Life simulation game

It also includes genetic artificial life games, where players manage populations of creatures over several generations.

[7] In the mid-1990s, as artificial intelligence programming improved, true AI virtual pets such as Petz and Tamagotchi began to appear.

Around the same time, Creatures became "the first full-blown commercial entertainment application of Artificial Life and genetic algorithms".

[8] By 2000, The Sims refined the formula seen in Little Computer People and became the most successful artificial life game created to date.

[1] In 2007, the game Spore was released, in which the player develops an alien species from the microbial tide pool into an interstellar empire.

Digital pets are a subgenre of artificial life game where players train, maintain, and watch a simulated animal.

[1] "This quality of rich intelligence distinguishes artificial pets from other kinds of A-life, in which individuals have simple rules but the population as a whole develops emergent properties".

[1] Some games also introduce mutations due to random or environmental factors, which can benefit the population as creatures reproduce.

These include Wolf and its sequel Lion, the similar WolfQuest, and the more modest Odell educational series.