I’ve always described SimEarth as a better text book than game – if you took the time to understand how everything fit together, you could learn a lot about evolution, photosynthesis, the greenhouse effect, etc. As a game, there were just too many things to juggle.
Now you can download the TurboGrafX 16 CD-ROM version on the Wii’s Virtual Console. I can’t imagine that it will have a super huge audience there – or anywhere. But there we have it.
SimAnt was fun, but I don’t think anyone ever cared about that one as much as me.
I’d love a new SimAnt.
I played and enjoyed both SimEarth and SimAnt as a kid. I recall writing Will Wright a letter – stop me if I’ve told you before – about an idea I had for an evolution game that was oddly similar to Spore (but 15 years before!!) :)
I loved SimEarth just for the observational value – because it really didn’t work as a game all well. Neither did SimAnt – but I’ve alway been fascinated by the little critters so their electronic cousins were just fun to watch too.
Great ideas but rather shaky as games.
Where’s my SimFarm2002? :(
SimLife was another life simulation game that wasn’t fun.
I don’t think I ever really got into SimEarth as a game. For the most part all I did with it was play with infinite materials and hack away, or have a go at terraforming Mars or Venus under the same rules. Haven’t fired it up in a long while, but I remember it being entertaining if nothing else.
I’m sure you could “reskin” Dwarf Fortress as a colony of burrowing insects..
I remember SimEarth as basically an interactive screen saver for my Mac. It also seemed like there were only to end conditions: total failure to get beyond single cell life or total “Gaia-ness”. I never seemed to get anything else. Of course, it HAS been a long long time since I played it, so maybe I mis-remembering…