Custom Sim
The player-created protagonist whose appearance, clothing, and interactions shape their place in the city.
Documented for this version
D-pad | Move the Urb and navigate menus |
|---|---|
A | Confirm selections and interact with objects or characters |
B | Cancel or return to the previous screen |
Start | Pause or open the pause screen |
How it plays
The game uses an overhead perspective. The player explores city districts, talks with residents, visits businesses, and completes objectives that advance the story. Daily activities include working for money, maintaining needs, buying items, and improving social standing.
Progression is driven by missions, new locations, relationship development, and reputation with different urban groups. The player can customize the Urb and choose actions that affect work, social encounters, and access to parts of the city.
Plan your run
Prioritize missions that unlock new areas and activities before spending heavily on optional items. Keep the Urb’s basic needs under control so work and social objectives are easier to complete.
Use conversations and repeated social interactions to build relationships, and plan each in-game day around travel, work, and recovery time.
Meet the cast
The player-created protagonist whose appearance, clothing, and interactions shape their place in the city.
A key non-player character in the GBA version who helps guide early missions and social progression.
Before you begin
Save regularly, especially before attempting important missions or social objectives.
Balance work, needs, and relationships instead of focusing on only one statistic.
Explore newly opened districts because useful jobs, items, and objectives may appear there.
The Urbz: Sims in the City is a life-simulation and role-playing game developed by Griptonite Games for the Game Boy Advance and published by Electronic Arts. It places the player in a stylized urban community where a customizable character must build relationships, improve reputation, earn money, and complete story objectives. Unlike the open-ended structure of the main Sims games, this handheld version emphasizes a directed campaign with missions and neighborhood progression. Its overhead presentation and compact systems were designed for portable play, combining social interaction, exploration, minigames, and routine management. Reviews generally recognized its ambitious adaptation of the Urbz concept to the GBA, while noting that the smaller screen and hardware required substantial simplification.
Catalog entry maintained by EmuGamers Editorial Team
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