The creator of ‘The Sims’ wants to put your memories into his next game

By Gabe Gurwin Published March 20, 2018

Will Wright's Proxi Challenge

Game designer Will Wright — developer of games like SimCity and The Sims — will already go down in history as one of the most influential figures in the industry — but his next project looks to be just as groundbreaking. Proxi is a game built on your own memories, and Wright wants you to help his team make it.

Recommended Videos

Proxi is a game built in Unity by Wright and the team at Gallium Artists, and it promises to create rendered scenes based on your unique personal memories.

“This is, in some sense, a game of self-discovery,” Wright said in the announcement video. “[It’s] a game where we actually uncover the hidden ‘you.'”

By visually representing your memories in Proxi, Wright hopes that players will be able to learn from their experiences more thoroughly, and that the game will learn from the player, as well.

The video shows a few of these scenes in action, including a man fishing in a lake during a rainy day and a snow-covered log cabin. These are called “Mems” in the game, and multiple players will even be able to combine their memories to create a shared, more complex experience. Wright and Unity are looking for an artist to help them bring these memories to life as “tangible, visceral gameplay elements,” and it could be you.

To enter the contest, you must take three of your own personal memories and bring them to life with separate environmental scenes. Along with this, you’ll need to get all the scenes running in Unity to create a video, and you’ll need to submit an article detailing your creation projects. The art assets created must all be done by you, and they cannot be something you designed previously.

Judges for the contest include Wright himself, Pixar artist Matt Jones, Disney illustrator Bill Robinson, and Journey game designer Robin Hunicke.

Two winners will receive a grand prize, which includes round-trip flights to San Francisco to meet the development team, a private dinner and interview with the judges, licenses for Allegorithmic and Marmoset, and a bundle featuring shirts, games, and stickers from Wright’s projects.

Proxi is scheduled to release later this year for mobile devices.

Former Contributor

Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…

Topics

Gaming

The Sims 4 devs form new team to address the game’s long list of issues

A woman Sim fixing a boiler next to a male Sim in the Sims 4 For Rent expansion.

The Sims 4 may be hitting its 10th birthday soon, but the developers at Maxis are still working to update and fix the game. This time, it's with the help of a new team that will focus specifically on these core issues.

The developers posted a statement on the Sims X (formerly Twitter) account Thursday announcing the move, which they hope will "be able to increase both the number of fixes and the frequency with which we ship these batched updates."

Gaming

We played tons of games at GDC 2024. Put these ones on your wish list

A cutscene from Sopa.

Every year at GDC, we play dozens of games that are unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. It’s usually where we find titles that go on to become some of our favorites of the year, like last year’s show-stealing Viewfinder. And while we love finding those surefire hits, our favorite part of the show is discovering the totally unique projects that we can’t stop thinking about.

There was no shortage of those games at and around this year’s show. Over the course of a week, we’d play a host of creative games with totally innovative ideas. There was everything from a Tomagotchi tribute to a creepy horror game about a streamer on the occult dark web. If you’re the kind of person who worries that the gaming industry is out of ideas, this year’s show should alleviate those fears. To celebrate that, we’ve rounded up our favorite games from this year’s show. You’ll find that no two games here look remotely alike – and that’s what makes them so special.
Dungeons of Hinterberg

Gaming

If you want to up your Tekken 8 game, try this stickless controller

Kuma hitting Law causing him to fly toward the screen in Tekken 8.

With the release of Tekken 8, I’ve been at a bit of a crossroads. I had no clue what controller I wanted to use to learn and beat the rest of the competition. A standard Xbox controller? PlayStation’s DualSense? A fightstick? Or maybe it's time I looked to the future and tried out a hitbox controller? That last option is the one I'd ultimately go with, thanks to the
Buy at Amazon
.

Released last year, the Razer Kitsune is a hitbox-style fighting gamepad with no joystick. Its selling point is that it is sleeker than most hitbox controllers on the market and features high-quality buttons. It's a great option for those who love that style of control, but don't love carrying around a big, boxy gamepad. The true question, though, was whether or not I would prefer it over a classic gamepad, my Tekken comfort zone. I decided to take on a fighting game gauntlet with a day of matches with my little brother in just about every fighter I own to find out.
What is a hitbox controller?
A hitbox controller is a stickless arcade pad. It retains all the classic attack buttons but replaces the directional stick with buttons. I would compare it to playing on a keyboard but with more comfortable buttons to press and the up button placed where your thumbs rest. You may have heard of it a few times due to the controversy it causes in the fighting game community over it being the “easy way” to play fighting games.