"All right action flows from the breath"
- Hajakujo

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Thursday, June 11, 2009

Eco-games

In the spirit of my new job, & new project to save the world, I'm playing new games. Research. It's all about the hard slog :)
Eco-games, so far, are all basically managers along the lines of SimCity, some at higher levels of detail, some lower. There's a fundamental failure of imagination when serious game devs keep approaching the eco-game with a concept for Manager-types, when management of the large-scale environment is impossible for almost everyone likely to play such games. Maybe a political advocacy game, or an FPS where the enemy is methane belching cows.

Anyway, the last two I played where old-school, but nicely done and a good laugh for my managerial tendencies.

http://climcity.cap-sciences.net/us/index.php
This is like the LHC took a spreadsheet and fired it at a bitmap.

http://www.electrocity.co.nz/
This is like Duplo blocks (Lego for under 5's). You'd almost be fooled into thinking you can actually build something.

http://www.bigfishgames.com/download-games/5257/plan-it-green/index.html
A National Geographic game, but with no humping animals

5 comments:

Chris said...

The "fundamental failure of imagination" you allude to here is essentially the problem that left to their own devices, most programmers come up with games as strategic simulations. Which is why all the "early" strategy games (tabletop wargames, and computer wargames) were of this type.

And nothing much has changed.

Except, of course, now there are also lots of programmers who also want to work on First Person Shooters. But since there's no obvious way of making an Eco FPS, we are at least saved this horror. :)

Best wishes!

Unknown said...

There's a simple answer to this creative bottleneck, which is to equip non-programmers with the tools to make games. Which is being done - gamestarmechanic, game maker, etc.

So that's good. Still, it seems to be at a toy phase, waiting for what I don't know...

Kris McGlinn said...

What happened to this blog? it used to be cool.

Unknown said...

Well Kris, our thoughts must reflect the times. And the times are uncool. That's not to say it isn't good, or interesting, or productive, or imaginative, or valuable doing the work I'm doing...but we can't all be rock stars :P

Cool is a word bandied about with so much regularity that it has the information-value of Zimbabwean currency. So in the interests of clarity, what is your desired meaning when you imply that the blog is no longer cool?

Kris McGlinn said...

:) I was just trying to elicit a response to be honest :D

As ever I have The Simpsons to thank:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hey+china+still+cool

I suppose I was hoping you would post something on philosophy. I wish to procrastinate a bit about the meaning of life.

I am debating solipsism again. If we are all born from the same source (the void, the nothing), what is the driving force? What puts life into motion? If I loose the will to live, my body will fall, starve and die. So is it will that brings us into being? The will to live?

And if it hasn't always been my will, then when did it become my will? And if it has always been my will, then is it the same will that drives us all?

And finally, and I think this is where one is inevitably led (correct me if I am wrong!), if it is the same will, then we must have begun out of the same state...formless void. And so, there must be some truth in solipsism, no? It is the base truth we all must share...the first/last flicker after/before the void? God created the universe to a-void being all-one! (excuse the terrible puns).