#24: SimCity (Maxis, Amiga, 1989)

Or the joy is just in watching that model play out and seeing the swell of the city in front of you, cars and trains busily going to and fro and buildings popping up. I hadn’t previously played SimCity, though as a child I did play its epic and more abstract successor SimEarth. Playing it now, the concept’s appeal is abundantly clear, even as the execution is sometimes a little sterile and clunky. Linking the electricity supply to a building and waiting for the game to register that fact may be rather like the experience of being on hold to an energy company customer service line, but watching your city grow from nothing in expected and unexpected ways is still absorbing.