As part of the 25th anniversary of The Sims, the New York Times spoke to the original game's lead designer Will Wright, who gave some insight into how its AI was programmed. Part of the inspiration came from an unlikely source: his house burning down in 1991.
It was nothing like the fires in The Sims, which are usually caused by someone with a low cooking skill being anywhere near a toaster. Wright's house was caught in the Oakland Hills firestorm. "When I returned to the ashes of my house, I noticed that the only things still alive were ants," Wright said. "They had burrowed deep into the ground to survive the fire and were living off the dead carcasses of what they could forage."
