During the development of SimCopter (1996), Wright sought to avoid real-world languages, believing that players would grow to show disdain for repetitive dialogue.

For the release of The Sims, Maxis recorded hundreds of voice clips with unique cadences and emotional nuance.

Simlish appears as a language within Spore (2008) and Firaxis Games's Sid Meier's SimGolf (2004).

While developing SimCopter (1996),[1] designer Will Wright explicitly avoided using real-world languages such that players could resonate with the emotions of the characters rather than their speech.

The initial dialogue team—comprising Wright, audio lead Robi Kauker, voice director Claire Curtin, sound designer Kent Jolly, and composer Jerry Martin—began by using musical instruments reminiscent of the "wah wah" sound effect heard in some Peanuts animated specials.

[3] One voice actor based in San Francisco, Stephen Kearin, recounted being given a pidgin version of Swahili and Cherokee.

[8] The author of the linguistics blog Wug Life argued that the phonotactics of Simlish and English were the same, allowing artists who speak Spanish to effortlessly translate their songs into Simlish due to the similarities in the phonotactics of English and Spanish.

[2] For instance, the word "boo leyar" is equivalent to "boulevard", as are "par" to "park" and "crabbi car" to "credit card".

Stop signs in The Sims (2000), for example, do not have text and use a flat, white hand against a red octagon to depict the object.

[14] Simlish appears in Spore (2008),[15] developed by Maxis, as well as Firaxis Games's Sid Meier's SimGolf (2004).