(Part of an ongoing multi-part Maxis article, SimTower is halfway down in this part 2.)
The origin story:
”As Yoot Saito would be the first to tell you, the rest of the game was really born out of his odd fascination with elevator systems.
> ’Late one night, I was waiting in my building’s lobby for an elevator. There are two cars in my building’s shaft. I pushed the button, but instead of the closest car coming to my floor, the farthest car arrived first. In my usual questioning way, I asked myself, “What happened here? How are these cars logically synchronized?” That was the beginning of SimTower.’
pavlov · · focus · HN ↗
It might be fun to revisit. The game was actually of Japanese origin.
The Digital Antiquarian just wrote about it the other week:
<a href="https://www.filfre.net/2026/07/the-life-and-times-of-maxis-part-2-simworld/" rel="nofollow">https://www.filfre.net/2026/07/the-life-and-times-of-maxis-p...
(Part of an ongoing multi-part Maxis article, SimTower is halfway down in this part 2.)
The origin story:
”As Yoot Saito would be the first to tell you, the rest of the game was really born out of his odd fascination with elevator systems.
> ’Late one night, I was waiting in my building’s lobby for an elevator. There are two cars in my building’s shaft. I pushed the button, but instead of the closest car coming to my floor, the farthest car arrived first. In my usual questioning way, I asked myself, “What happened here? How are these cars logically synchronized?” That was the beginning of SimTower.’