Microcosm Industries
simulation toys and software microcosms
Microcosm Industriessimulation toys and software microcosms
Microcosm Industries is devoted to fostering simulation toys: software that allows you to play with a complex miniature world. These are not quite games and not quite computational models. They are simplified but still complicated enough to yield surprise and excitement, with an aesthetic that leans more towards delight and construction that lush visuals and overwhelming models. These are open-ended building toys built in a computational medium, often drawing magpie-like from fields as broad as biology, urban design, and physics.
This genre is not new: the creations of the gaming studio Maxis are the quintessential examples of this kind of thing. Maxis was responsible for SimCity, SimCity 2000 (my personal favorite), SimEarth, SimAnt, SimLife, as well as The Sims and Spore (though these last two were published when Maxis had already been acquired by Electronic Arts). And the Creatures series is also part of this tradition.
Microcosm Industries is devoted to the notion that this type of software was not just the province a specific gaming moment in the 90’s. In fact, in many ways, these simulation toys are easier to build than ever, due to advances in processing power, AI coding advances, and even better datasets. We are entering a golden age not only for simulation and modeling, but for the simulation toy.
Since this category of software lies at the intersection of computation, productive play, delight, and education, it can provide users with a basic understanding of a novel topic, and lead them to further study. More generally, simulation toys provide intuition into complex systems—how feedback and nonlinearity work, and how a system can bite back—as well as being windows into mathematics, from cellular automata to physics engines.
Here you can find a selection of playable simulation toys. But we at Microcosm Industries want more. If you are building a simulation toy that Microcosm Industries can help with, please reach out. And if you are interested in submitting one that should be included on this site, please let us know. Microcosm Industries is a project of Samuel Arbesman.
Building SimCity by Chaim Gingold
Engineering Play by Mizuko Ito
The Magic of Code by Samuel Arbesman