1994-1996 Microprose Software
Platform: PC
Also known as: Little People
Inspired by Activision’s Little Computer People, Citizens: Backwater Affairs originally started out as a game called Little People, before it was renamed due to the name being taken already by Fisher Price.
Everything starts with the tragic event of you dying in a road accident, where you then enter the afterlife and taken on the job as a caretaker for a small world under a dome called Backwater.
According to lead artist Terry Greer, the idea was that you would be given tasks to do, such as helping a character get a new job. You would do this by changing that character’s statistics to have an affect on the final outcome. Terry gives a detailed account on his own page about the game here.
The game was felt to be ahead of its time, and as a result – management within Microprose didn’t fully understand the game or its appeal. Eventually it was cancelled, and a few years later The Sims appeared which did very similar things, much to the frustration of the original team.