SimLife

aka: SimLife: Der genetische Spielplatz, SimLife: La Cour De Recreation Genetique, SimLife: The Genetic Playground
Moby ID: 1045
DOS Specs

Description official descriptions

A complex game in which you can create your own ecosystems, animals or vegetables, then watch them eat, evolve, mate, or die.

Feel free to create funky animals! How about a giant snail that would have to eat several trees each day to survive - or a small kangaroo that would lay eggs and eat only bugs? You can even edit their DNA code, and make your animals mutate.

Groups +

Screenshots

Videos

See any errors or missing info for this game?

You can submit a correction, contribute trivia, add to a game group, add a related site or alternate title.

Credits (DOS version)

52 People (36 developers, 16 thanks) · View all

Original Concept and Design
Design Assistance
Macintosh Programming
DOS Programming
Windows Programming
Project Manager
Art Director
Graphics / Artwork
Additional Graphics / Artwork
Sound
Sound Programming
Documentation
Editing, Additional Documentation
Documentation Design and Layout
Comics
Contributions to Documentation
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 77% (based on 20 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.1 out of 5 (based on 20 ratings with 1 reviews)

One of the worst of many horrible sim-games.

The Good
There is nothing to like about this "game" except the idea. It's a quite appealing thought to create life and manage it to see which species of animals and plants survive. You can goof around with climate and other stuff and you can plant as many species as you like to see which one can manage to survive the longest. In theory, this could have been quite amusing in a lazy-sunday-afternoon kind of way.

The Bad
This was one of the first games I bought when I switched from Amiga to PC back in ´93. The game was an utter disappointment, though. It wasn't fun to create your own animals because they all turned out quite worthless and died out before they even knew what it them. Also, the graphics are terrible. It looks like Microsoft Excel with some ugly graphics squeezed into it. It's just mindnumbingly boring to play it. I mean, the idea sound fun in theory, but in practice it's just utterly boring. You will not care if your little birdmonkey survives, or if your strange wateroak can survive on land. In the end your map is usually covered with one or two species of trees and everything else has died out. That's what this idea should have done. It should have died out at the planning stage, but apparently the developers didn't think that it was enough with the boring Sim Ant, and the crappy Sim Earth. In fact, Maxis didn't think it was enough even with this crappy game and have since released the almost as crappy Sim Tower and Sim Isle and some other Sim games you don't want to play. Maxis should be avoided at all times, except for the Sim City series, and possibly The Sims if you like that sort of thing.

The Bottom Line
Avoid it if you want to live a happy and meaningful life. If you want to waste your life on boring, meaningless things, go ahead and play Sim Life.

DOS · by Joakim Kihlman (231) · 2004

Trivia

Amiga version

This was the first Amiga game for which the AGA version (for A1200 and A4000 based systems) was released before the standard version. As the VGA PC graphics could be ported directly across to the 256-colour AGA mode, this made the conversion easier. Several Mindscape titles around the time also offered AGA enhancements.

Awards

  • Power Play
    • Issue 02/1993 – Best Manual in 1992

Analytics

MobyPro Early Access

Upgrade to MobyPro to view research rankings!

Related Games

Peter Pan
Released 2007 on PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS
Giraffe's PreSchool Playground
Released 2009 on iPhone, iPad, Android
JumpStart 1st-3rd Grade Learning Playground
Released 2002 on Windows, Macintosh
Petz Sports
Released 2008 on Windows, Macintosh, Wii
The Charge of the Light Brigade
Released 1991 on Amiga, Atari ST, DOS
Nightfall Mysteries: Curse of the Opera
Released 2010 on Windows, Macintosh
Veronica Rivers: The Order of Conspiracy
Released 2010 on Windows, Macintosh
Spirit Walkers: Curse of the Cypress Witch
Released 2012 on Windows, 2012 on iPhone, 2013 on Macintosh...
March of the Penguins
Released 2006 on Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 1045
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

Contribute

Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Cochonou.

Windows 3.x added by Rebound Boy. Amiga added by Martin Smith. Macintosh added by Terok Nor.

Additional contributors: Rebound Boy, Martin Smith, formercontrib, Patrick Bregger, Plok.

Game added March 14, 2000. Last modified January 25, 2024.