Any good evolution games?

I presume you're after the digital variety of game but Primordial Soup has caught my eye. Mind you I've never played it, only seen it at the store so I cannot attest to how good it is.

How engrossing is Evo? I emulated it in college and didn't maintain interest beyond becoming a large-jawed fish.

 

I will suggest Pokemon just to be a dick. =)

 

And an ignorant dick, at that.

Quick google search gave me this Spore like games

I played Darwin Pond years ago (pre-2005, I think). Wasn't bad but about the only thing I remember it being is distinctly average.

 

I'm waiting for the bugfix that stops Spore from breaking my heart.

 

SimLife?

And I second Pokemon

 

A game that focus not on the detail, but on the grand scale?

A game that doesn't allow you to select a wolf in order for him to eat lots a lots of dear and grow strong, but a game that allows you to summon a storm which may burn down the forest?

Or send a meteor on the dinosaurs and see what comes out from the ashes? Or what happens to the sea life if you raise the average temperature 4 degrees.

That would indeed be an awesome game, and it's a real mystery why this idea hasn't struck the game creators yet.

(Or it has, but was shot down by the producers)

 

That reminds of Populous.

 

I think a game like that one Wobbler would be too complex for the general market, or so the producers think. These days you look at a games store, I'll use EB and GAME as my examples as they tend to be situated across the western world, anyway these mainstream stores choose to stock up on the major titles they know they will sell. They also work on the surmise that when people get bored of these games they get sold back to the store where there eventually sell the games to others who don't want to spend over $100 on an original. See retailers like EB do far more business in traded games than they do in new release titles. Where games shops once stocked hundreds of different games they tend to lean towards the 'blockbusters' only, secure in the knowledge that people will buy, trade and give said retailer another bite at the sweet retail cherry.

Besides the fact that there would be an almost limitless amount of possibilities required within a game like the evolution one you suggested, publishers are just not willing enough to spend thousands of hours as well as millions of dollars into a game that may fail when they know they can just churn out another FPS clone of ww2. It is good to see some European companies take that leap of faith though. Take the Witcher for example, I have not had the opportunity to play it however it has received several great reviews from the masses. Although it did keep to the RPG elements, it opened up the world of Polish literature (or at least the fantasy work of Andrzej Sapkowski which provides the settings and characters for the game) to the rest of the 'western' world.

 

Strange how? Scientists still do not have a good answer to abiogenesis, so how could a games developer come up with a simulator that gives you the feeling you're doing stuff the way it's supposed to go?
I'm intrigued by the idea, though, but I'm pretty sure it's the fragmentary knowledge of evolution that makes a game like this pretty much impossible.

 

This sounds like a good concept for an MMO.

 

I could remember an old game called 'Unnatural selection'.

 

We have physics engines in game, even though we're far from understanding every single aspect of physics, so I don't see why we couldn't have an evolution game, even if there are still some gaps which we didn't fill yet. It would be a computer game after all, not an universe simulator. Such a game is possible in theory, but we don't have it yet because, as Zanza said, imitative is easier and less risky than creative in the game industry, and as Japes said in the DMR thread, the game industry is not about the entertainment of players but about money.