The Apartment Across the Decades

The Simm apartment at Parkview is a microcosm of Rockvil’s decline. The same rooms — living room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom — persist across all five decades, but their condition, inhabitants, and emotional valence transform from domestic warmth to post-raid devastation to a prison of memory. The apartment is the game’s most intimate scale: the collapse of a family mirrors the collapse of a civilization.

2041: Domestic Paradise

The apartment is a home. Jill and Perry are young, happy, and in love. Mitchell is a baby — the BABY object exists in the game, and Perry can be chided by Jill for trying to take him outside: “Perry! Don’t take Mitchell outside! He’ll get a chill!” (APARTMENT-EXIT-F, apartment.zil).

The living room is described with warmth. Jill’s easel occupies “a beautiful, well-lit spot near the window. Her current painting is on the easel” (EASEL-DESC). The painting itself is “a bright watercolor of the cliff-top Bermuda cottage colony where you and Jill spent your honeymoon” (PAINTING-F). The word processor is “an old model, but it was the best WP you could afford.”

The apartment window shows a hopeful view: “the wealthy western suburbs, surrounded by the woods and conservation lands of the State Park System” (APARTMENT-WINDOW-F). Forests, conservation land — the world outside is still a world worth preserving.

Jill’s daily routine (I-JILL in interrupts.zil) is domestic and contented: she wakes, dresses, makes salad, paints, reads, does her hair, goes to bed. She asks about Perry’s agent — he’s a writer trying to sell his Africa book. “Perry, I heard a news report yesterday about interest rates and housing prices. If the economy keeps going the way it’s going, and someone buys your Africa book, we might be able to afford a house next year!” The dream is upward mobility.

2051: Cracks Appear

The apartment is still a home, but unease has entered. Mitchell is now a sturdy boy of nearly eleven, playing logic games, doing sixth-grade homework, dashing off to school. His partition separates his sleeping area from the living room.

Jill’s painting has shifted from honeymoon nostalgia to something grander: “a vibrant acrylide painting of workers in a space factory hovering above machinery… a crescent earth dominates the view through a domed canopy. It is Jill’s most mature work to date.” She’s still an artist, still ambitious.

But the window view has darkened. Looking out scores 3 points (score item 5): “The forests, as a result of increasingly acidic rain, are thinner and browner each year.” The outside world is sickening.

Then the BSF raid. The I-APARTMENT routine (interrupts.zil lines 662-725) triggers probabilistically. “WHAM! The door of your apartment slams open and a half-dozen Border Security Force officers storm in, rifles ready.” They sweep with Rad-Detectors, then the leader apologizes: “Sorry for the inconvenience. You know how things are. We’re only doing it for your own protection.” Jill is sobbing in the corner; Mitchell, “exhibiting the innocent resilience of a child, resumes his normal activities.” The room becomes “very messy after the BSF raid” (RAID-MESS-DESC). The state has entered the home through the front door.

2061: The Family Breaks

The apartment is now a place of grief. Mitchell has joined the Church of God’s Word. The I-JILL interrupt delivers the devastating news: Jill comes running in, sobbing uncontrollably. “He’s gone off and joined the Church of God’s Word. He came and collected all his stuff about an hour ago. He said he’s going to an orientation camp in Arizona. He says he’ll never be able to speak to you or me again unless we join the Church.” Mitchell’s partition is noted: “Some of Mitchell’s stuff seems to be missing” (PARTITION-DESCFCN).

Jill’s painting has become “a painting in subdued shades of brown and gray, of a beggar woman, her face a mask of suffering” (PAINTING-F). The honeymoon watercolor is long gone; the ambitious space-factory painting is gone; now only suffering.

The window view scores 5 points (score item 6): “The forest of dying trees has been replaced by a forest of thriving mining towers, which trundle across the landscape leaving ugly brown scars. The western suburbs, once the most desirable in greater Rockvil, now look nearly deserted, a sign of the vanishing middle class.”

The BSF raids again. Score item 9 (4 points): “The place is clean. Keep it that way.” The officer slams the door. There is no apology this time. The room is “very messy after the BSF raid.”

The elevator is out “as usual,” so Perry must slowly walk up the stairs. The glass of the lobby door is not yet boarded up, but the building is deteriorating.

2071: Torn Apart

The apartment is destroyed — physically, emotionally, permanently.

Jill’s easel now holds “a pencil sketch” — not even a painting anymore, just a drawing — “dark and brooding, depicting a demonic figure towering over a frightened group of children. It’s been months since you last saw Jill working on it” (PAINTING-F). Jill has stopped creating.

The window view scores 7 points (score item 7), the highest window score: “Through the gray haze that covers western Rockvil you can discern an ugly industrial slum, where thousands upon thousands of serfs live in substandard shacks, running the factories and mines that support Rockvil’s urban nobility.” The conservation land is gone; the suburbs are gone; only serfdom remains.

The window glass itself is “etched from pollution” (score item 4, 2 points). The aging glass has been physically scarred by the air.

The BSF raid is now brutal. Score item 10 (5 points): “Almost without reason, they tear your curtains, spill food onto the kitchen floor, and overturn furniture.” If you bought the old, beautiful book from the bookstore, an officer “smiles gleefully as he rips it to shreds.” They march out without a word, leaving the door open.

Then comes the worst: I-MITCHELL-RAID. Not the BSF this time — Church police. “With a screech of splintering wood, the front door explodes open, and six or eight heavily armed Church police storm into the apartment.” Mitchell — adult, cold, fur-clad — enters behind them. “‘She is the one.’ The voice is Mitchell’s, but the tone is cold, unrecognizable… ‘She spake against the Church; she tried to poison the mind of a child too young to know the Truth.’” The thugs drag Jill away, screaming. Perry is beaten to the floor. The apartment door slams closed, “shutting you off forever from the son you cannot understand and the wife you will never see again.”

The room is “torn apart after the BSF raid” (RAID-MESS-DESC — though it’s Church police, the description uses the BSF raid flag).

Perry is old, frail, “a frail, old body” knocked against the wall. He is alone in the apartment now. The word processor sits unused; the easel abandoned. The partition where Mitchell once slept is empty — has been empty for a decade, but now it’s permanently empty. The apartment is a tomb.

Synthesis: The Domestic Arc

Dimension	2041	2051	2061	2071
Jill’s art	Honeymoon watercolor (hope)	Space factory (ambition)	Beggar woman (suffering)	Demonic sketch (despair), abandoned
Perry’s work	Writing his Africa book	Still writing?	?	Word processor unused
Mitchell	Infant	Boy at school, playing logic games	Joined Church; gone to orientation camp	Church enforcer; takes Jill
Window view	Forests, suburbs, conservation land	Dying forests, acidic rain	Strip mining, deserted suburbs	Serf village, industrial slum
Raids	None	BSF raid with apology; room “very messy”	BSF raid with threat; room “very messy”	Church police raid; Jill taken; room “torn apart”
Elevator	Working	Working	”Out as usual"	"Out as usual”
The door	Jill opens it with a kiss	Mitchell bounds through it	Mitchell walks out of it forever	It “explodes open” for the last time

The apartment is the game’s emotional payload. The city’s decline is statistical — pollution indices, crime rates, economic indicators. The apartment’s decline is personal — a marriage, a child, a painting, a view. By 2071, everything that made the apartment a home has been taken: Mitchell by the Church, Jill by Church police, the forests by strip mining, the middle class by inequality, the walls by BSF boots, the air by coal smoke.

What remains is Perry, alone, old, hungry, looking out a pollution-etched window at a world he no longer recognizes, with nothing left to record.

See Also

• rockvil-across-decades — The city-wide comparison across decades
• jill-simm — Perry’s wife, artist, and victim of the Church
• mitchell-simm — From schoolboy to Church enforcer
• perry-simm — The simulated everyman at the center of the story
• societal-decay — The broader pattern of collapse
• bsf — The Border Security Force raids on the apartment