who are like minded on this matter over at Vogons.org.

As for some of you... get off your high horse. There are plenty of people out there who would find our hobby of playing with vintage hardware also useless. Doesn't mean it's a pointless endeavor, does it? It's all for historical preservation. :roll:

A very good article on the history of the game and find >> https://obscuritory.com/sim/when-simcity-got-serious/

 

[VERAULT]

Liqmat: Like Minded? Are you Kidding. I spent UNTOLD hours playing the original Simcity back in the day, possibly even more with Simcity 2000. I am a big Maxis fan. I just dont care about an alpha build incomplete game. Now if you are talking about a reproduction Simcity NES cart, or simcity on the ZX spectrum, C64 and even original Gameboy? Now you are talking.

 

[LiqMatrix]

That's fine, but my point was it is still a significant find for historical preservation as there is a lot of history behind that one disk. So a win for all of us who like the history of these things. Anytime you have a working item like this, prototype or otherwise, it really drives the history home seeing it in action rather than just reading about it.