# The first "sim" style game.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-sim-style-game/376323>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [October 13, 2006, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-sim-style-game/376323 "2006-10-13T16:38:49Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2006, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-sim-style-game/376323/21 "2006-10-14T04:21:54Z")

</div>

Yes–Wikipedia gives 1989 for the 1st release of SimCity; 1992 for SimLife (different developer). I was only ever able to sustain an ecology with sea turtles and coyotes over any long period of time.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2006, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-sim-style-game/376323/22 "2006-10-14T04:34:19Z")

</div>

[QUOTE=Shoshana]  
Year (more or less) for Utopia, please? Thanks.  
[/QUOTE]  
[1982](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_%28video_game%29)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2006, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-sim-style-game/376323/23 "2006-10-14T04:55:53Z")

</div>

Little Computer People is '84.

> **[Little Computer People](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Computer_People)**
>
> Little Computer People, also called House-on-a-Disk, is a social simulation game released in 1985 by Activision for the 
> Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST and Apple II. An Amiga version was released in 1987. Two Japanese versions were also released in 1987, a Family Computer Disk System version, published in Japan by DOG (a subsidiary of Square), and a PC-8801 version.
> The game has no winning conditions, and one setting: a sideways view of the inside of a three-story house. After ...

Conway’s Game of Life is '70. Look, a glider gun!

> **[Conway's Game of Life](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life)**
>
> The Game of Life, also known simply as Life, is a cellular automaton devised by the British mathematician John Horton Conway in 1970. It is a zero-player game, meaning that its evolution is determined by its initial state, requiring no further input. One interacts with the Game of Life by creating an initial configuration and observing how it evolves. It is Turing complete and can simulate a universal constructor or any other Turing machine.
> The universe of the Game of Life is an infinite, two...

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-sim-style-game/376323.md?page=1)