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Social simulation games are a subgenre of life simulation games that explore social interactions between multiple artificial lives. Some examples include The Sims and Animal Crossing series.
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| Simulation video games |
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Social simulation games are a subgenre of life simulation games that explore social interactions between multiple artificial lives. Some examples include The Sims and Animal Crossing series.
Before there were video games, there were social simulation games. The earliest forms being physical cities created for educational purposes made of miscellaneous household items. Notably, Doreen Gehry Nelson, pioneered in-class city building that eventually helped shape the game SimCity and more. Her city simulations allowed students to imagine, build, and re-build a city in their own image incorporating real world learning. The Nelson siblings, Doreen (teacher) and Frank Nelson (architect), can be accredited for the creation of the roleplaying game, Purium, at a 1971 Smithsonian Institution workshop which became an inspiration used for the baseline of future social simulation games. [1]
Claire Curtin, an educational software producer, co-designed The Sims with Will Wright and Roxana Wolosenko. The three designers utilized skilled teachers like Doreen Nelson to create informational teacher guides to accompany gameplay in Maxis games. [2] When The Sims was released in 2000, it was referred to as "almost the only game of its kind". [3] But there are several important precursors to The Sims and the social simulation genre. Firstly, one of the game's creator Will Wright acknowledged the influence of Little Computer People , [4] a Commodore 64 game from 1985. The games are similar, although The Sims is described as having a richer gameplay experience. [3] Secondly, Will Wright also acknowledged the influence of dollhouses on The Sims, [5] which have generally also informed the gameplay of this genre.
Animal Crossing was released in 2001 for the Nintendo 64 in Japan. While released towards the end of the life cycle of the Nintendo 64, it developed a following that led to it being ported to the GameCube and released throughout the world. As the game's popularity has surged, this series has also been described as a social simulation game. [6] [7] Story of Seasons , a series that began in 1996 and is often compared to Animal Crossing, [8] has also been described as a social simulation game. Its social simulation elements are derived from dating sims, [9] a subgenre that dates back to the early 1980s, with games such as Tenshitachi no gogo [10] in 1985 [11] and Girl's Garden in 1984. [12]
Since the initial success of these games in the early 2000s, video game journalists have begun to refer to a group of similar games as belonging to the social simulation game genre.
Several other social simulation games have emerged to capitalize on the success of The Sims. [13] This includes several sequels and expansion packs, as well as games like Singles: Flirt Up Your Life with heavy similarities. [14]
A farming sim is a specific type of social simulation in which the player tends to a farm at the same time they influence game play by interacting with other townspeople. A direct connection can be drawn from early games in the genre such as Harvest Moon (1996) to the more recent Stardew Valley (2016). Other games, such as the Rune Factory series and Harvestella (2022) put a fantasy spin on the genre, [15] while there are also sci-fi examples such as Lightyear Frontier . [16] The 2.0 update of Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020) added the ability to create a farm and grow produce. [17]
Main Article: City-building game
City-building simulations ask the player to manage, build, and influence how a city evolves over time. SimCity simulates evolution over time by incorporating Jay Forrester's system of using feedback loops and changing variable. [18] Games like SimCity, [19] Cesar III, [20] Pharaoh, [21] and TheoTown [22] allow players to design the layout and functionalities of the city within the limits of the game. Games like Rollercoaster Tycoon [23] and Zoo Tycoon [24] are similar in that players manipulate pre-existing game structures, but in these simulations the goal is to build and influence a theme park sim.
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