SimEarth

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SimEarth: The Living Planet
Sim earth logo.png
Studio Maxis
Publisher Maxis
Senior Developer Will Wright ( SimCity series)
platform IBM PC ( Windows , Mac OS ), Commodore Amiga , PC Engine / TurboDuo , X68000 , Sega Mega-CD , SNES , Virtual Console
genre Life simulation
system advantages
preconditions
Windows 3.1 or higher; 386 processor (for the IBM PC version); 68k processor (for the Mac version)
medium Game cartridge , floppy disk or CD-ROM
Age rating
USK released from 0

SimEarth is a computer game that simulates an ecosystem . It was designed by Will Wright and published by Maxis in 1990 . The player controls the development of a planet . Variants have been developed for the Apple Macintosh , Commodore Amiga , the IBM PC, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and PC Engine . The latter version was re-released in 2009 for the Wii Virtual Console .

Although the game received high praise when it was released, SimEarth did not become a sales success compared to the previous SimCity .

Overview

In SimEarth , among other things, the player can set the properties of the atmosphere , temperature and land masses of a planet and then settle different forms of life and observe them as they develop further. The game does not specify any specific mission objectives. The demanding challenge is to develop intelligent life and an advanced civilization. The stages of development of the planet can be reversed and repeated until the planet "dies" 10 billion years after its creation. After this time at the latest, it is assumed that the sun will turn into a red giant and all life on the planet will die off.

SimEarth simulates the Gaia model after Lynn Margulis and James Lovelock (who helped develop the game as a guide and wrote an introduction), and one game scenario is the simplified " Daisyworld " model.

The control over the simulated planet is very extensive; Control windows allow the player to regulate everything from atmospheric gases to the speed of continental drift to the reproduction and mutation rate of life forms. In addition, the player receives various tools that intervene in the development of the planet, such as. B. Oxygen generators, which enrich the atmosphere with oxygen, or the monolith, a reference to the one in 2001: A Space Odyssey , which promotes the development of intelligence.

The list of disasters ranges from natural occurrences such as hurricanes and fires to population-dependent events such as epidemics and pollution. The impact on the planet can be very minor or very far-reaching, depending on the circumstances. Volcanic eruptions increase the proportion of dust particles in the atmosphere and lower the global temperature; Earthquakes under water can cause tsunamis ; nuclear fuel shortages can lead to nuclear war among civilizations dependent on nuclear energy .

All actions carried out by the player have a certain price, which is given in "energy units" or "Ω units". For example, 50 units are required to process a single terrain field; it takes 500 units to build a terraforming tool. The energy budget depends on the level of development of the planet and the chosen level of difficulty; in the simplest mode it is unlimited.

Taxa

One characteristic of the game is that all taxa of multicellular animals have the same requirements, which is why it is possible, for example, for intelligent molluscs to develop. The two unicellular taxa, prokaryotes and eukaryotes (or bacteria and amoeba) are treated separately. Some of the taxa in the game are radially symmetrical animals, whales and more well-known ones , e.g. B. fish or birds . As an Easter egg, there are also self-replicating machines that occur when a city of the highest degree of development ( nanotechnology ) is destroyed by a nuclear explosion. This machine life form can survive in any living space and is usually more successful than any other life form. She is able to develop intelligence and eventually build cities. In addition, there are mutated carnivorous plants that only arise randomly and cannot be settled by the player. A large number of insects favor this development. They too can develop intelligence. In addition to these well-known types, there is the extinct trichordata (tribrachidia). The manual for the game says, "We [the developers] were sorry for them, so we're going to give them a chance to survive in SimEarth ".

Similar games

See also

Web links