Simulatron 4

 Simulatron 4 is the fourth installment of Simulatron, a role playing life-simulation video game series developed by Simulanomicon, a Darrenite independent computer game company founded by graduates of the Great Plains Research Institute. It roughly approximates the world in a digital environment.

Gameplay
Prior to play, a world must be generated using the software or downloaded from the Internet. Each constructed world is unique. It is created by a mathematical formula developed from a “seed” number. Thus there are an infinite number of possible worlds. Through this unique number, the program creates a facsimile of our world. The player can then tinker with the world as they see fit, or build it from scratch.

Djinn Mode
Once Simulatron is loaded the player selects from two game modes. In “Live” mode the player acts as the brain for an inert human, known as his Vessel. Through this vessel the player (known in-game as a Djinn) can interact with the world around him. He can see through the vessel’s eyes, hear with the vessel’s ears, and feel and interact with the world through the vessel’s hands.

Observation mode
In observation mode (colloquially known as God mode among the Simulatron community), the player doesn’t occupy a vessel but can manipulate anything in the world from weather to the deepest desires of the human-analog Homunculi that populate the world. The player can switch back and forth between modes as he or she wishes.

Reception
Several reviews praise Simulatron 4 for its deep and rich content and gameplay. Phil Karl Bets of Game Nutz described Simulatron’s manufactured worlds as “more real than reality.” He mentioned that it was difficult to distinguish between the real world and the game once he had ceased playing.

Controversy
Because a Djinn controlled Homunculus can do anything a real human can do, the game was criticized by many moralists as pornography or as encouraging violence. Jack Thompson, activist and disbarred attorney accused the game of “moral depredation” and “gnostical turpitude”. Eventually Simulanomicon released a version of the game in which the homunculi couldn’t be hurt and didn’t possess sexual organs, but to no avail. On June 25th, 2011 Simulatron 4 was banned from the United States. Even so, many black market copies of Simulatron have been discovered and confiscated in the United States. This has contributed to US frusterations over the southern border of Darren.

Addiction
In January 2012 a 3-month-old Dutch child, died from malnutrition after both her parents spent hours each day raising a child in ''Simulatron 4. Since the a closer examination into the dangerous effects of Simulatron ''addiction has begun.

Accusations of Rights Violations
In December of 2011 lawyers from the ACLU sued Simulanomicon for “putting sentient life in harms way,” citing the homunculi’s human-like behavior as indication of life. They cited instances of violence and rape against homunculi. Later, groups of Evangelical Christians boycotted Simulatron 4, stating that “creating life was God’s place, not man’s.” Little progress has been made in the case.

Mod Community
Despite (or perhaps because) of the controversy, Simulacron 4 has become a cult game with a small but ardent community surrounding it. Because of the flexible world creation tools, modification to the game has become widespread. One of the first modifications was a removal of the graphics systems, allowing some users to look directly at the code for information about the surrounding world, eliminating what the some users considered the imperfect translation of the 3D representation.