Just recently there was this article on the front page of HN that covered SimRefinery. Here's the discussion:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23236132

I'm really glad to hear that the game was recovered because of this!

For what it's worth, the parts of SimRefinery that were intended for non-technical staff were never implemented. I got to watch Phil's livestream last night, and the game as it was implemented was just completely impenetrable unless you're a chemical engineer.

Lots of jargon, buzzwords, and abbreviations, and very little documentation explaining what they mean. It's possible that had Chevron continued their partnership with Maxis, SimRefinery would've included a mode, or at least improved documentation, that introduced these concepts to non-technical staff in a way that could be understood, but that never happened.

Ha. Have you ever played SimTower[1]? On the surface of it, you build a high-rise mixed-use building (complete with basement levels). If you click around most things in the game can be tuned a little bit (oh, you don't have enough housekeeping staff, so your hotel will become infested with bugs).

A major piece of the game is moving people from point A to point B, usually via elevators. If you happen to click into the control panels behind the elevators you find a whole, very different, complex control panel with its own UI. That turns out to be because SimTower was built around a pre-existing elevator sim[2] that's complex enough to have its own guidebooks on the web.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimTower

[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20090916193335/http://www.gamasu...

Contrary to what that Gamasutra article says, it sounds like the whole game was actually developed by the Japanese company and Maxis just published it. Was a lot of fun back in the day. The creator also made the very strange Seaman for Dreamcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfW6EbFXtCQ

That explains a lot. I remember playing that game as a teenager and having fun right up until the elevator logistics got complicated, then having to basically give up because everybody was waiting all the time. I don't remember even trying the "advanced" elevator controls, but I probably wouldn't have gotten very far with them anyway.

oh man, i still play SimTower.... keep my OS9 emulator running for it!

Have you tried Yoot Tower? It was made by someone who worked on Sim Tower. I never played Sim Tower but Yoot Tower was a lot of fun.

We urgently need OfficeSim version of this.

It already exists and it's fabulous: https://pippinbarr.github.io/itisasifyouweredoingwork/

I've never been so simultaneously entertained and annoyed in my life.

Thanks, I hate it :>

Office-Politics-Sim.

Along with an ML training pipeline where you can train the figures in the sim to behave similarly to certain people in the office and a prediction phase where you can ask "what if"-s type of questions :)

Read the link in the top comment. It exists. https://youtu.be/mujgvUsO7w8

“I’ve heard that there have been complaints about my interpersonal skills”.

Looks like this worker needs some training!

I think the most important part of this would be an ML model that generates new office jargon on a regular basis. It seems like this should be easy, since it's mostly just remixing existing language in impenetrable and quasi-meaningless ways.

Do you work at Wework ?

Of course not,but I do think that a lot of people would benefit from having a better understanding of how a company, especially a large one works,as for a lot of people it's very similar to what those in the refinery were feeling like.

Job Simulator is a thing actually, VR game.

There's also Human Resource Machine if you like programming games.

And Shenzen I/O gets you that dank working-in-an-office vibe with e-mails, Solitaire, and an employee handbook.

Those examples are very very different types of games than what is being discussed here.

I've been playing the shit out of Human Resource Machine and its sequel-of-sorts 7 Billion Humans recently, they're really fantastic games. Basically ASM with cute graphics.

In business school you’re told similar stories about (in my case at least it was) Nike factories moving workers around so that they regularly work at each station and appreciate that what happens at one station affects other people’s work

I think this is a post-hoc justification that pretends it's about caring for personnel.

People become bored and [hence] less productive doing the exact same work -- moving them to other areas of the line improves productivity.

There's an ancillary benefit in reducing friendships which can be a productivity sink, profit-focused businesses want people to be friendly - committed to their colleagues - but not spending all day chatting.

Also moving people improves "bus factors".

Having worked in a factory where we constantly rotated positions (rarely same position two shifts in a row), this all sounds like utter, cynical nonsense except for the very last line.

Having people better trained to do more things is better for everyone- employees and company. People are going to form friendships regardless of whether you rotate or not, and you're going to be bored doing factory work, hands down, no doubt about it. Different people have different methods for getting through it, but you can't not be bored even with a different position every day.

Yes, this actually happens in real life now and then too. As long as there is no special drivers license or education involved ofcourse. Nothing more mind numbing than to stand at the same machine year after year.

And how everyone who works at Lincoln Electric starts out welding.