Why isn’t anyone making a new SimEarth?

This article made me think about the cool variability that SimEarth presented in forming worlds.

Seems like a game/genre which is ripe to be re-explored.

Agree. I would love one.

Someone get Will Wright back to work!

Did anyone actually understand how the original worked :O

Oh yes. I played it tons and was constantly left with “want more”.

were-not-worthy-gif-11

And I had the manual in my own language.
Or maybe that was issue…

You can do a bunch of this stuff with Universe Sandbox 2.

There are three ways to affect the climate of the Earth in the simulation in Universe Sandbox. First you can change the solar input. Change the luminosity of the Sun (but be careful because you might also end up changing its mass, which will affect the orbits of the planets). Or add an additional star if you really want to heat things up. Or delete the Sun and watch the planet freeze.

Second you can change the orbit of the Earth or its tilt. Changing the tilt will affect how extreme the seasons are. If you give the Earth a less-circular orbit or move it closer to or farther from the Sun, you can see how sensitive we are to being in just the right spot in the solar system.

Universe Sandbox ² Climate 3 Views

3 Earths with different climates in Universe Sandbox ²
(from the left: colder Earth, normal Earth, tidally-locked Earth)

Third you can change the parameters of the model itself. What if the heat capacity of the ocean were larger or smaller? What if the heat were transferred less efficiently between land and ocean, or more efficiently between equator and pole? We’ve chosen values that give us realistic behavior for the Earth we live on, but you can see what would happen if it were different. What values are within a realistic range? It’s a sandbox, so you won’t be constrained by that. How sensitive is the simulation to the choice of parameters? Experiment and see.

The big thing about Sim Earth was the simulation of life though. Or maybe I am mixing it with SimLife?

Damn, I am almost thinking of digging into the basement and looking for the game.

You can play it for free in your browser here:

It’s missing the second half of SimEarth - single celled organisms advancing via evolution :)

Didn’t it sell really poorly? That’d probably be why.