It's pretty rare to see a god game with the ambition displayed by The Universim , a new indie simulation from developer Crytivo Games. Spore famously tried to simulate the evolution of life itself—to mixed success. In Universim, you benevolently (or wrathfully) guide your civilization from the stone age to the space age, with the final goal being the colonization of the entire universe. In your way stand mundane obstacles like fire, war, famine, alien invasion, and the human condition. With a feature list like that, no wonder Universim is currently looking for crowdfunding.

Even considering its massive scope, Universim looks great. Like, really great. The miniature scaling of the planets reminds me a lot of the much-anticipated Planetary Annihilation , but Universim's more laid-back, simulation-only approach means that you won't be directly controlling troops in battle. Instead, you'll decide what technologies they discover first or which planets they'll be most interested. Once you've laid the groundwork, the AI will take over and do their thing. For being a deity, you're certainly one of the more hands-off gods in the videogaming pantheon.

Universim is a bit less than halfway to its goal as of this writing, but its still got three weeks left to bang some drums. If you'd like a simulation approach to galaxy-spanning empires, head over to the crowdfunding page and check it out.