Springfield Reproduced

"sideshowdan9;c-2160365" wrote:
Bullying!

And it's me who has to lighten up.

Oh, I didn't realize you were one of the taggers. Yes, I think it's harassment and a waste of time for mods.

"someonewashere;c-2160346" wrote:


That has a drastically different placement of buildings throughout the game.


The only constant is that The Simpsons House is next to Ned Flanders.


Some episodes have the next door neighbor as Mrs. Glicks house, the Powell's, the regular Brown House, the Cool Brown House ...and George Bush lived across the street from them in the special White House.

In the StoneCutters episode it shows the Simpsons back yard as being right behind the Springfield Nuclear Plants parking lot...

Other episodes have them elsewhere, the Simpsons movie has the old Sea Captain living in a Houseboat in the Suburbs etc.

Things change considerably often in the show.


So a degree of curiosity does pop up in what episodes you took Inspiration from.

I used the kinda sorta almost but not really canon-ish map to get the general layout and to plan off of when I created the basic blue print of my town. Goal (with limited land space at the time and a ton of missing buildings - many of which have been introduced since and I probably should go back and do some minor rearranging to get them closer) was to get things close enough. These core buildings/areas roughly where they belong. Two areas are massively out of place. The desert/badland areas should be on the other side of the heights mountains, but since they're yet to open up more land there, I don't have room to put it all.

The trash dump and the tire fire should be towards the bottom, but it took them forever to open that land up so they ended up next to the river. I could move it, but I really like the design of where it is, so I've left them.

One of my biggest inspirations was the car scenes. Springfield in the show has a lot of neighborhoods and strip malls. Very much on my mind was having a natural feel of the roads and building placement where, if you were driving a car through my Springfield, what you'd be seeing would be very close to what they show in the series. Buildings rolling by in the background.

In a way my layout is very city builder game orientated. If the characters went about their day, the city should be natural and easy for them to function in.

Some buildings get their own plots and decorations while others are designed (and used in the show) to work as a group.

But since things always change in the show, I had to make some personal decisions.

The Springfield sign isn't in the right place, but it's where I wanted a woodland area to divide Springfield proper with all the other non-canon areas (other towns, cities, countries, etc).

I opted for the movie for the placement of the Simpson's home. I wanted it on the edge of town so a dome could be dropped on it.

The park exists and has a small stream through it for paddle boats. The mutant trees are in the park where they belong.

I had a farm across from the Nasa area for the longest time (there's a ranch across from the real Nasa if you ever visit). Sadly it got shifted to tighten up my rural area.

The mini golf area and the random fest areas are all close to the desert.

I had a hard decision between putting Skinner's house right next to the school or across the street from a Krusty burger. I opted for the Krusty burger.

The slant drilling drill is close enough to the school to get the oil.

Now that so many of the missing buildings have been introduced, there's a temptation to completely redesign and go for 100%-ish accuracy in the placement, but that would require abandoning all the non-canon buildings and loosing some of my best designs.

So while all the buildings aren't exactly where they should be, I think the layout still strongly represents the feel of the Springfield I see in the show.

"lucienleon519;c-2160309" wrote:


You've put together a great Springfield! You've made really good use of the map and I'm impressed by the logic in the design. I've gone for a super-compact design and part of me is disappointed I didn't give just a bit more space to things as you have.

Space is an illusion. There are a number of ways of creating this illusion.

Framing. One larger area as a center piece and lines of buildings crammed together around it. If you know how to line up the framing buildings, they don't feel cramped and the feeling of the open center piece makes the frame look less cramped.

Shifting. The houses in my residential area don't have much space at all. I limited their space to transfer it over to things like the schools and churches. I put trees to keep the houses from looking bland, but not too many. If you fill it in too much, it feels tight. Fewer trees gives it a lighter feel.

Use of space - heavy in the front or heavy in the back and light in the front. When I do my strip malls I never build right up to the road. I put a space or two to create side walks and decorate the sidewalks with benches, phone booths, newspaper dispensers, etc. This allows you to put a number of buildings in a small area but they don't give a claustrophobic feel.

For a building I want to give more attention to, I put it towards the back and use taller decorations (tighter trees) in the back and lower decorations (shrubs and flowers) in the front. This makes a small space look very big.

Share boundaries and build outward. A plot with three buildings towards the center with open front yards defined by fences again gives that illusion of having a lot of space where when you're actually not using much space at all.

Some buildings are strong center points. Other's work well together. Think of tall decorations as heavy and flatter decorations as light. Grouping 4 or 5 similar buildings (heavy) tightly together but going light in the front makes it feel like you're giving them a lot of space when they're really piled on top of each other.

It varies from area to area. Some of my areas are very busy where others are sparse. A mountain range with a flat field in front of it makes a nicer picture than the same mountain divided up equally into mounds on the patches of the field.