Unnatural Selection - ADG Episode 326

Who said you can't have fun splicing genes?!

Today on Ancient DOS Games, Gemini's taking a look back at Unnatural Selection, a simulation/strategy game based around genetic manipulation developed and published through Maxis in 1993.

While this game was novel for its time the concept of turning genetic manipulation into a "game" has been done better since, though it's certainly no fault of the game itself, just more-so a fault of what the limitations were for making this play out in a decent manner on early-90s hardware.

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Additional Information and Corrections:

* If anyone knows if the ultra-rare CD-ROM release has any extra features over the disk-based copy, please let me know so I can add that info here!

* I got the "Momentum" value wrong. Apparently, it determines how likely Theroids will move in straight lines for extended distances without making new decisions about what to do, with higher meaning longer straight lines and fewer decisions, and lower meaning shorter straight lines and more decisions. This information also IS in the manual, but it's buried in the section about modifying the game's assumptions during Independent Research and isn't indexed, so you can't blame me for missing it given that you ONLY have to read through that section if you intend to REALLY mess with the underlying simulation variables! :P

* One feature I forgot to elaborate on was the Satellite Beam during combat, which you can use to manually target and temporarily max out the Fight, Mate, or Eat stat of any Theroid. While I didn't find much of a use for this while playing the game myself, thinking about strategies following my playthrough one really important use would be when dropping virus-infected Theroids into an enemy population to spread that virus, you could then immediately SatBeam them to want to mate to ensure the virus spreads ASAP.

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Chapters:
00:00 Title and Intro
02:23 Game Stats
03:47 Unboxing
04:28 Gameplay
16:05 Combat
21:46 Overall
23:39 DOSBox Configuration
24:36 Credits

[ABlackFalcon]

I had this game as a kid, so it's great to see you cover it! It's a weird but interesting title that I enjoyed, though I never did finish the story, I'm no scientist unfortunately. Still, messing with the variables and making different creatures is fun, as was watching your digital life go around and eat and make the dots fill the screen and stuff.

To correct an error in this video, though, you say that you don't know what Momentum does, and that the manual doesn't say either. This is wrong. A paragraph on page 61 explains what it is in the SNI Default Momentum section. Momentum is a number between 0 and 7. Higher momentum means a creature is more likely to walk in straight lines with fewer big direction changes, while lower momentum means a creature is more likely to walk in short lines with regular sharp direction changes. Additionally, page 58 says that unlike the other stats, Momentum is set for a creature for its entire life and thus changing Momentum in the Body Variables Panel screen will only change it for future creatures and not current ones. The manual's index page is definitely not comprehensive enough (momentum, among many other things, isn't in its one-page list), but the manual does cover most of the stuff in the game once you find the right page. (Yes, I had my Unnatural Selection manual handy. Who wouldn't?)

[TheMoogleMaster]

I love the fox blanket. I feel adding Sim to this name would have caused this game to get confused with Simlife, which I never could get the Windows version to work properly!

[AndersonReis]

I've read about this game when I was a child in a brazilian magazine and became mildly obsessed with it. I remember that when I finally got internet access around 2005 one of the first things I remember was trying to find _something_ about this game, but to no avail. Actually, it has only been a few years since information finally sprung about this title and alas... it kinda didn't meet my expectations, even when compared to what I was expecting from it as a child. Still, this game holds a special place in the corner of my childhood memories and It is nice to see it so troughly explored here.

Same thing happened to Transarctica, but it was pretty much what I was expecting it to be (except, of course, the box train was so much more badass than the actual transarctica), and it led me to read the first book on The Ice Company earlier this year, but well, transarctica is a whole other thing now.

[Ashalmawia]

I still own this on floppy but haven't played it in over 30 years.

[AlyxxTheRat]

Not what I expected. Love it when you cover obscure titles like this.

[jasonblalock]

I feel like the "breeding sim game" is one of those concepts that sounds good, but I just haven't seen many that felt like they were actually that interesting or enjoyable to play. Plus the hard limitations on how creative the creatures can be, within asset constraints.

(This might be a genre that could benefit greatly from AI assistance...)

[TheStann]

I thought i would never have to think about bee breeding again, but here we are.

[root]

Can we please comment on that 3.5" floppy disk drive in the lower right of the screen..? Lovely.

[EdmondDantes]

So I just got done re-watching the pilot movie to the 1978 Incredible Hulk series, where there was a lot of science done at computer terminals.

Then I get on youtube, find this video was just uploaded, and as soon as I see game footage I'm like "this looks like something bad waiting to happen."

[kkolakowski]

What? I didn't expected that I wouldn't know one of the Maxis games 😅

[quarkbent]

Ah, Maxis. Wonderfully experimental... sometimes indulgently so. I didn't know about this one but it fits right in to their post-Sim City success and pre-EA purchase style of output.

[pelimies]

Flabberghasted by the low resolution decision, because the game has quite miniscule details in some viewports that could actually greatly benefit of better reso.

I mean Syndicate and other 1993 classics, like Falcon 3, would also been better with more detailed resolution, but those games were quite heavy to calculate even with low reso.

This game has no such excuses.

Thanks for the interesting vid, again!

[thDementia]

Not gonna lie, the game looks interesting but I don't know if I could wrap my head around that interface.

[Zontar]

never ever understood how the game worked. And still that hasn't changed now

[dinitroacetylen]

So, what's the ultimate goal of the game in-universe? There are suspicious creatures on islands, and the answer is to replace them with meaner and more badass creatures of the same type? How does that make anything better, again?

[Revikra]

Ancient Dos Games also known as Lazy Game Receiver?

[sweskey]

When you want to make a comment about Spore but nothing comes to mind.

[XanthinZarda]

Hum. I'm slightly reminded of Evolve! It was a very zany life simulator with a sense of humor/whimsy and the interface here reminds me of ShadowForce. (Both of these, as far as I can tell, have nigh impossible to find registered versions.)
Speaking of games with digital DNA, would you consider covering Creatures 0/Small Furry Creatures?

[negirno]

It seems that digitizing to to less than 256 colors (since it can't use to much colors from the available palette) makes the thing you digitized look less real. It didn't even occurred to me that some of the monsters from Doom were originally made as posable figures and then got digitized.

[Rabbitlord]

Yeah Maxis put out some crappy non sim related games leading up to EA buying them (Like Read A Rama which LGR reviewed a while ago)