OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD Sim games

devilmunchkin · January 12, 2002, 20:32

hey..i just recently got a lap top and on there, i have a bunch of SIM games. Except these don't look like the SIms that are coming out now, with the familes and houses etc. I have SIm Earth (which reminds me vaguely of civ), SIm Ant, and Sim Life. THese tends to have completely inferior graphics to what is produced today. Also, the copyright dates are back in the early 90's. so..how long have SIm games been around? what was the first one? when did it become popular? and WHY? and any hints on playing these games that i have?

General Ludd · January 12, 2002, 22:34

The first one was Sim City, which was released sometime in the 80's (I'm guessing '86 or '87 - Sim Earth was the second sim game, and made in '88.) Sim City was also what made Maxis, and sim games in general popular. Why? probably because Maxis was the first to succesfully create a simulation game of this nature - and is still pretty much the only company in the market for these types of games.

I'll make a list of the other lesser known sim games of the past.

Sim City
Sim City 2000
Sim Island
Sim Farm
Sim Golf (not the one which sid is involved in, an older version)
Sim Tower
Sim Copter
Streets of Sim City
Sim Health
Sim Town (kiddy version of sim city)
Sim Park (kiddy version of sim isle)
Sim Earth
Sim Life
Sim Ant

MattyBoy · January 13, 2002, 20:01

This URL has plenty of SimAnt details. Sounds pretty good and the page includes other links that might answer your questions (see the bottom of the page).

JohnT · January 14, 2002, 01:20

Sim Ant was a pretty fun game, too bad I bought it the exact same trip that I bought MOO.

Sim Earth is the most abstract of the Sim line, imho, and kinda played like a math formula... "hmmm. If I set rain to x, and temperature to y, and make evolution to be this easy then what will happen in 300 million years?"

devilmunchkin · January 14, 2002, 03:40

did anyone else kinda feel like SImEarth reminded them of civ to an extent?

Lemmy · January 14, 2002, 07:46

there is also a Sim Safari.

Adagio · January 14, 2002, 15:19

In 1997 a gamemagazine had a Simcity 3000 contest, where they mentioned many times that the first SimCity was released 10 years earlier, now the question was to figure out when the first SimCity was released

Eli · January 16, 2002, 09:38

Btw, you can play the classic Sim City here :
http://simcity.ea.com

(press the "Classic Live!" link).

loinburger · January 16, 2002, 11:28

SimEarth didn't seem too much like Civ to me, since wars and technology advances were extremely abstracted. My Earth simulation might have fifty different cultures on it or it might have only one, but that doesn't affect the workings of my planet until they run out of fossil fuels (and begin a world war).

I never actually played the scenarios for SimEarth; I just gave myself infinite energy and played around with floods and earthquakes. Whooo!

loinburger · January 16, 2002, 12:22

By the way, if you feel like starting a world war, have the civilization on your planet advance to the Indusrial age, and have them exclusively use fossil fuels to gather their energy. Within no time they'll use up all of the fossil fuels, and BAM, instant world war.

For a nuclear war, advance the civilization to the Atomic age, and have them use up both their fossil fuels and their atomic fuels. BAM! Global thermonuclear war, complete with nuclear winter. Wutang!