Hi everyone,
starting November 6th until November 24th we had a small feedback round with 20 people and got some interesting points so far: Continue reading
All posts by martin
Crowdfunding Ideas
A short update concerning the future road map of Imagine Earth.
After a long time of development we decided to start a crowdfuning. This has two reasons:
- We need some money to pay for the establishment of a small business partnership, sounds and especially localization.
- It’s time to go out in the public and tell the people about Imagine Earth on a great scale!
Right now we are planning all details and need a lot of contacts to spread the word about the Crowdfunding.
Do you know someone who would like to mention the crowdfunding for Imagine Earth in a blog, newsletter, …? Please tell us here, on facebook or write an email to martin(at)imagineeearth.info.
You can also leave your email on the right to get notified once the crowdfunding starts. We will post more details soon.
Gamepad support
Important note: Gamepad support is disabled in the current early access version of Imagine Earth. We are focusing on the gameplay for now and will come back to the gamepad implementation later.
Love to sit on your coach playing games on your TV?
Just like Steam’s Big Picture mode, Imagine Earth will support your XBox 360 Gamepad as input controller. Simply connect you PC or laptop with your TV. The game will automatically switch between mouse and gamepad – whatever you use to make inputs.
Please let us know if you like this feature or prefer to play the oldschool way – sitting at your desk with mouse and keyboard.
Tip 1: If your TV cuts of some parts of the picture you can adjust the size of the GUI via the options menu.
Tip 2: With the MotioninJoy driver you can also use several other gamepads.
The different ground types
In Imagine Earth there are 8 types of ground that can give your buildings a much higher productivity (or in some cases a much lower). This short overview will help you to decide how to place your buildings.
Soil
is the default ground type for your land buildings.
Fossils deposit
will increase the productivity of power plants that rely on energy sources. Coal and gas power plants are a good example.
Fertile
ground makes the crop yield of your farms much larger.
Desert
on the contrary, isn’t a good place for a farm. Nevertheless, a solar park will have it’s highest energy output when built into a desert.
Coast
fields are know to by windy spots and will increase the production of wind farm.
Ocean
fields will allow you to place some different kinds of buildings.
Oil fields
are the right place to build an oil rig.
fishing grounds
will let your fishery produce a lot of food.
Mountain Fields
They remain inaccessable the whole time.
The Four Resources
The last Dev-Update already mentioned that we replaced the old resource icons with new ones. So we thought it would make sense to give a little explanation of each resource:
Money
“… makes the world go round.” – as we all are said. In Imagine Earth it is needed to build your cities and to upgrade your buildings. Furthermore, you have to pay the running costs of your producing buildings. Without it you wont be able to grow and to reach your job goals as a World Manager. It is represented by a C – for currency – with a line through it.
Food
Represented by a vegetable. Food is the fundamental resource needed by your people. Without it nobody will move onto you planet and your existing population will run away or die. So make sure you build enough farms and fisherys.
Energy
All your producing buildings and also your cities need energy. Without it they will stop working. There are several different types of power plants to produce it. Some of them generate a lot of energy, others are very sustainable. We will explain each of them in future Dev-Updates.
Goods
The fourth and last resource is represented by a red delivery box. Goods are only needed by your people. They affect the mood in your cities. Too few and your people will leave the city. Build industrial parks, warehouses and other buildings to produce goods.
Have a nice week,
Jooki & Martin
Review beim Games Forum Germany
Some impressions of our Imagine Earth Project Review at Games Forum Germany in Hannover (January 2010). Work on the game is still in progress, but we were very happy to get some great feedback by Jason Gregory (Naughty Dog Inc. – Uncharted 2) and Matias Myllyrinne (Remedy Entertainment Ltd. – Alan Wake).
Meat free Mondays
“The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has estimated that direct emissions from meat production account for about 18% of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions.”
– Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC.
Pretty impressive and startling – especially because few of us are aware of it. Most people talk about transportation, which acounts for 13%.
Whats wrong here? Eating meet has stronger influence on climatic changes than driving cars?! From that point of view it sounds like a good idea to have at least one day a week totally free of meat. And all of us that do not have an idea what else to eat: You will find help.
Bonne Apetit
European Innovative Games Award
The European Innovative Games Award was given on 6. November. And our game was one of the four finalists in the section gamedesign… allthoug we did not win it there was a nice business party where we met interesting people and did talk to publishers and journalists about the possible future of this project…
Entertaining 6,5 Minuten with the toptitles of the category Innovative Game Design and some philosophies about designing games in generell.
Serious Games AwardBest Persuasive Game
We did it! Yesterday the Serious Games Award was awarded at the Cebit in Hannover. We are proud to say that Imagine Earth won the category “Persuasive Game”. Even though Florian had left us and the development of Imagine Earth almost a year before we invited him to join us and went on stage together to celebrate this.
The category Persuasive Game awards games that communicate and explain ideas and in best case convince about them. They motivate to stand in for something, move the public opinion towards an issue or even change the view of the world.
It seems we really have managed to let Imagine Earth communicate some of our ideas and ideals. Thanks to the jury, the organisers and especially the donors!
Imagine Cup Paris ’08
In den letzten Tagen (03. bis 08.07.2008) haben wir als Finalteilnehmer bei Microsoft’s Imagine Cup Paris unsicher gemacht. Neben den unzähligen Software Design Teams aus aller Welt waren wir eines der 6 Game Developement Finalist Teams. Für einen der ersten drei Plätze hat es leider nicht gereicht (1. Brasilien, 2. Belgien, 3. Korea), also haben wir in den letzten Tagen mit dem anderen deutschen Team Paris unsicher gemacht.
Es war ziemlich cool Imagine Earth präsentieren zu können, vorallem weil es abschließend noch ein Ausstellung von allen Spielen und Software Projekten im Carrousel du Louvre gab. Irgendwie kam man sich wie ein kleines Rad in einer riesigen Medienproduktion vor.
Hier ein kleine Fotogalerie davon:
[nggallery id=3]We spend the last week (03rd till 08th july 2008) in Paris, taking part as finalists at Microsoft’s Imagine Cup. Although we did not manage to make it into the top 3 we had great days and met interesting people.
Here is a short gallery of our trip:
[nggallery id=3]