Little Computer People

Lore & Background

The initial idea for Little Computer People was developed by Rich Gold, who wanted to create a Pet Person computer program similar to the Pet Rock toys of the 1970s. Gold hired James Wickstead Design Associates to realize it as a game concept, which was in development for about a year. Gold initially struggled to find a publisher, but Activision president Jim Levy found the product interesting enough to show to game developer David Crane, who had popular hits with Pitfall! (1982) and Ghostbusters (1984). Crane offered to take on the project as a starting point for an interactive product, adding interactivity that Gold felt was contrary to the original Pet Rock concept. Including the development by James Wickstead Design Associates, the game took about two years to develop in a period when most games were developed in four to five months.

Reader's Guide

Little Computer People is often compared to an early predecessor to The Sims game series. When asked about its influence, David Crane responded that he took the first baby steps toward the simulation genre when he added human-like interactivity to Little Computer People. Will Wright, designer of The Sims, has mentioned playing Little Computer People and receiving valuable feedback on The Sims from its designer, Rich Gold. The game was described by Kim Wild of Retro Gamer as 'selling well enough,' but the large amount of money in development and acquiring the property meant that any sequels were not a financial reality. The game earned a Zzap!64 Gold Medal Award in 1985, was listed by Games magazine as one of its top 10 best entertainment software produced in 1985, and was voted best original game of the year at the 1986 Golden Joystick Awards. Jerry Pournelle of BYTE named it his game of the month for December 1986, and Compute! favorably reviewed the Atari ST version in 1987, stating it had 'enormous and subtle educational appeal.'

Did You Know?

• Each copy of the game generates its own unique character, with the character's name randomly selected from a list of 256 names.
• The cassette version of the Commodore 64 release omits several features: the character is generated from scratch every time the game is started, has no memory, does not communicate meaningfully, and card games cannot be
• The Japanese Family Computer Disk System port, titled Apple Town Story, features a girl character wearing a pink dress and bow, and its soundtrack was written by Nobuo Uematsu.
• Playing cards with the character was almost not included due to a lack of time; Steve Cartwright was given the parameters to include the card game feature near the end of development.