In 1994, my mother, a working interior designer, decided to jump on the home computer bandwagon and get 3D Home Architect. (opens in new tab). The Broderbund program was part of an awkward, curious wave of computer-aided design (CAD) software adapted for the burgeoning home market (opens in new tab)— the average Joe looking to refurbish and remodel in an exciting new digital world. I was already familiar with floor plans and architectural drawings from watching my mother at her drawing table. My mother made a valiant effort to get used to the program, but as a seasoned traditionalist she eventually went back to work with her trusty pencil and paper. Suddenly, 3D Home Architect, which my parents didn’t consider a video game (and thus nothing to worry about), was all mine.
It was a cultural pull, asking users to imagine their lives as available for expansion through computers.
dr. Laine Nooney
Decades later, I’ve spent seas of time arranging furniture in Animal Crossing and furnishing my free business space in Final Fantasy 14. In games, especially life sims, interior design can be a dangerous path to a place where time stops. But in the beginning, the world of digital home design was a very different animal: easy-to-use consumer CAD programs that shaped a generation of home computer users.
“When these products first came out in the 1990s, people wanted to play with them because they literally let you do things on a computer that were previously impossible…it felt like you were part of the ‘future,’” says Dr. Laine Nooney (opens in new tab), which specializes in the historical, cultural, and economic analysis of the video game and home computer industries. Like me, Nooney has strong memories of their mother playing with 3D home design and landscaping programs in the mid-late 90s, when their family was going through a period of upward mobility.
“Even in the mid-1990s, only about a third of American households owned a computer. Journalists, investors and innovators have gone to great lengths to convince people that a home computer is something you have to want or not.” explains Nooney. “The idea of home computing wasn’t just about having a computer at home. It was a cultural pull, asking users to imagine their lives as available for expansion through computers.”
Even with its blocky, uncomplicated graphics, 3D Home Architect was, in my view, a gateway to the pure unadulterated idea of a fantasy house. Some of its software brothers, like Sierra CompleteHome, had cost estimation tools, which I simply ignored. After all, I was a kid, and if I could build a huge and physically impossible mansion with the best materials available, I would. It was the first time I could experiment with a digital space without boundaries – far removed from the physical limitations of my Barbie Dream Cottage (opens in new tab)which never seemed to have enough space.
In terms of games, I’d already flipped through 1991’s Jones in the Fast Lane, Sierra Entertainment’s bitterly funny social life sim, where you started out in a shabby, run-down apartment and worked your way up to a luxury one. It provided a basic screen showing your home, full of hard-earned furniture and electronics, but there was no control over where to place items or change options.
While “playing” 3D Home Architect, I treated it as a free-form game to imagine hypothetical houses of the future for myself and fictional characters. Maxis started playing more focused Sim games that took a more detailed approach to life simulation on a smaller scale, such as SimTower (opens in new tab)– the first Sim game that really got me to get psychological about how and where I placed various amenities in the titular skyscraper.
Unlike SimCity 2000, it was both a literal and figurative close-up of modern life, exemplified by the glitz and futurism of the high-rise format. There was also a much more entrenched, emotional connection between the on-screen residents and the environment—for the first time, I had to really think about where to place restaurants and entertainment facilities, as well as the elevators in the building (if residents waited too long or were too impatient, they would simply vanish from existence in a red frenzy).
The psycho-spatial, psycho-geographical aspect in social/life sim games really came to a head when Maxis released The Sims in 2000. It was, admittedly, a mind-boggling time for adults struggling to dissect this new cultural phenomenon (opens in new tab)including the idea of creating a comfortable space for computer people to thrive in. For kids like Sophie Mallinson, who had grown up with home design programs, it was a no-brainer.
It’s funny to think that I used to play with interior design software, and now I use a video game to plan my own house
Sophie Mallinson
One of Mallinson’s earliest computer memories was the free CD-ROM demos of home design programs that came with her mother’s home magazines. “While these products were clearly adult-oriented, with neutral aesthetics and built-in cost estimates, everything on the computer was game to me by age eight,” said Mallinson, who now works as a simulation game designer at Maxis. “I remember being impressed by the ability to navigate a realistic 3D environment, letting my imagination run wild as I created rooms for imaginary characters and invented a backstory for each home.”
In 2000, drawn to the allure of home making and the imaginative power of home design, Mallinson decided to buy The Sims, which quickly became her favorite game. “Not only could I design houses using a wide catalog of furniture, from heart-shaped beds to inflatable chairs, but everything was interactive,” she says. “I saw my Sims use every item I carefully selected and live their lives in the space I created for them.”
Mallinson, who recently bought her first home, recreated the floor plan in The Sims 4 to play with renovation ideas. “It’s funny to think that I used to play with interior design software, and now I use a video game to plan my own home,” she says, adding that she’s constantly thinking about better, more accessible ways to integrate the core of The Sims . components – architecture and house design – in gameplay.
Now concepts of home, home decor, and customizable habitation have become familiar features in everything from fantasy RPGs and chill puzzles to dedicated interior design mobile games. The role of 3D home design programs in cultivating this standard, as well as their impact on a generation of game designers and simulation fans who grew up with a fascination with things like 3D Home Architect, remains largely unexplored. While there hasn’t been much research in this area, Laine Nooney believes there are some “interesting resonances” between the way games approach room or unit composition, and the way 3D home design programs presented our homes as units of divisible space.
“I think we’re seriously misunderstanding the history of video games and computers when we draw very clear lines between games and other types of software,” says Nooney, suggesting these programs could be considered one of the first “sandbox” 3D rendering tools. available to the average home computer user. Ultimately, in our quest to understand the human fascination and cultural appeal of computers, early new software like 3D Home Architect has not received nearly enough credit for their influence in modern game design. “Interestingly, I think we’re seeing a return of these kinds of tools in the form of augmented reality, provided by furniture and home decor stores,” adds Nooney. “In its own way, novelty never seems to get old.”
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