...there was... well, nothing really! Then came 1994 and more importantly, the year after. But for the sake of arguments, it was in 1994 the Scottish-based game developer Chris Sawyer brought this new vision of game art to the world with his Transport Tycoon, a game which places the player in charge of a business transport company. And at the end of 1995 he succeeded this vision by releasing the final version of Transport Tycoon Deluxe, these days mainly referred to as TTDLX, before moving on to his greatest achievement of all time, the Roller Coaster Tycoon-series. However, that's a completely different story and not one we're going to dig any deeper into here...

And where there are game developers, there are bound to be fans, some of them with more skills than others. And above all, an interest in making released games even better. Several years later Josef Drexler, in the TTDLX-community known as Patchman, started to write on what was to become the TTDPatch, (TTDP), a modification of the original Transport Tycoon Deluxe. With TTDPatch the player was given a completely new freedom as far as personal customization regards. And introducing not only improvements from a visual point of view, an extended list of various features are now available, never implemented in the original game. The alternative to TTDPatch, the open source version, (OpenTTD or OTTD for short), has taken a somewhat different approach and has an even more extended list of available features for the player to choose from.

What started as SIMGothia in the late '90s, followed by Gothia shortly afterwards, originally devoted to Maxis/EA Games city-building game genre SimCity 2000 and SimCity 3000 Unlimited/World Edition, followed by a period of complete absence with the temporary setup of TT-Artist, finally resulted in the all new Simuscape as of February 2012. Let it be custom graphics, modifications, new maps or scenarios - or even plain simple game play, whether you play or develop custom content, Simuscape provides a central place where fans world wide may gather and exchange ideas, support, custom content, or hang out. Whatever is preferred.

And Simuscape continues to focus primarily on the city-building genre with an emphasis on 2d-graphics engines, hence the 2d-revival concept. And as far as city-building concerns, the actual genre stretches from pure city-building games such as SimCity 2000 to more strategical based ones such as Civilization II. And in a sense, due to Simuscapes focus you will not find any 'violant' game coverages here, apart from the 'war' going on in for instance Civilization II. But that's such a small portion, thus more or less neglectible.

Fully developed players will find game informations, (complete with installation FAQ's, available up-to-date patches and upgrades), custom content, (single files, maps, scenarios, mods etc...), other services such as our SimuTalk - which is already there, (forums specialized and categorized for specific games), and interesting 'in-depth' articles covering the game industry, and a lot more.

SimuTalk Transport Tycoon is solely dedicated to Transport Tycoon, where we develop and create new graphics and other custom files for an enhanced gaming experience. We work in two different ways and have a different setup than what's usually common in most places on the internet;

• Visual Studio - Forums for public members to set up their own project topics.
• Artists Guild - Forums for Guild members to set up personal workshops.

The difference between the Visual Studio and the Artists Guild is that the latter allows members to benefit from a more private environment, where developments may proceed without the normal disturbance of other members, eager to see any custom files in the works released. Also, a Guild member is his/her own workshop master and have a greater freedom than a member using the Visual Studio. This means, amongst some other things, that a Guild member is allowed to showcase a lot more to other fellow Guild-members, without the fear of any unfinished material finding its way outside the Guild area. And as such we don't even allow bots entrance to any other parts of Simuscape than our public areas. A Guild member may of course showcase his/her work to the public for valuable feedback, and this is executed inside our Visual Studio for all members to view, comment on, and suggest improvements.

Another important feature is our Simucademy with the SimuSchool, governed by our Master Mentor wallyweb. This is the place to ask questions about how to perform certain tasks, whether it's about graphics or coding issues. And this is also the place to go to find manuals, tutorials and other interesting content for you to become an even better artist at developing your own custom files. We also host our own downloads and library area, The Vault, where the latest updated version of our custom files may be downloaded and used in your own game. And in the same area you'll find our Links Library, complete with the most important links to other resources online world wide, as well as the Wikiscape with our Library Catalogues listing anything and everything TTDLX.

Entering Simuscape do not require a registered membership which is free of charge. Using our services are - as a rule of thumb - free of charge but requires a registered membership. Downloading custom content is - as a rule of thumb - free of charge. However, running Simuscape isn't obviously free of charge as traffic volume, server space, hosting, domains etc, generates costs one way or another. So with that said, don't be surprised if you find custom content available as 'donation gifts' at times. And as a member you're of course welcome to contribute at any time by donating to our PayPal account.

Below is a presentation of the administrative team, Team Simuscape, and our team members of SimuTalk Transport Tycoon. If you need to contact someone, please use private messages, or - if the subject may be of a more public concern or interest - post in a proper section of our forums.

Administrators, (Team Simuscape);

• SAC
  Team Simuscape, Admin, Guild Artist, developer of "INFRA" & "INFRA Tycoon"


• SlemFreak
  Team Simuscape, Site Developer

Master Mentors;

• wallyweb
  Head of Simucademy, (SimuSchool), Guild Artist, developer of NewGRF's code

Artists Guild & Artists Guild Team;

• Oz
  Guild Artist, (Oz's Bar & Grill)


• mb
  Guild Team


• oberhümer
  Guild Team


• God
  Guild Team

Moderators;

• athanasios
  Moderator
  

Public Relations;

• La Mimita Chiquita
  Editor at large, eScape Magazine