Sim archaeology uncovers ancient refinery game - play SimRefinery online
Four years of research uncovers long lost Maxis title
Two weeks ago Phil Salvador published a long essay on the history of the Maxis business division, a spin-off from the creator of Simcity.
It's a tale of a struggling business unit trying to satisfy the whimsical market for corporate "sim"-type games in the mid-90s.
The unit famously produced a title called SimRefinery for Chevron, which disappeared a quarter of a century ago and only remained as a memory.
That was until Salvador's article got mainstream attention. The story reached a retired Chevron chemical engineer who still had a working copy of the game on floppy disk and was able to get it running again.
After 28 years, a copy of SimRefinery has been successfully recovered.
— Phil Salvador (@itstheshadsy) June 5, 2020
More information here: https://t.co/gMInXXYucp pic.twitter.com/BMZxeSqJhl
The game is now safely preserved at the Internet Archive where you can play it online in your browser. Keep in mind it's a business tool rather than a game, so while it was built on the same game engine it's definitely not as accessible as the original SimCity.
So why not give it a play this weekend, or at least read the original essay that uncovered this archaeological treasure. Let us know if you manage to blow up your refinery.