Kudzu is a group of climbing, coiling, and trailing perennial vines native to much of East Asia, Southeast Asia, and some Pacific islands, but invasive in many parts of the world, primarily North America.
SimEarth is a life simulation video game, the second designed by Will Wright, in which the player controls the development of a planet. English scientist James Lovelock served as an advisor and his Gaia hypothesis of planet evolution was incorporated into the game. SimEarth was published in 1990 by Maxis. Versions were made for the Apple Macintosh, Commodore Amiga, IBM PC, SNES, Sega Mega-CD and TurboGrafx-16. It was also subsequently re-released on the Wii Virtual Console. In 1996, several of Maxis' simulation games were re-released under the Maxis Collector Series with greater compatibility with Windows 95 and differing box art, including the addition of Classics beneath the title. SimEarth was re-released in 1997 under the Classics label.
The Sims 2 is a 2004 strategic life simulation video game developed in Redwood City, California studio of Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It is the sequel to the first game in the franchise, The Sims.
The War Against the Chtorr is a series of science fiction novels by American writer David Gerrold. The Chtorr series was originally planned as a trilogy, but as the story became more intricate, Gerrold realized that three books would not be enough for him to tell the entire story. For a time, he was uncertain how many books there would be in the end but plans on seven. As of 2018, four books have been completed. As of 2017, a fifth and sixth were in the works, 24 years after the publication of the fourth book.
The Simpsons: Bart vs. the Space Mutants is a platform video game, the second based on the animated television series The Simpsons. It was released in 1991 for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum, and in 1992 for Sega Genesis, Sega Master System and Sega Game Gear. It was published by Acclaim Entertainment on consoles and Ocean Software on computers, and developed by Imagineering and Arc Developments. In the game, the player controls Bart Simpson through five levels as he tries to ruin the aliens' plan to take over the world. Video game critics have given Bart vs. the Space Mutants mixed reviews, with criticism directed at the difficulty of the game, partly caused by restricted controls.
SimSafari is a construction and management simulation game released by Maxis on March 19, 1998. It is similar to SimPark, except that the park is set in Africa rather than in North America, and therefore has African animals and plants.
Iridion 3D is a quasi-3D rail shooter video game developed by Shin'en. A launch title for the Game Boy Advance portable game console, it was released in North America on June 11, 2001 and in Europe on September 21. The player controls a single starship defending Earth from the alien Iridion. The game spans seven levels from Earth to the aliens' home planet, each following a linear path that culminate with a boss.
Rat Attack! is an arcade-style puzzle game for the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation. It was first released on the PlayStation in 1999, and later on the Nintendo 64 in 2000. Its theme is that of a group of Scratch Cats stopping a rat invasion. It received mixed reviews after its several years in development. The game was slightly altered for its Nintendo 64 release, switching out one of the characters and changing one series of levels.
The Sims 2: FreeTime is the seventh expansion pack in The Sims 2 video game series.
SimCity Creator is a video game in the Sim game series by Electronic Arts. It was released for the Wii in September 2008.
Social simulation games are a subgenre of life simulation game that explore social interactions between multiple artificial lives. The most famous examples from this genre are The Sims and the Animal Crossing series.
MySims Party is a video game developed and published by Electronic Arts as a spinoff to Maxis' The Sims franchise for the Nintendo DS and Wii in 2009. It is the third game in the MySims series. It consists of 50+ mini-games which can be played with up to 4 players. The game was released on March 10, 2009, in North America.
SimAnimals is a life simulation video game published by Electronic Arts for the Nintendo DS and Wii console systems. It was released on January 21, 2009 in North America. It was released on January 29, 2009 in Australia and January 30, 2009 in Europe. A sequel, SimAnimals Africa, was released for Wii and Nintendo DS on October 27, 2009.
Backflip Studios was a mobile game developer and publisher based in Boulder, Colorado, United States. It was founded by Julian Farrior, Dale Thoms and Tom Blind in April 2009. In August 2009, it was announced that the company had raised US$145,000 in funding to continue developing for the iPhone OS. Backflip Studios was best known for their free mobile game Paper Toss, which has been downloaded over 50 million times. They are also widely known for Dragonvale, with over 10 million downloads. In 2013, Backflip Studios sold a 70% stake in the company to Hasbro for $112 million in cash.
Tasty Planet is a franchise of top-down video games published by Vancouver-based studio Dingo Games. The games are targeted at ages 8 years and older, and may be downloaded to Windows or Macintosh systems.
Kudzu is an invasive plant species in the United States, introduced from Asia with devastating environmental consequences, earning it the nickname "the vine that ate the South". It has been spreading rapidly in the Southern United States, "easily outpacing the use of herbicide spraying and mowing, as well increasing the costs of these controls by $6 million annually". Estimates of the vine's spread vary, from the United States Forest Service's 2015 estimate of 2,500 acres per year to the Department of Agriculture's estimate of as much as 150,000 acres annually.
Space Bucks was a space trading simulation developed by Impressions Games and published by Sierra On-Line. The game focuses on the creation of a trade empire against several computer controlled opponents. Victory is achieved through a combination of infrastructure investments, the stock market, piracy, sabotage, and of course trade goods.
Rent A Goat is a company founded in 2010 by 22-year-old entrepreneur Matthew Richmond, from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, which rents out goat herds for land-clearing purposes. Rent A Goat is part of a larger phenomenon called conservation grazing or targeted grazing whereby goats are used instead of traditional machinery or pesticides in order to curb unwanted invasive plant growth. Goat rental has since become a more publicly acceptable form of weed abatement according to The Street: "Whether you have just enough front or back yard to get overgrown and unwieldy or find yourself overrun with nasty, prickly, invasive plants that just won't go away, nature has already devised the ultimate solution to your problem."
