SimEarth — the whole planet, for ten billion years Runs here
1990 · Maxis · System 6 · Mini vMac (Mac SE) · 512×342 black and white
Guide updated September 2026
SimCity gave you a city. SimEarth gives you a planet, a molten one, and about ten billion years to do something with it. You adjust the atmosphere and the plate tectonics, wait for single-celled life to appear, and then wait a great deal longer.
It is the strangest thing Maxis ever published and probably the most ambitious. This is the Macintosh release, running here in black and white.
Boots to the SimEarth desktop on an emulated Macintosh SE, with the help window open. Use File → New Planet, and start with Aquarium or a random planet rather than Earth.
Controls
| Mouse | Everything — pick a tool from the palette, then click the map |
| Windows menu | Map, Edit, Graphs, Tutorial and the model panels |
| Speed menu | How fast time runs, from slow to as fast as the machine allows |
| Models menu | Atmosphere, climate, life and civilisation controls |
| Cmd-Q | Quit to the Finder |
Maxis was bought by Electronic Arts in 1997 and closed in 2015. SimEarth has not been sold in any form for many years — it is absent from every current storefront, including EA's own. Full reasoning is in notices/simearth.md, and the takedown promise applies without argument.
Archives
- Internet Archive — the preserved Macintosh floppies this copy came from.
- Macintosh Garden — other releases, manuals and box scans.
How it works & what to expect
| Machine | Macintosh SE, 512×342 black and white |
|---|---|
| System | System 7.5.3 |
| Emulator | Mini vMac, compiled to WebAssembly |
| Version | 1.0, the black-and-white Macintosh build |
| Saves | Inside the emulated Mac, in your browser. Do not keep anything irreplaceable there. |
SimEarth opens with its help window on top of the world map, which is exactly how it shipped and a fair warning about what kind of program this is. Read it. There is no way to work this one out by clicking around, and the game does not pretend otherwise.
Start with the Aquarium or StagNation scenario, or a random planet. Starting on Earth is the obvious move and the wrong one, because Earth is already finished and there is very little left for you to cause.
What you actually do
You are not building anything. You are turning dials on a planetary model and watching what it does over geological time.
The dials are real ones: continental drift speed, solar input, atmospheric composition, the rate at which life mutates. Raise carbon dioxide and the planet warms, ice retreats, and oceans rise over the land your species was living on. Speed up plate tectonics and you get more volcanoes, more mountains, and a great deal more extinction.
Life arrives on its own if the conditions allow it, evolves through the geological ages, and eventually — if you are lucky and patient — develops technology, at which point it starts changing the atmosphere without consulting you. The end state is a civilisation that leaves the planet. Most runs end in a dead rock instead.
The game that was really a model
SimEarth was built with James Lovelock, whose Gaia hypothesis argued that the Earth's biosphere and its physical systems regulate each other as a single self-correcting whole. That is the model under the game, and Lovelock consulted on it directly.
It made for a commercially awkward product. There is no opponent, no score worth chasing, and the time scale means a decision you take now shows its consequences several hundred million years later. Reviewers at the time were split between calling it brilliant and calling it a screensaver with menus.
What it does have is the clearest statement of Will Wright's actual interest, which was never cities: he wanted to build systems complicated enough to surprise the person running them. SimEarth is that idea with nothing else in the way.
Questions people ask
Is this the original SimEarth?
Yes — the 1990 Macintosh release, black and white, as it shipped.
How do I start?
File → New Planet, then pick Aquarium or a random planet. Skip the Earth scenario at first; there is very little left to do on a planet that has already finished.
Why is nothing happening?
The time scale is geological. Raise the speed from the Speed menu and give it a while — events that matter are separated by millions of simulated years.
Is there a way to win?
The nearest thing is getting an intelligent species to leave the planet, which takes patience and a stable climate. Most runs end in extinction, which the game treats as a perfectly good outcome.
Do I need the manual?
It helps a great deal. SimEarth shipped with a thick one and the built-in help window is what is left of it. Open the Tutorial from the Windows menu before anything else.
Why black and white?
This is the black-and-white Macintosh build, which is what ran on the compact Macs most people owned. The map is drawn entirely in dither patterns.
