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Little Computer People Designers: David Crane and Sam Nelson Publisher: Activision Year: 1985
Long before Creatures hatched, Tamagotchis sparked psychology debates, and The Sims became a best-seller, there was Little Computer People. Advertised as a "House-on-a-Disk," the game depicted nothing but a cutaway view of a three-story house, the little computer person who inhabited it, and your new friend's pet dog. Little Computer People was one of the first games to use "digital DNA," a unique serial number on each disk that determined the personality and appearance of your little computer person. No two were alike, and some poor souls ended up with a person who was downright cranky.
In some ways Little Computer People was far more fun than similar games that have followed in its footsteps. Creatures let you train monsters, and The Sims lets you interact with the virtual people by changing their environment. However, Little Computer People took a different approach. You could be directly involved with the lives of simulated inhabitants by typing phrases into a text box that popped up on the top of the screen. You could ask your digital buddies to play the piano (even requesting tunes from various composers), challenge them to a game of poker, and tell them to feed their virtual pets. Occasionally, the little computer person would tap on the monitor and ask if you wanted to play a game or would go upstairs and type you a letter. The little people remembered your name, and it was possible to reward them by delivering records and books to them or by patting them every so often.
We remember winning all of our little computer person's money in a marathon poker session and watching the little guy leave the table in disgust. He wouldn't respond to commands for more than an hour and refused to eat. In a situation like that, it was your responsibility to deliver food and water to the house at regular intervals, and failure to do so meant the little computer person would become ill. If you left the people in that condition for too long, you were reported to the authorities and it was "game over" for you.
Little Computer People was well-liked and very popular, but it is often overlooked during discussions on the virtual-life simulator craze. The game was developed for several popular home PCs at the time, including the Commodore 64, Amiga, Sinclair, and Armstrad, and Activision still sells the game as part of its Game Vault: Volume 3.
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