Life simulation games (or Artificial life games)[1] are simulation games The simulation game or simply game is simulation or reenactment of various activities or "real life" in the form of a game for various purposes: training, analysis, or prediction. Well-known examples are war games, business games, and roleplay simulation in which the player lives or controls one or more artificial lifeforms. A life simulation game can revolve around "individuals and relationships, or it could be a simulation of an ecosystem".[1] This genre often includes the following subgenres:
- Biological simulations may allow the player to experiment with genetics Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of heredity and variation in living organisms. The fact that living things inherit traits from their parents has been used since prehistoric times to improve crop plants and animals through selective breeding. However, the modern science of genetics, which seeks to understand the process of, survival or ecosystems The term ecosystems refers to the combined physical and biological components of an environment. An ecosystem is generally an area within the natural environment in which physical factors of the environment, such as rocks and soil, function together along with interdependent (biotic) organisms, such as plants and animals, within the same habitat, often in the form of an educational package A serious game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. The "serious" adjective is generally appended to refer to products used by industries like defense, education, scientific exploration, health care, emergency management, city planning, engineering, religion, and politics.
- Pet-raising simulations A pet-raising simulation is a video game that focuses on the care, raising, breeding or exhibition of simulated animals. These games are software implementations of digital pets. Such games are described as a sub-class of life simulation game. The concept originated from Enix's console role-playing game, Dragon Quest V (1992) (also known as artificial pets[2] or digital pets A digital pet , is a type of artificial human companion. They are usually kept for companionship or enjoyment. People may keep a digital pet in lieu of a real pet) focus more on the relationship between the player and one or few life forms. They are often more limited in scope than other biological simulations. Notable examples include Tamagotchi The Tamagotchi is a handheld digital pet created in 1996 by Aki Maita and sold by Bandai. Over 70 million Tamagotchis have been sold as of 2008. The Tamagotchi is housed in a small and simple egg-shaped computer. Three buttons (A, B, and C) allow the user to select and perform an activity, including:, the Petz Petz is a series of games dating back to 1995, in which the player can adopt, raise, care for and breed their own virtual pets. Petz has sold over 3 million copies worldwide.[citation needed] series, Viva Piñata Viva Piñata is a life simulation game developed by Rare, for the Xbox 360 video game console. The project was headed by Gregg Mayles and the team behind the Banjo-Kazooie series, based on an idea from Tim Stamper. Although rumors of the title circulated among fans for some time, Viva Piñata was officially announced on March 15, 2006, and first and Nintendogs Nintendogs is a real-time pet simulation video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo DS handheld video game console. It was first released in Japan, and was later released in North America, Australia, Europe, and other regions. It was originally released in three different versions - Dachshund & Friends, Lab & Friends,.
- Social simulation games Social simulation games are a subgenre of life simulation game that explore social interactions between multiple artificial lives. The most famous example from this genre is The Sims series of games base their gameplay on the social interaction In social science, a social relation or social interaction refers to a relationship between two , three (i.e. a triad) or more individuals (e.g. a social group). Social relations, derived from individual agency, form the basis of the social structure. To this extent social relations are always the basic object of analysis for social scientists between game entities, such as The Sims The Sims is an American strategic life-simulation computer game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It was created by game designer Will Wright, also known for developing SimCity. It is a simulation of the daily activities of one or more virtual persons in a suburban household near SimCity.
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