By BARBARA ORTUTAY
AP Technology Writer

NEW YORK (AP) _ The iconic designer behind the simulation video games “Sim City” and “The Sims” wants people to tell stories visually on their mobile phones.

Will Wright has created a mobile app called Thred. The idea is to “explore and share visual ideas with friends” _ through “threds” of images and links. For some, this can mean a collection of Internet jokes; for others, travel photos and articles. If you give Thred permission, it will access your phone’s photos and track your location so that you can post a thread of the day’s meals, or the snapshots of flowers you shot on a Sunday trip to the botanical gardens.

It’s a bit like Instagram-deluxe. Instead of just one photo, Thred lets you share a bunch. Instead of just filters, you can add text, links and stickers to your pictures.

“I’m fascinated by how much this has become a part of my life,” said Wright, 55, holding his iPhone as he showed off the app recently in a Manhattan coffee shop.

Thred joins Storehouse and other, more complex visual storytelling apps that hope to appeal to your creative side and seek to go deeper than one-off snapshots. Whether Thred will soar in popularity like “The Sims” did or fade away like “Spore,” remains to be seen.

Thred works on iPhones and iPads. There’s no Android version yet.