Designed by Will Wright and released for the Super Nintendo in 1993, SimEarth: The Living Planet is a complex life simulation game where you manage the ecology and evolution of an entire world. Instead of building a city, you manipulate geology, climate, and the atmosphere to guide life from simple single-celled organisms all the way to a space-faring civilization.
How to play
Your goal is to sustain a balanced ecosystem and encourage the development of intelligent life by placing biomes, triggering natural disasters, and allocating planetary energy.
- D-pad (Arrow Keys): Move the cursor
- A (X key): Select / Place item
- B (Z key): Cancel / Close menu
- Y (A key): Open the primary tool panel
- X (S key): View graphs and planet data
- L / R (Q / W keys): Cycle through tool categories
- Start (Enter): Pause the simulation
- Select (Shift): Toggle simulation speed
Tips
- Patience is essential: Evolution takes millions of years in-game. Increase the simulation speed when waiting for a species to evolve, but slow it down when adjusting the atmosphere to avoid triggering mass extinctions.
- Watch the greenhouse effect: Too much carbon dioxide or methane will trap heat and evaporate your oceans. Plant forests and adjust the planet’s albedo to keep temperatures in a habitable range.
- Protect intelligent species: Once a species develops civilization, they become vulnerable to pollution, war, and plague. Invest energy into guiding their technological progress so they can eventually migrate off-world.
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