Life Simulator

Overview

Many videogames can categorized as one kind of Simulation or another; a First Person Shooter game like Goldeneye could be seen as a simulation of a spy experience or a Driving Game like Grand Theft Auto could be a simulation of experiencing an urban environment from a car. Life Simulators (or Artificial Life Games), on the other hand, are a sub-genre of the more general title of Simulation Games and are games in which the player focuses on sustaining and maintaining life as an objective. While many games require not dying in order to win, Life Simulators differentiate themselves as the goal is generally not only to survive the game, but rather to thrive within it. To this point, Ernest Adams mentions in his book, Fundamentals of Game Design, that Will Wright, the creator of The Sims, has referred to his work as a “[s]oftware toy … entertainment software that you just play around with, without trying to defeat an opponent or achieve victory.” While a player can certainly experience a “victory” in an Artificial Life Game (in The Sims, gaining skill points or money or even working all the way up a career path), these goals are usually determined by the player rather than the game.

Adams also clarifies the definition of Life Simulators further, writing that “[ty]pically, [Artificial Life] games focus on maintaining and growing a manageable population of organisms, each of which is unique.” Within the vast genre of Simulation Games, Adams’ definition of Artificial Life Games helps set some boundaries: the player not only endeavors to keep some sort of organism alive, but these beings must be at least somewhat individualized. Thus, games like SimCity, SimTown, or SimEarth, though important in the history of Simulation Games, lack this element of individualization and are therefore better, and more specifically, classified as a Construction and Management Sim.