Modern game like SimEarth?

[gomipile]

Specifically, I'm looking for a game that focuses on a single planet, and has a climate model, Maxis-style high-level simulation.

What I am not looking for is anything where the gameplay is focused around advancing a species, civilization, etc. So even if there's something like Spore that happens to have a good world simulation model, if it revolves around a civilization and having to improve that civilization to be able to change the planet, it isn't an example for the purposes of this thread.

So, something like Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, wherein you have to advance your faction's tech tree and build units to do terraforming wouldn't count.

Also, I'm not looking for something that has a scope bigger than one planet. So something like Universim or Universe Sandbox wouldn't count. I'm looking for something with this as a focus, where the developer time is devoted to this core gameplay aspect.

And, it would be nice if it's both good and was initially developed after 2010 or so, so that it adheres to more-or-less current practices in UI design, takes advantage of multithreading and GPU computing, etc.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I'll say outright that I'm not really aware of any such games, but I have to also say I'm confused as to what exactly it is you're looking for.

A game that has planetary-level climate and/or species simulation, but no "game" attached to it, just a toy where you look at a procedurally simulated planetary environment without guiding it anywhere?

Like, what would the fundamental purpose of something like that be? What would the purpose of making something like that be?

[gomipile]

I'll say outright that I'm not really aware of any such games, but I have to also say I'm confused as to what exactly it is you're looking for.

A game that has planetary-level climate and/or species simulation, but no "game" attached to it, just a toy where you look at a procedurally simulated planetary environment without guiding it anywhere?

Like, what would the fundamental purpose of something like that be? What would the purpose of making something like that be?

The same purpose as SimEarth, but with more modern and detailed simulation.

[Sean Mirrsen]

The same purpose as SimEarth, but with more modern and detailed simulation.

But... wasn't SimEarth about developing a civilization out of the lifeforms on the planet?

And it doesn't seem like anyone's been particularly interested in developing a world simulator for the heck of it. Mostly because it's a lot of work and a mountain (range) of content to make, for fairly nebulous returns. Especially limiting it to just one planet for no reason, when the nature of such a game would make creation of multiple planets a natural progression element.

Nowadays you'll only find procedural planet generators in games like No Man's Sky, and artificial life evolution simulators with controlled environments as separate games, like Species:ALRE.

You could possibly pitch it as an idea for an "idle game" of sorts, hosted online on some server that continuously runs the simulation and you periodically come back to it to see how things are going. Because otherwise, a modernized take on a SimEarth-style god game would be as interesting as watching paint dry (except to a very dedicated handful of people), and no one in their right mind would devote serious effort to such a project.

[RazorChain]

I don't know... Birthdays the beginning is about evolving species but not on a planet scale though

[BannedInSchool]

But... wasn't SimEarth about developing a civilization out of the lifeforms on the planet?

IIRC, in SimEarth you couldn't do much to actually help any intelligent species take to the stars other than keep the planet habitable, which wasn't so easy.

[IthilanorStPete]

But... wasn't SimEarth about developing a civilization out of the lifeforms on the planet?

And it doesn't seem like anyone's been particularly interested in developing a world simulator for the heck of it. Mostly because it's a lot of work and a mountain (range) of content to make, for fairly nebulous returns. Especially limiting it to just one planet for no reason, when the nature of such a game would make creation of multiple planets a natural progression element.

Nowadays you'll only find procedural planet generators in games like No Man's Sky, and artificial life evolution simulators with controlled environments as separate games, like Species:ALRE.

You could possibly pitch it as an idea for an "idle game" of sorts, hosted online on some server that continuously runs the simulation and you periodically come back to it to see how things are going. Because otherwise, a modernized take on a SimEarth-style god game would be as interesting as watching paint dry (except to a very dedicated handful of people), and no one in their right mind would devote serious effort to such a project.

Guess I'm not in my right mind, then. I've thought about developing a sort of world/humanity simulator for a long time, though I've never started actually building it. It'd be more of a toy than a game; the idea would be experimenting how different preconditions affect the development of civilization(s), and experimenting with different models of economics, societies, technological progress, etc.

[Aotrs Commander]

I don't think there's a huge number of games are like the old Sim[thing] games, since those games themselves. (Or if there are, they are likely to be fairly obscure, small indy games.)

Nowadays you'll only find procedural planet generators in games like No Man's Sky, and artificial life evolution simulators with controlled environments as separate games, like Species:ALRE.

That's the first game I've heard of that does something like that since SimLife, which I quite liked, so thanks for mentioning it. Looks a little too early in development for me, but I'm going to at least follow it; it might eventually manage the sort of thing that Spore, sadly, never did.