This humble webpage is an ode to SimEarth: The Living Planet,
one of Maxis' lesser known videogames, a great feat for its time,
and a major inspiration for me!
SimEarth is a game that takes the Sim- series to its logical
conclusion; putting you in charge of an entire planet. And when I
say an entire planet, I really mean it. From the conditions of the
inner mantle and the drift of continents, to the patterns of
rainfall and the effects of greenhouse gases, to the evolution of
entire species and civilizations; everything is simulated as
scientifically accurate as possible.
And all that was done back in 1990, for computers that had 256kb
of RAM at best! It is truly a unique game that, for me personally,
has stood the test of time.
(Which makes it older than myself, actually! It was, in fact, considered "abandoware" when I first played it.)
One of the first videogames I've ever played, or at least, I have
memory of, was SimCity 2000. This sparked my love for simulation
games that still is strong to this day. Soon, I became interested
in every Sim- game I could get my hands on; all the SimCities,
SimAnt, SimTower, SimLife, SimFarm... and of course, the subject
of this fansite: SimEarth. Even when I didn't know English and
much of the game mechanics back then, I was utterly fascinated by
the level of freedom and scientific accuracy it had.
Being a sci-fi and fantasy fan from a young age, the fact I had a
tool to make an incredible variety of planets, from jungle-covered
worlds with dinosaur civilizations to cold oceanic planets where
dolphins built underwater cities was nothing short of amazing -even if they were shown with 16-bit sprites... you had to use your imagination back then!-. I
could play with geology, evolution, ecology, history, and a
thousand things more. Looking back, SimEarth was one bright spark
that ignited my interest in biology and worldbuilding.
SimEarth was never as successful as SimCity, or other Maxis'
games at the time. Despite my love for it, it's not hard to see
why; it is a very complex game, with no clear end goals besides
being a planet-sized sandbox, and it's often very hard to tell the
consequences of your actions in the game.
Unfortunately, besides occasional reviews in recent times, it has
been largely forgotten, which is a shame. But that's what this
fansite is for!
(more coming soon. I have a LOT to write about this game.)
SimEarth was first released in 1990 for DOS, Windows 3.1 and
Macintosh.
There's also a version released for the Super Nintendo
Entertainment System. The SNES version is more colorful, and
replaces the creatures sprites with colorful, quirky animations
-though there are less of them-. It also adds several new
scenarios: however, unlike the PC versions, these aren't available
for you to choose from the beginning, and you're stuck with
choosing a difficulty instead of sandbox mode. The SNES version was re-released in 2009 for the Wii Virtual Console, and that was the last official release of SimEarth, as far as I know.
coming soon
coming soon
Archive.org has the DOS version of SimEarth available for free on
their virtual machines! You can play it in your browser here.
It doesn't have copy protection (just type anything when asked), and you can save planets -though I don't exactly know where they're saved...
For having it yourself, you
can also download it from Abandonia.com, but you need to install
DOSBox to make it function properly. It also has copy protection,
so have the manual in handy.
There are also ROMs available for the SNES version. And though
while I doubt someone would sue me for linking to ROMs of a
30-years old game, I'll rather not risk it. But you can find them
easily if you know how to look.
coming soon (well, not likely, unfortunately :/ )
coming soon
SimEarth is copyrighted by Maxis. This is a fansite and no
copyright infrigement is intended.