Raising Sim

Raising Sims consists of applying schedules for a game to process, which in turn affects characters in the game, who then develop 'on their own' without constant user interference. In this case the character can be a city or population, where it's often referred to as a "God Game". Populous is remembered fondly by this term.

Other times the target being raised is a single character such as a pet or monster. The player determines what actions are relevant for building what stats, with multiple potential end products, often to be pitted against players.

Occasionally it's a human being being raised to adulthood to be a good adult — or for other sketchy purposes — and the endings are concerned with multiple variations of futures.

Compare to Mons, where raising sim and RPG Elements are combined, usually with the raising sim element taking a back seat.

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People

Games where you hold the fate of a real live person in your hands! Figuratively.

• Chobits Chii Dake no Hito. Based on the anime you can take time to raise Chii, see gameplay here.
• THE iDOLM@STER, a Japan exclusive arcade and Xbox game, is a massively multiplayer online raising sim that has players guide the career of their chosen Idol Singer, with competitive auditions against other players of the game.
  • THE iDOLM@STER 2
  • Similarly, the fan-game Idolcraft puts you in charge of raising up to six girls to be idols.
• Shinji Ikari Raising Project, Raising Ayanami (child version) — Gainax milking Neon Genesis Evangelion for everything they can.
• Kudos
• Kongregate has My Pet Protector 1 and 2
  • Technically, it's a fan-made Spear Counterpart to Princess Maker.
• Princess Maker (child version)
  • Its Spiritual Successor Project Princess (a Flash game) also puts the player in the role of the girl's parent. Other spiritual successors such as the Cute Knight games and Spirited Heart put the player in the girl's role.
  • Both the Japanese games Angel Profile, Dear My Sun!!, and the Chinese fan-game Prince Maker - Braveness put the player in the role of a woman, and the goal is to raise at least one young man. All three games are worksafe.
  • The Flash-based H-game counterpart, Slave Maker, lets you raise various famous anime characters to be better slaves by educating them and having regular sex with them.
• Real Lives
• The Sims
• Wonder Project (robot/child version)
• Star Dream is about raising idols - the second game gets positively meta with this, as the main character (who is working towards super-stardom himself) can meet the protagonist of the original series and become her manager.

Places

Games where the individual people are de-emphasized, and you instead raise communities of people, generally by changing the environment they live in.

• Black and White and its sequel (pet version as well as population version)
• City Life; good luck trying to get the Hippies and the Suits from not jumping at each other's throats!
• Dwarf Fortress (with a fortress full of alcoholic midgets)
  • The military fit the definition for 'people' as well, using standing monthly orders to develop better soldiers, each assigned one or more weapons to master.
• Populous
• Sim City (with cities)
• Tiny Tower

Pets

Games where you raise non-human creatures. Often Mons.

• Can Your Pet? - a Deconstruction
• Chao!
• Creatures and sequels have the player breed cute little creatures (Norns) with whom they can interact. Each creature has a unique genetic makeup that affects its behavior and development.
• A Chocobo Raising mini-game is present in Final Fantasy XI.
• The Interactive Fiction game A Mind Forever Voyaging does not feature this as gameplay, but as a plot element. The player controls an artificial intelligence who has been raised as a simulated human being.
• Monster Rancher
• My Little Pony Friendship Gardens.
• Nintendogs.
• The Petz games mostly simulate real creatures.
• Pocket Frogs
• Seaman
• Spore Creature Keeper.
• Tamagotchi , a low-tech version of this.